Cameroon, Day 17-22

I’ve gotten sick at home before. You usually go home, sweat it out, take a few pills, lie in bed and watch Maury for a day, and you’re better in 24 hours.

Third-world viruses don’t go down that easily.

They’re much meaner, and they punch you in the gut without stopping. This particular bug that I got made sure that every part of my body knew what it meant to be in Africa. So I spent Tuesday morning to Friday half-conscious, shuffling helplessly back and forth between my bed and the bathroom.

2/18/12

When I could stand up again, I met a young guy Jean, who is in charge of a local farming cooperative, and he took me out to his farm in the bush. I mean wayyyyy out in the bush. It was my first time taking a ride on one of these motorcycles, and yes, it was about as scary as I imagined it would be. But to tell you the truth, I think it’s absolutely the best way to explore the countryside. It’s like a fast, powerful horse that doesn’t get tired.

He’s definitely struggling out there. There are just so many problems that farmers here have to deal with, and they have no control. He said the five main problems were 1) fluctuations in the market, 2) waste, 3) lack of access to technology, 4) land, and 5) lack of training.

Every week, he calls customers in major Cameroonian cities to check the price of pepper. He finds out which is highest and brings it there. He then has to hire a vehicle, which is expensive and also prone to break down. When that happens, it’s a complete loss.

The challenges he runs up against are endless: Last season, the weather ruined the whole pepper crop. Right now, market prices are so low that he cannot afford insecticide, so insects can destroy his tomatoes.

But young farmers don’t have much choice to grow anything besides tomatoes and pepper, because they are quick turnaround. They cannot invest the time to grow yams, bananas, plantains, etc, because they need the cash to feed their families. It’s a tough situation.

These kinds of stories just make me want to get hundreds of SolPods here right now so people like Jean can dry and sell the excess food that all goes to waste now. They are ready to buy – the ball is just in our court to improve the design and lower the cost of manufacturing it.

2/19/12

We got invited to a business conference in Kribi, a town right on the coast in southern Cameroon, and we stayed for the night.

I was pleasantly surprised by the place. It’s a laid-back little beach town that reminds me of southern California, except not as built up (and there are chickens and lizards running around). The night here finally snapped me out of my sickness, so I became a functional human being again.

Fishing is like farming out here. Water instead of soil, nets instead of hoes, but still a very similar mindset – things are done similarly to the way they are described in the Bible.

2/20/12

After a nice little stay in Kribi (and the most glorious shower in my life – I had no idea how much hot water means to me), we headed up the coast for about 4 hours to Limbe.

Limbe is supposedly the place to be in Cameroon. It has the largest oil refinery and it’s surrounded by cocoa, rubber, and coffee plantations, so there’s money here.

I still can’t get over the garbage though. It’s everywhere. Trash cans are just cultural taboo and I don’t know why.

We’re also now joined by Marie, who graduated from Northeastern last year and just flew in from France. She’ll be helping with the SolPod’s marketing strategy.

2/21/12

I thought time moved slowly in Bali, but it moves even slower out here. It’s really incredible. I can feel the minutes take longer. It’s like after each hour, the clock stops, takes a breath, then moves on with the next hour. As an American (especially a New Yorker), if you don’t consciously make an effort to slow down, you’ll go absolutely nuts.

But I’m realizing, when I just walk down to the water or something, there’s not a hint of stress on peoples’ faces. They smile.

*PS: If you’re having trouble viewing the pictures, let me know. These blogs posts literally take hours to upload and some of the images are having issues.

Cameroon, Day 11-16

The biggest adjustment to Cameroon so far is time. It’s a completely different concept. People here don’t place a value on hours like we do in the U.S. It does not equal money. People aren’t paid hourly. Things just take as long as they need to take.

2/10/12

I got invited to go on a morning run with a new friend, Alloise, who happens to be an aspiring professional soccer player. He was a little bit harder to beat than the kids that were chasing me in the forest the other day.

I’ve started to shadow a bunch of farmers in Bali, following them around to learn more about their lifestyle and what it takes to plant, cultivate, harvest, and sell their produce. To tell you the truth, I think their concept of time is part of what keeps them in poverty. Something like scraping corn by hand can take 3 hours – this is just a fraction of the time that goes into preparing and selling a bucket of corn, which typically sells for around $7.00.

