Econ 101

We met this woman the other day who was attempting to sell a pot and frying pan to us.  She was just wandering from house to house in a rural area.  Upon further inquiry, we found that she was a widow and, like everyone, trying to make enough money to live on.  I looked at her pans.  They were were very very rough.  I asked her where they came from and she told me that she made them herself.  She buys junked car engines and the like and melts them down and pours the aluminum into casts that she has made.  The lid even fit fairly well on the pot.  The pots are sturdy--just a bit rough and ugly (a bit like me I guess), and maybe poisonous depending on what you think of the link between aluminum and Alzheimer's.  But I was impressed by her effort and ingenuity and drive.  The pot and pan were selling for $10 each.  I declined to purchase though I did give her a little something as she took a long time from her sales to visit and explain her process to me.

The woman is representative of Mozambicans everywhere.  There is a little bit of industry at the individual level.  Craftsmen (or those claiming to be such) create things and sell them.  But there is very little if any manufacturing capacity beyond the craftsman level.  There is NO industry in Quelimane, which is the 5th largest city in the country.  If you have a job here, it is as a government functionary, health worker, teacher (and all of those are really government), or you work for an NGO (non-profit aid organizations).  Then there are retail and service workers and laborers for hire (like our maid and guard) and those who work on their own small farms (machambas) or for others on theirs.  There is nothing else. Everything sold at the retail level here is imported--except for locally grown food.  Nothing is made here.  Kids going to school who want to get a job generally prepare to be a teacher, health care worker, or government drone.  There are no jobs for enterprising people to find.  It is a very very sad state of affairs.  The government kicked out the Portuguese (or most of them) about forty years ago--and with them went a great deal of technical and managerial know how.  .  Perhaps it had to be for other reasons--but economically, the nation has not progressed since then and the infrastructure of Quelimane at least has been in steady decline.

The poverty here is grinding--and I don't see how people can get out of it.  I have always counseled people to get more education but here, there is just not enough work to go around.  More education will indeed improve your chances-but it is a zero sum game with no economic growth that I am able to discern.  I am actually fascinated by this problem--and would love to have the job of Mozambican Minister of Economic Development for a few years to build up an industrial base and create some employment.  On a smaller scale, you may recall the island that we visited a month or two ago.  It is a very isolated place (we think of it as a petri dish) with no employment of course and very few options for its 10,000 residents.  We have been looking at a couple of economic experiments to see if we can find anything practical and productive that might bless the lives of the people there.

The following pictures are unrelated to my economic exposition above--but are just everyday street pictures as we wander about trying to do good.

A favorite pastime of kids on the street is to run along with a stick and a tire--keeping it upright and moving.  I'm not quite sure that I get the  gist of the game ("how do you win?" I ask) but it does seem to keep a lot of children occupied.

The air conditioner in our room has broken down.  We are searching for someone who can dive in and replace or fix the fan.  Life is tough until that happens.