From Silicon Valley to Swaziland, Rick & Wendy Walleigh [i love reading books .txt] 📗

A small amount of time passes.

“Wow, those are hitting really hard.”

“Those hailstones are getting bigger.”

“Wow. Those are really big. They could be dangerous.”

“Oh my god! If one of those hit the windshield, it could break.”

“Oh my god! That broke the windshield.”

“There’s another break in the windshield, and that one dented the hood.”

We continued to drive through the bombardment. I felt like an unwelcome American in a foreign country where people were pelting the car with large rocks. Some of the hailstones were the size of softballs but irregular in shape. Fortunately, the car was protecting us, and although the windshield was being cracked into a mass of overlapping spider webs, it held intact.

“Oh my god! The back window just shattered. I’m covered with glass. I’ll try to hold my raincoat up to keep the rain from coming into the car.”

In many action movies, there is a car chase scene where the pursuing car shoots out the back window of the fleeing car in front. That’s how it felt for us, but we were being pursued by a hailstorm, not gangsters with shotguns. It didn’t’t matter, in both movies and real life, the tempered glass windows literally explode into a shower of tiny pieces that won’t cut the passengers, but the glass goes everywhere.

“Is there anywhere we can go for protection?”

“I’ll look, but I don’t even see any trees we could pull under. I’ll just keep driving slowly. You look for some overhead protection.”

We drove on at a snail’s pace for the few remaining miles to our cottage, and as we drove, the hailstones got smaller, down to golf ball size. As we got closer to home, I was feeling good that we were safe, but I couldn’t help remembering that I had taken the $2,000 deductible option for insurance on the rental car.

We entered the Emafini grounds and started up the road to our cottage, but our path was blocked by a downed tree. It was still raining and windy. I wanted to get the car into the carport to at least limit the water damage to the interior. We were close to Mark and Liz’s house, so Wendy jumped out of the car and ran up to their door to see what could be done. It was Sunday afternoon, and Mark was home, but he still had on his nice church clothes. He came out in the rain to survey the situation and then quickly disappeared to pursue the solution.

Mark was in his early seventies. He started his career as a policeman and over the years, with Liz, built up their hotel business. He was a very good and practical businessman. In Swaziland, he was considered relatively well-to-do, but he and the rest of his family were very unpretentious and hard-working. He saw our situation and knew what to do. Although there were a number of workmen on the Emafini property, as Mark disappeared over the hill, it was obvious that he was going to take care of the situation himself. Only a few minutes later, Mark re-emerged over the hill perched at the controls of a gigantic front-loader. He looked like a storm trooper from Star Wars piloting one of the huge war machines. From the stories told by his family, he had purchased this massive piece of road building equipment a few years earlier, over their objections. It was used periodically for maintenance at Emafini, but most family members still thought the purchase was unjustified. I didn’t know the story and so was shocked to see this elegant gentleman, in dress shirt and suit pants, skillfully maneuvering this imposing machine. With great dexterity on the controls, Mark made short work of the barrier to our progress. He chose the right points for leverage and, with just a few paths back and forth, pivoted the tree off the road. Then I drove the car up the hill and into our carport.

After I got out of the car, I surveyed the damage. There were approximately fifty dents in the sheet metal body of the car. The back window was gone, and there were bits of glass throughout the interior of the car. The windshield had taken sixteen major hits. The exterior mirrors were gone and headlights were destroyed. Once again, I was thankful that we were safe, but I also knew that I was $2,000 poorer. I couldn’t reach the rental car company by phone, but I knew that when I did the conversation would be painful for all of us. I had gone over five months without even a slight scratch, and then this happened two days before I was to leave. There was nothing I could do, so I laughed.

The next day, we were able to assess the storm damage from a broader perspective. The area where we had been driving was the worst hit. As we drove around town, we saw numerous cars with multiple dents and lines of cars at the glass shops where windshields were being replaced. There was a lot of damage. Sadly, the storm had killed five people. We all felt very fortunate.

The rental car company delivered us a replacement car. Two days later, we finished packing and headed to the airport. The rental agent at the terminal had become friendly with me during our stay and was very apologetic as she handed me the bill, but she had no choice.

We checked our luggage and waited for our plane. We were facing another long trip, but we were going home to family and friends.

As I sat waiting for the plane, I thought back on our experience, and my intellectual musings and conclusions were mixed with emotions. As I remembered my day at the bank with Tasty Meals, I was feeling really bad, but then I remembered my wonderful experience the very next day, and it lifted my spirits all over again.