I’m going to go deeper into this to find out exactly how much time is spent doing things like this and how much of it can be replaced with the introduction of simple technologies. Time saved is time that can be put into increased production and more income.

2/11/12

On Saturday, it was National Youth Day in Cameroon, which is actually a pretty major holiday here.

All across the country, in every city and village, there’s a parade that literally everybody attends. All the kids dress in their school uniforms and they march up and down the street. Then there’s a competition where they perform songs and dances.

And they all love the President.

Every village in Cameroon has a specialty food. Here, it’s foo-foo. Foo-foo is unlike anything I’ve seen in America. They take either cassava or corn and somehow make it into this big sticky ball that you pick at with your hands and dip into vegetables. It really goes with everything, and I’ll be sure to figure out how to bring it back with me.

2/12/12

Church is very different here. Everyone is organized into men and women’s groups, and they all have matching uniforms. Service lasted 3 ½ hours, a good portion of that being the different groups standing up to lead worship songs.

There are no instruments - just loud singing. Half of the service is in Mungaka - the local Bali language that only people from this village know. And what church service is complete without a chicken auction afterword?

But still the same Bible and the same Jesus.

2/13/12

We’ve been testing the SolPod daily, and the results have really been interesting. Some things, like peppers, take a couple of hours to dry, while others, like pineapple, take a couple of days. We’re hoping to improve the design so that nothing takes more than a full day, but it’s still a huge improvement over the weeks it currently takes to dry things.

Right now, people leave their fruits and vegetables out in the sun on a metal sheet. It sits there for weeks, exposed to bugs, chickens, the weather, and anything else crawling around outside.

2/14/12 – 2/15/12

I ate something Tuesday morning, and it got me good.

Supposedly, this happens to every westerner at least once when they come to Africa (although I’m not sure it always hits as hard as this). It was just a matter of time. But yeah, it’s been a tough 24 hours in bed.

So, as I recover, enjoy some photos taken over the last few days…

Cameroon, Day 7-10: Welcome to the Village

After a long van ride through the hills of Cameroon, we arrived in Bali, the village we’ll call home for the next 4 months.

It’s the dry season here, so it’s very dusty. But the weather is gorgeous (sunny and 80-ish degrees every day) and there’s lush vegetation. It’s a very relaxed kind of place.

Everyone here greets us with “You are welcome.” They make it abundantly clear that they are friendly, accepting, and eager to talk to us. We’re staying in a spacious house right on the main road, and a whole group of people immediately helped us move all our stuff in, no questions asked.

The shower in the house is pretty much a cold hose that works about 50% of the time. Same with the sink and toilet. We have full buckets of water for the other 50%. Electricity is a little more reliable, but still goes out for about 15 minutes from time to time.

2/7/11

I went for my first long run in Africa, and the elevation made the air tough to breath, but once I got away from the main road on the little paths, it was breathtaking. This Earth is blessed. I can’t wait to go farther. 

On the way back, I got into an impromptu race with 10 little village kids. Left them all in my dust.

It’s amazing how people warm up to you when you try and speak their language. I’ve been able to pick up a few greetings and food words from the local Bali dialect. So, whenever I see someone I say, (have no idea how this is spelled) “Ola in-yea” and they laugh as they respond, “W’sat in-yea!” (I really don’t know what these actually mean. Our neighbor that taught me the phrases could be playing some cruel trick on me. I hope I’m not saying something like “I just farted!”).

We set up the SolPod prototypes behind our house for testing, and subsequently made friends with a bunch of the neighborhood kids – Ivory, Austin, Bradley, Brandon, Ryan, and Alicia.

2/8/11

We met with the Jolly Jolly Sisters, a group of women farmers that let us attend their monthly meeting to talk more about the SolPod, Jola Venture, and how to help make small Cameroonian farmers more profitable. The group seems like part agricultural union, part social club, and they sing a song to commence every meeting, “We Are The Jolly Jolly Sisters”.

We brought some dried fruit with us from Whole Foods, and some of them were amazed at 1) their existence, and 2) how much they are worth. Here, they are used to selling, for example, a branch of about 50-60 bananas for somewhere around 2,000CFA ($4.00). Then they saw the package of Whole Foods dried banana chips that sells for $5.00. Someone is making a ton of money between harvest and sale.

