Comparison

This post has nothing to do with Somaliland but just some things I've learned over the last year and half of instability. A while back a friend of mine posted a quote on comparison and it has only really sunk in now.

I'm super super guilty of comparing my life to others. Most of the time it's comparing my situation to those seemingly less fortunate than me. Which might seem like a good thing since it helps you realize how privileged you are. But the problem is, if you just aren't feeling great comparing yourself to someone who seems really happy with nothing is only going to make you feel worse.

The last year and half has been super frustrating. I like to think of myself as a positive person. I like to charge ahead and am usually undeterred by set backs. This is something I have prided myself in. I like the feeling of being in control even if things don't go perfectly. But this semblance of control slowly started deteriorating this last year. It felt a bit like I had a strong wall of confidence up and small things that went wrong started chipping away at it until I felt like I was left with nothing but to start comparing myself to people around me. Stupid. And unproductive. Numerous failed interviews, rejections from PhD programs, a badly sprained ankle that meant no running (my mental outlet) and an often overwhelming fog of uncertainty about whether I had made the right choices in the past and the direction of my future choices. Instead of the usual Rachel who is always optimistically moving forward towards SOMETHING I felt lost in a cloud of uncertainty and failed plans.

One of the problems with social media is that it allows us only a glimpse into people's lives and makes it extremely easy to fall into the trap of comparison. I found myself envying people with stability-home ownership, regular jobs, life partners, pet ownership. When I felt bad then I would stop and start comparing myself to people who live in villages and don't know where their next meal will come from. Momentarily I would feel grateful but then I would either feel guilty that I wasn't helping enough and even after years of hard work I had nothing to show for it, and simply feeling bad that here I was slightly depressed when I had so much to be thankful for.

Even now as I feel the clouds starting to lift and plans starting to materialize, part of me feels like the last year was a waste (something I hate!) and I have become overly critical of some of the decisions I've made. But here's something I finally realized. I think the last year and a half, even with all it's ups and downs, uncertainty, deep frustrations, and mistakes, was a gift. Why? Because now I know what it feels like to be deeply uncertain, to feel down and not really want to get out of bed in the morning, to live off of very very little money, to experience rejection and acceptance AND the danger of comparison. I think we can be sympathetic to individual stories while fully living and experiencing our own unique story.

So I'm going forward with the end of this year and it's new adventures with the attitude of gratitude. If I could choose I would not repeat a lot of this year and if I could go back would make different choices. But I'm grateful that in the grand scheme of things if this is the worst I have to go through I have so, so much to be thankful for. I can better empathize with people, who like me this past year, don't have their act together. And that's okay.

An Islamic State?

Living here has really forced me to examine a lot of what I think and know and most certainly stretched my mind. The past few days I've been able to have some very interesting, somewhat disturbing and eye opening conversations. As I've mentioned before this is probably the most homogenous and isolated place I've ever lived. And perhaps more broadly speaking arguably one of the most homogenous and isolated places on earth. What is fascinating is that many Africa scholars argue that one of the reasons for the conflict and slow development on the continent is due to the long lasting effects of colonization and how it ripped apart traditional structures, and drew up arbitrary country boundaries that do not take into account the mix of cultures and languages across the continent. Uganda is a good example of this, with roughly 42 languages. While I agree in part with this argumentation, it is also more complex. Somalia is religiously, ethnically, and linguistically homogenous yet has been fraught with conflict for most of its history.

I just finished reading the book Guns, Germs, and Steel, an excellent read that seeks to argue how environmental factors are what caused different societies to develop differently and ultimately aid in allowing certain societies to conquer others. The book made me think about Somalia and its unique tribal system. In my limited understanding tribes were historically your "people" who looked after you and provided some loose sense of governance. This system perhaps worked because of the harsh geography and limited resources that make up the Somali territories. However, tribalism is still active today even though as an outsider I don't see any obvious cultural or other differences between the tribes. When I was in the field last and we mysteriously found a nail in one of our tires, one of my colleagues (who is from the the east of Somaliland) immediately felt the nail was intentional (certainly quite likely). However, another of my colleagues (from the west and near the village where we were) was more skeptical and felt it could have been accidental (also probable).

All of this is connected to recent conversations I've had with locals, Somali diaspora and foreigners about forming a Somali government based on Islam (in other words an Islamic state). As an American my immediate reaction was shock when one of my colleagues (born and raised here) who I deemed open-minded expressed support for this form of governance. While in practice I think religion has become too intertwined with politics in the US, I firmly support the notion of separation of church and state. We had a lively discussion around the idea of a successful Islamic State where I argued that in my opinion there haven't been any successful examples of this form of governance. However, it seems there is widespread support for this idea at least among (male) native Somalilanders. A female Somali diaspora friend of mine stated that of course the idea is supported by men because it does not affect them in any way.

There seems to be widespread consensus that ISIS is wrong, but there is also this underlying sentiment of people wanting to preserve their culture (which is being lost) and avoiding western influence. I get this. But I also find the idea of a government based on a religion (which like Christianity has many different interpretations and seems to be evolving over time) unsettling. In my mind it only creates the opportunity for religion (which can be a beautiful thing) to be exploited for power. More importantly, Somaliland is already extremely isolated and with an extremely low literacy rate so I asked the question: is it worth further isolation (even if it means avoiding western influence)?