One additional facet of TechnoServe’s initiative in Swaziland had been a business plan competition called “Believe, Begin, Become” (BBB). The purpose of the competition was to promote entrepreneurship and specifically to promote the start up of small and medium enterprises. In addition to the recognition and prize aspects of the competition, there were also educational and mentoring components. Throughout the competition, the number of contestants got narrowed down as they passed more hurdles and got more training and coaching on developing their business plans. Ultimately, six winners would actually receive cash prizes that could be used to finance the start up of their businesses. Managing all of the BBB activities created a huge load on the office, so everyone pitched in to help. In addition to helping with the many administrative activities, I judged some of the business plans, and Wendy and I both conducted classes as part of the training.

Shortly after Wendy and I returned from our trip to the Junior Achievement meeting and the TechnoServe office in Nairobi, all of TechnoServe Swaziland gathered for the graduation ceremony of the top sixty candidates from the competition. This was held at the most unusual graduation venue we’ve ever attended: a disco club called the House on Fire. “Building” is a loose term for this series of tin roofs and caverns, nooks, crannies, sculptures, and balconies. Various parts were made of wood, rocks, glass, concrete, mosaic, or a combination with fire pits in each “room.” But somehow, House on Fire proved to be a fitting location to celebrate sixty budding entrepreneurs’ completion of five intense weeks of workshops. All of the sixty semi-finalists had met the most rigorous business challenge: creating a bankable business plan that could be funded either by TechnoServe’s prize money or by a local lender. Unfortunately, the graduation of the semi-finalists was quickly followed by the announcement of the twenty finalists, so many people were left disappointed. Although only twenty competitors could go on, all of the men and women had demonstrated admirable perseverance.

Despite our limited involvement in BBB, it led to wonderful experiences for both Wendy and me. For Wendy, the experience occurred after she taught the marketing class. A young man came up to her to ask for any special insight she had on starting a business. She replied that most U.S. entrepreneurs fail at least once in starting a business so to be prepared to be challenged, make mistakes, and perhaps fail. However, ultimately perseverance and belief in yourself would help as much as any classroom learning. He came up to her at the graduation and thanked her for that advice. Wendy hoped that she’d made a difference in at least that one young man’s future.

My uplifting experience came at the Swazi Sun Hotel the day after the bank visit with Tusty Meals when a young man, Thembisa, came up to me and introduced himself. I didn’t recognize him at first, but he knew I was from TechnoServe and said that we had met before at some of the Believe, Begin, Become activities. He had submitted a business plan for a mobile hair salon, basically going to customers’ homes during typically nonbusiness hours to cut, color, etc., their hair. Thembisa had been a semifinalist, but his plan had not been selected to be one of the finalists. He was glad that TechnoServe was doing a follow-up event for the semifinalists who didn’t make it into the finals. Moreover, he wanted to thank me and tell me how wonderful the Believe, Begin, Become program had been for him. Thembisa said that he had been thinking about starting his own business for quite a while. He had confidence in some aspects of his capability to start and run a business but not in others. He said that the TechnoServe program had given him knowledge in areas that he was lacking, and now he had the confidence to go ahead with his business plan. He was very grateful for TechnoServe and thanked God for sending us to Swaziland. I spent some more time with him discussing his concept and urging him to press forward because I knew he could succeed. At the end of our discussion, Thembisa thanked me again for TechnoServe. It was very inspiring, and I felt I had been rewarded more than I deserved.

Looking at the bigger picture, my biggest lesson learned in Swaziland was how much must go right for economic development to happen. Although most free-market economies with the right legal and macroeconomic environment do experience economic growth, it doesn’t have to happen, and it especially doesn’t have to happen fast. Many years ago during the depression, John Maynard Keynes showed that economies can stabilize in suboptimum conditions. When this happens, there has to be an outside intervention to change things and offer an opportunity for improvement and growth. That’s what economic development work is all about, intervening to promote economic growth. However, there’s never just one intervention that’s necessary, and multiple factors must exist for an intervention to lead to sustainable progress. That’s why it’s so challenging and why it requires perseverance.

Of course, Wendy was extremely proud of her and Atiba’s successfully launching the pilot classes of JA Swaziland. On the other hand, she felt that her biggest lessons learned were threefold. Launching a youth entrepreneurship program, even supported by the structure of global organizations like Junior Achievement and TechnoServe, is incredibly difficult in a developing country where taking initiative and risks are not part of the culture. She also had reinforced for her the fact that no project is as straightforward as it might seem, particularly when dealing with partners (such as UNISWA and JA). Finally, it was important to not just accomplish something personally but to build the capacity of the people with whom