After the meeting, we had a fellowship feast, followed by each of them downing 1 or 2 beers each (Cameroonian beers are 32 oz. – twice the size of American beers).

2/9/11

I just went to the Bali market, which happens every 8 days. It’s quite the chaotic scene, but everyone somehow seems to know what’s going on.

The farmers here have worked hard all week to bring their crops to market, but I see their bushels going for prices that are less than a Subway sandwich costs in the U.S. Most of them are just barely getting by on this income, which cannot be more than $20 or $30 a week for many.

Apparently, this is just the way it always has been. Farming is a way of life, and they really don’t have any leverage with the wholesalers that pay pennies to bring the food to bigger cities at a greater margin.

I’ll be shadowing several of these farmers over the next few weeks to learn everything I can about them – what the whole process of farming each crop is like, from planting, to cultivating, to harvesting, to the sale. There has to be a way to improve this.

Cameroon, Day 6: The Road to Bali

We took a longer than expected stay in Douala, but Saturday morning, we rented out every seat of an 18 passenger van, and took off for the 6-hour drive to Bali.

Before you go and judge us for van-gluttony, it’s because we’re carrying about 10 big suitcases and 20 computers with equipment for the technology center we’re setting up. Our van’s name was Turbo.

Getting out of the city, I had no idea what to expect. What do we eat? Where do I go to the bathroom? Would there be robbers? Fortunately, our van driver was driving way too fast to worry about any of those things.

Passing these little villages along the way was like getting snap shots into the daily lives of the regular people here. Their world is totally different from my own in so many ways.

All along the way, there were checkpoints, where the police officers would ask if we were Belgian, French, or German, find out we’re from “Etats-Unis”, then smile and let us by (after a toll of course). At each of these checkpoints, a whole bunch of kids would come up to the car to sell nuts, fruit, meat, toilet paper, really anything. Show me an American 10-year-old with that kind of drive.

They also sold beer and wine. To people driving. Only in Africa.

At the half-way point between Douala and Bamenda, there was a roadside stop where Roland said everyone would usually break for food. Offered a sample of something at the first little grill, I immediately took it of course – a bit spongy and peppery, but tasty. “You know what that is?”, the guy said. “Nope”. “It’s cow stomach.” Yummy.

As we climbed higher into the hills, the views were magnificent. 

Cameroon, Day 4-5

We’ve been continuing our glorious ritual of eating incredible roasted fish with our hands. I could do this every day.

 

Roland gave me a great explanation of why you should be careful, but not scared of criminals in Cameroon and other African countries. I had never heard of Jungle Justice, but read into it, because it’s fascinating.

At the end of the day, you can reach the same goal of comfort here. Your teeth are brushed, you’re clean, you’re full, and you have fresh clothes. To achieve those goals just takes a little more time and energy than in a developed country.

That being said, I am realizing my dependence on the Internet, because this painfully slow connection is driving me insane.

I’ve met an exceptionally bright young lawyer with a sharp understanding of the economic and political problems of his country. I now understand that it’s unofficially run by the “equipe nationale”, which is made of top politicians and elite businessmen. Now it’s becoming clearer how this enormous gap between super-rich and poor exists.

It’s not just the wealth gap - the misallocation of resources is strikingly apparent. In a city of 2 million, there is a single one-road bridge that connects one half with the other. Everyone here hates that bridge and wishes it was different. But nothing happens.

There seems to be a tiny middle class in the city, but I don’t know if it’s growing or shrinking.

 

Speaking of that gap, the Cameroonian news was reporting on Occupy protests in the U.S., and suddenly it seemed a bit silly.

The kids here are extremely happy. They’re always just running around, and usually say ‘hi’ or wave. Today, I was called “Le Blanc!” and another kid yelled out “Hee Haw!” (because apparently I’m a cowboy. I have to admit that felt cool).

We met with a very well-respected engineer in Douala, and he is just about to start breaking ground on a massive new project, which is to build a piece of the new trans-African highway. He’s in charge of getting 30 gigantic decepticon-looking land-clearing machines (which weigh 65 tons each) hundreds of miles into the rain forest, and making sure nothing fails in this massive operation. I just found that really interesting and thought it would be worth sharing.