If I think about my own identity and how it's evolved as I've traveled and seen more, although it's often left me feeling a bit stuck between worlds and not fully understood, I also think it's shaped me mostly for the better. While I often get jokingly accused of not being American, being influenced and shaped by the many places I've lived and people I've met in my view has only strengthened some of the positive American traits I have and hopefully made me a more informed citizen. I suppose I am more American than people give credit to me in that I have a strong belief in diversity and how it can strengthen a place and in the separation of church and state. I acknowledge that religious beliefs influence how a person votes and lives their life (which is not negative in my opinion), but I would never want a government to tell me how to believe. I hope Somaliland one day soon gets international recognition and that they figure out a way to govern themselves that allows their dying culture to flourish without causing isolation and violence. What this will look like, I don't know.  

Energy in Somaliland: A country of contrasts

One of the most interesting parts about living here is how full of surprises life can be. On the one hand it's clear that the country is developing, particularly in regards to infrastructure. Even in the capital city the roads are horrible and unorganized and once you leave Hargeisa in most places it's just off road dirt "roads" through the desert and mountains. There are villages scattered about but often it's just a vast expanse of scrubby landscape dotted with dry mountains. You'll see the occasional camel or herd of goats but not much else. However, I also have the fastest internet of any of the place I've been in Africa and it's cheap (more on this later). Maybe this is simply because everything costs less here but it's actually possible to have unlimited internet at home versus simply paying for data as you go. Although I'm here to provide electricity to the many, many people here who live without it, I also have the most reliable power of any place I've lived in Africa. It's a strange and often perplexing place of contrasts but one thing that is clear is the immense need and brand newness of everything in regards to business and policy.

I spent much of last year researching the diffusion of solar energy in Uganda (and to a lesser extent East Africa and Cameroon) and energy policy in sub-Saharan Africa. Here there is virtually no literature on the subject and virtually no energy policy. While energy policy in some of the other African countries I've visited is limited and often in my opinion more a formality than a targeted approach to addressing the massive energy shortages facing this continent, there is policy. Here with a brand new government fighting for investment and international recognition coupled with a severe shortage of technical expertise, there is literally nothing. The electricity grid (which seems to primarily reach only the two major cities for the most part) suffers from around 40% losses. For non-technical people reading this there are three parts to receiving electricity in your home. First generation at a power plant, transmission (where many of the losses occur), and finally distribution to your home. The last two parts are typical referred to as the grid. In most grids losses of 6% are normal and unavoidable. But here the losses are insanely high and probably a contributing factor to the crazy high electricity tariffs (the highest in the world at $1/kWh).

Even without a technical background a casual observer could see the problems in the electricity grid here just looking at the jumble of wires making up the "grid". As I've been doing market research the energy companies here don't seem to have much of a strategy either as tariffs are random. In some low income parts of the city the tariffs are fixed which means for some consumers they are consuming far more power than what they're paying for and for others they are under consuming. In a quick survey of small businesses just in my neighborhood, the tariffs are across the board. From fixed per month or day fee to $0.80/kWh, while most ordinary households are paying $1/kWh. It's a mess.

In East Africa, countries have come a long way in developing rural electrification plans, renewable energy policy and although it hasn't been fully successful its existence has attracted funding by the World Bank and other international organizations. The potential for wind and solar here is huge. Somaliland has some of the highest irradience values in the world and on the continent (for comparison solar irradiation values in the Netherlands vary from a low of less than 1 kWh/m2/day in winter to a high of 5 kWh/m2/day in the middle of summer). Somaliland the values range between 6 and 7. Besides solar it is constantly windy here and with the large expanse of desert large scale wind farms could be possible with some initial investment.

Map of insolation values in Africa.

Even with the potential, policy constructions like feed in tariffs are largely impossible here simply due to the massive grid losses. Yet the way I see it I don't see this changing in the near future because there is no investment and virtually no technical expertise. However, all these factors are why solar in rural areas is booming. Even in the most remote place people know about solar and are willing to pay for it. These are people who get most of their income from relatives abroad or in the city (this is where most of the flow of money in the country comes in) but they can and will pay for solar products. With no grid in the foreseeable future solar makes so much sense. During my thesis I tried to prove the economic impact of solar energy on small businesses which is very difficult to prove, but when I see how thrilled an entire village can be when first turning on the lights from our solar home systems, the economic impact seems irrelevant. For us in the west, it's hard to imagine life without light and this is the strongest argument for bringing solar light to rural areas.

Small business owner with one of our solar lanterns. Most of our clients are women.

Installing solar home systems in the village.

Small business owner.

Sometimes the potential but also problems facing this unrecognized country are overwhelming. It's a place that could be a model for a country with an energy system built entirely from renewables, but unfortunately moving this direction will require significantly more investment and expertise and that is severely lacking at the moment. I hope that Somaliland moves towards renewables and not the seemingly easy route of just building more diesel power plants.