We also had a “moment” yesterday. We pulled into an auto yard with a repair shop, and there were two Chinese guys working. They both looked up at the car and saw Tyler, our Japanese engineer, and had a look on their face that was confused, excited, angry, befuddled, and amazed all at the same time. It was a moment.

So far, one of the biggest differences in third-world Africa is the mindset on going. In the US, when we have to go, we find a place to go. Here, when you have a place to go, you go, so when you don’t have a place to go, you don’t have to go.

Cameroon, Day 1-3

We just got to Cameroon on Tuesday night, and I’ve been carrying around a notebook and a camera to try to get a handle on just some of this stuff. I figure I’m going to keep these journal-ish entries pretty raw, literally just a record of the interesting things that happen (often copied directly from the journal). I’ll go into more depth about specific things (oh yeah, there are definitely some things that need to be talked about).

We start on the plane:

 

The Sahara Desert is overwhelmingly massive. Maps seriously don’t do it justice. Take your thumb and index finger to it and you’ll see it’s about the same size as the continental US.

 

By the time we’re past the desert, it’s dark. Everything on the ground is dark. All I see are little flickering bonfires (probably roaring flames in reality).

 

Until about 2 minutes before landing, there are just bonfires – no city lights, or even roads for that matter. Finally, I can see Douala when we’re a few thousand feet above it.

 

It’s hot, but not uncomfortable. This isn’t like the heavy, dead heat of August in New York.

 

The guy in front of us is pushing a woman in a wheelchair. When we reach a short flight of stairs, he simply picks it up and carries her down like it’s nothing. No escalator, no elevator, no ramp, no problem here.

 

After meeting up with Roland’s mother we walk outside, and I’m not going to lie, it’s intimidating. There are guys hustling all over trying to move bags for a couple of bucks, cars rolling through the crowd (somehow without hitting anyone. More on this later) and a cop threatening a guy with his baton.

 

We head out in two cars, and drive for about a half hour to the charming, quaint, haven’t-seen-a-cockroach-so-far-so-lets-cross-our-fingers Hotel du Rail, our home for this week. My room has a clean floor, toilet, working sink, power outlets, and a lock, so I can’t complain. Greg Skloot would love this place – pure functionality with none of the fluff.

 

After getting introduced to my first bit of African cuisine by Roland’s mother’s superb cooking, I discovered what a pineapple actually tastes like. I’ll never be the same again.

 

Roland then delivers a statement that nearly makes me jump out of my seat:

“It’s mango season.”

 

I find myself understanding the people better when they speak French than when they speak Pidgin English (which isn’t saying much, so about half the time I just smile and nod with a “Oui”).

 

We talk with Peter, a neighbor, family friend, and former school principle that tells us, “In our dialect, we have no word for uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, or cousin. Only father, mother, son, daughter, sister, and brother. If you are my father’s brother, you are my father. If you are my mother’s sister’s son, you are my brother. If you live nearby and you come to our door while we are eating dinner, come and sit with us. You are our son.”

 

He also gives me a thorough outline of some of the biggest problems facing Cameroon and Western Africa, and says that the solutions will start with young engineers coming, staying, and applying western technology to the African situation. Good thing we brought Tyler.

 

 

There are no traffic lights here. Also no railroad crossings. Or street names. Actually, there really aren’t any traffic laws.

 

Tires that are thrown out in the US are used as new tires here.

 

I have seen the light, and it is fresh fish, roasted over charcoal and eaten with your hands.

 

And this thing, bobola, is awesome:

 

We’re heading out to Bali - the village we’ll be at for most of the time here - on Saturday.

How Boston Can Actually Keep Talented Students

It seems that a big question of this past year for growing companies in Boston was “How do we attract the the top graduates from schools in our own backyard?”

This town has some really good things for attracting great students from places like MIT, Harvard, Northeastern, BU, and BC, like:

• A resilient economy
• Tons of resources for young professionals
• Lots of things to do on weekends

However, I have a feeling this particular conversation is going to stick around for a while, because over the last few months, I’ve unfortunately seen what’s happening first hand.

I really like the city of Boston a lot, but of the people I know personally that are graduating this year with somewhat concrete plans, most of them are getting out of the city. They’re heading down to New York, or out west to California, Texas, Colorado, etc. In fact, I can only think of one person (outside healthcare, education, and finance) that has definite plans for Boston. 

So what’s going on, and what can you do about it as a company?

First of all, think about the average 22-year-old’s life when they graduate from one of the dozens of schools up here. For at least four years, they’ve been simultaneously paying a huge tuition bill and living expenses in one of the most expensive cities in the country. That’s stressful and emotionally exhausting for anyone, let alone someone that doesn’t have their feet planted firmly underneath them yet. And these days, chances are that they’re stuck with a 5- or 6-digit student loan in their name. 

As a student here - even if parents have helped out - you don’t go 4 years in a Boston college without a conversation like this with some other friend who went to school elsewhere:

Friend: “I just got an off campus apartment for the next year. It’s a little expensive though - $1,200.”

Poor Boston student: “Oh cool, that’s about the same as what I pay per month.”

Friend: “Dude, I was talking about $1,200 for the semester.”

Poor Boston student: …sobs silently on the inside as a single tear drips down his cheek…

Beyond the cost, of course, is the borderline ridiculous winter. Lots of people simply can’t/won’t do the cold. Some people can tolerate the weather, but dislike the colder New England vibe. 

Put that stuff together, and it’s a challenging list of things Boston companies can’t do much of anything about:

• It’s expensive for young people to live here.
• Cold/Windy/Snowy days are at times demoralizing. 
• The general perception that Bostonians have less open attitudes than people elsewhere. 

Take these two situations from a couple of sharp Northeastern students graduating this year:

One said frankly that he’s tired of the cold attitude of people here. The cost of living pushed him over the top, but it’s really important for him to be able to have friendly conversations with strangers everyday, and he couldn’t seem to find it in Boston.

Another took a trip out west and was amazed at how open people were to meeting with him, no matter how far apart their titles or resumes. He described that they would not only want to meet, but seriously go out of their way to be helpful and show that they genuinely cared - even for someone brand new to town. Again, he’s not finding that in Boston.

So as a CEO or manager at a Boston-based company that really wants to hire local graduating talent, you have a lot on your plate. It’s a challenge, but not impossible to overcome by any means. You have to create an offer that makes staying in Boston worth it - and it transcends the compensation package. 

These are four of the best strategies I’ve come across (from both companies and graduating students):

Swap out your internship program with an apprenticeship program

There was just a article in Bostinno about apprenticeship for software engineers, and I think it’s a fantastic model that can be applied to any field with very strong mutual benefits. Boston has lots of masters at their respective crafts, but students rarely get to learn alongside them. 

When a student or recent graduate gets into an internship, the thinking is usually along the lines of getting a feel for the company’s culture, learning some more about the industry, getting a bunch of busy work done, and adding a name to the resume for my career. When someone commits to an apprenticeship, they are planting roots with intentions of becoming a master, right now (it’s much less wishy-washy). 

Provide a solid, well-publicized student loan assistance plan

The whole student debt bubble isn’t going away, so it’s going to be something we all have to deal with, however it hits us. We’re experiencing a wave of people that are moving out of Boston right after college for the sole purpose of saving money and paying off student loans. When you’re trying to recruit this generation (whether you’re Fortune 500 or a startup), you need to take this unprecedented issue into account. 

These kinds of programs can be a risk, because you don’t want to invest heavily in a person that is not going to stick around and invest heavily in the company. But if you can make it well-known on campuses that you take care of people that are committed to delivering lasting value to the company by helping with their student loans, just watch the inbound interest spike.

Go Beyond the Career Fair

Or really, just skip it altogether. This is where companies in Boston have a huge geographic advantage.

Reach out to students in places where you can have real conversations. It will be a much better, more focused field for you to pinpoint some A-candidates, and they will tend to see you as a real, authentic person rather than a suit and job flyer. 

The professionals in this city who I have the best relationships with were the ones that - after I introduced myself the first time in person or through email - actually invited me to grab some coffee or lunch, and just talk about stuff. Out of seemingly small acts of openness like that, I’ve had life-shaping experiences and formed strong friendships that are golden to me. They also could have never occurred without an unconventional meeting.

You’ll find awesome, hungry people at club meetings, college startup competitions, and at all sorts of diverse public activities on campuses around Boston.

Be disarmingly honest about your company and the job

This is perhaps the most important thing I can say about employing this generation. We are oversold a lot of things, and thus, feel compelled to oversell ourselves.

When a new hire emerges from an overhyped job description and embellished accomplishments, it’s just a ticking time bomb. That relationship won’t work, because it’s not built on trust.

If you are real with a talented college student you’re talking to, they will be real with you. That means explaining that sometimes the sales team is at odds with development, some days require staying until 8pm, the coffee could be better, but you’ll be solving real problems and building something awesome. Revealing shortcomings strips away that pressure to be “the one”, job candidates tend to feel which leads to impossibly perfect self-description. 

These are just a few strategies, but I think success in attracting students in Boston ultimately comes down to being creative, accommodating, and real. And there’s one qualifier for every successful strategy you think of:

It won’t happen in your conference room.

Look forward, not to the left or right

Don’t define your success by how you measure up to others. 

You could think you’re moving up faster than they are, when in reality, your ship might just be sinking slower. 

1 Million Reasons Why I’m Going to Africa

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” - Henry David Thoreau

In a week, I’m packing up and leaving for Africa until the summer.

Cameroon, to be exact. I’ve joined Jola Venture to help launch a new product that can help thousands of farmers preserve their food and bring it all to market. Right now, they lose about half of it because there’s no effective and affordable technology to preserve fruits, vegetables, and meats. The two guys that convinced me to go, Roland and Mike, are ambitiously leading this project and have been absolutely killing it lately.

It’s a project that I’m really proud to be a part of, and I’m beyond grateful that I have this opportunity. This is an industry and a country where I have absolutely no idea of what to expect, and I do admit, there’s some nervousness in that. But strangely, I find myself craving it. As soon as I heard about this opportunity, my gut knew that I had to take it. It became an itch that I needed to scratch.

The itch definitely didn’t just appear there one day though. People I deeply admire, like Chris Robertson, a former professor of mine, world traveler, and now a great friend, have really led me to believe that I’ve barely scratched the surface of understanding why people travel. I’d also be lying if I said I didn’t draw a ton of ideas from a blog - Chris Guillebeau’s.

But beyond that…

I’ve also realized that I talk about solving real problems with technology and business a lot. Yet I have worked on my fair share of fluffy projects - things that never solved any real problem at all.

There’s bit of a contradiction there.

One thing I strive for most is to live a life free of contradictions. Seriously - I want you to call me out on it. When I’m not walking as I speak, please, make a fool out of me.

When I talk about what a good business is - how it solves a specific need with a great product - I want to know what real market problems are on a deep, intimate level. There are places in the world where A & C are just begging to be connected with a B, but nobody is. From what I’ve heard, you can develop that intangible sense of an untapped market much more quickly in the developing world than in the United States.

When I talk about my aspirations to see the world, I don’t want them to be aspirations. I’d much rather take advantage of this unprecedented 21st century mobility and make it reality.

When I talk about boldly living the way I claim to, I don’t want to hide that little caveat of settling for what felt safer and more comfortable at the time.

A couple of years ago, I expect that I would have said, “Where? Never in a million years.” Now, whether this trip turns out to be successful or a miserable failure, I realize that those would have been a million years of gnawing curiosity about the adventure I could have had. That’s a lot scarier to me than malaria, homesickness, or missing out on a few more thousand dollars I could have made.

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” - Henry David Thoreau

Word of the day again - No

A few posts ago, I wrote about how an affectionate ‘no’ can be golden. It prevent you from overwhelming yourself, your business, or your personal relationships with stress that’s constantly pushed down the road.

I was thinking and writing about the bad stuff it could prevent, but I totally missed the good stuff it can create.

I had a very recent talk with a client about a new feature on his website. There was a legitimate user sign-up concern, and the feature they were asking for would help protect against people abusing the system. However, it would have also been a huge back-end project, and was definitely outside the scope of the project.

But I take clients’ concerns seriously, so it was truly very difficult for me to say that it would expand the project scope and cost, otherwise I would not be able to implement it. Saying no still makes me feel like a jerk sometimes.

In the midst of going back and forth about what it would take to built the complex feature, however, we were missing its actual goal. When I said ‘no’, it forced us to work within limitations to solve a problem.

And, who would have guessed, the limitations led to an infinitely simpler solution that was just as effective as the beast we were considering. It was done in 10 minutes.