The Mercy Corps Blog

Blog Post Posted November 19, 2009, 10:10 pm by Alique Nursholiqin

Faster is better

Ridwan and two of his children. Photo: Alique Nursholiqin/Mercy Corps

Every morning at 3:30, Ridwan starts making tempeh. He’s been doing this for almost 18 years.

“I was making tempeh when I am not yet married. It was in 1991,” the 39-year-old remembers. Today, he’s married to a 35-year-old woman named Isniyati and they have three children; Riski, Riska and Restu.

He feels pride as a tempeh maker, and also sells the tempeh that he produces. “Tempeh is from a Javanese ancestry tradition,” Ridwan says, adding that he originally came from Pekalongan, a north coastal part of Indonesia’s Central Java region.

Not long ago, I went to visit Ridwan at his house in the city of Bekasi to check on the new stove that he’s been using for almost two weeks to cook soybeans. This stove was built at his house as part of a pilot project for Mercy Corps’ Value Initiative Program, which helps small producers save costs as well as protect their environment.

The stove — which can burn using coconut husks and scrap wood as fuel — cooks food in about half the time as traditional cookstoves used in the area. This saves not only firewood, but time for small businessmen like Ridwan.
According to his wife Isniyati, who helps him cook the soybeans that go to make the tempeh, what once took three hours has now become an hour and thirty minutes. But Ridwan slyly insists that he can prepare a batch even more quickly, in as little time as an hour.

For a hard-working couple like Ridwan and Isniyati, who do all the work themselves as well as take care of the children and perform other household duties, every little bit helps. After all, making tempeh is an intensive three-day endeavor. The first day is the process of washing, cooking and packaging. The second day is fermentation process. Then, on the third day, the tempeh is ready to be sold.

While working in his tempeh kitchen, Ridwan talks to me about his work, and how he came to rely on tempeh making to earn a living. In the beginning, he was only as a worker who helped his relatives. He began to learn much about the process of making tempeh in these days, with an eye on one day starting his own business. Working hard for a few years, Ridwan was finally able to save and buy his own tempeh making equipment.

Tempeh and tofu making is a major industry around the city of Bekasi, Indonesia, with enterprises ranging from factories to small family businesses. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Today, his tempeh production capacity is 100 kilograms of soybeans per day. Comparatively, this is a small production level for local tempeh makers. That amount of soybeans can make tempeh for 22 trays, each of which contain 24 to 26 pieces He sells his tempeh for 1,500 Indonesian rupiah — about U.S. $0.15 — per piece.

If he all his tempeh sells out in a day, he can bring in 850,000 rupiah — or around U.S. $85 in gross income. The cost of production lowers his revenue to about U.S. $66, still more than enough to feed his family, provide for household needs and save a little.

“The rest is for our children’s future," Ridwan says.

Through introduction of these improved stoves to small producers in the area, Mercy Corps is helping save time, money and the environment — which is making a difference for tempeh makers like Ridwan.

“I feel satisfied with the new stove that it is faster and better, with less time to cook soybeans that can reduce my work time to make tempeh,” he says. “Now I can rest more and be with my kids”.

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Blog Post Posted November 19, 2009, 4:29 pm by Seth Rue

Tunnels, walls and stones

I must admit, I found it a bit disappointing that I'd passed so easily through the infamous Ben Gurion International Airport passport control. After I picked up my bag I didn't really know what to do with myself — the flight had arrived early, and I wasn't being held up for questioning. I had some waiting to do until my ride would arrive. I spoke to one of the Palestinian men on the flight after we'd retrieved our luggage — a warm and soft-spoken man who made my first real interaction in Israel a reassuring one.

I found the cab ride to the guest house where I'd be staying more difficult. Up until this point, I'd only read about "the wall" that partitioned the areas around Jerusalem, separating Arabs and Jews, Arabs and Arabs, and Arabs and their livelihoods. A tunnel was built under the new highway that "Arab Israelis" can use to access their fields, transportation or families and friends. The tunnel is open for at least 20 minutes, at least once a day, so as long as one's business isn't at all time-sensitive or enduring, this set up is accommodating.

The driver described all this in detail with barely a hint of resentment, but only continued to reinforce his hope that one day Jews and Arabs could live in peace, once again, with one another. I don't think it was that his anger had finally retreated over the years into resignation and hopelessness, but that his optimism was simply more powerful. "It is our self-serving leaders that create these problems," he said. I sensed that he referred to people and problems on a greater scale than just those that he lives amidst.

As we approached The Old City, I tried to picture all that had happened there, and all those that died to defend it or conquer it. I imagined Salah ad-Din and his scores of cavaliers holding patiently outside the city gates, waiting for word of surrender from the Crusaders that never came. Then I imagined the ensuing carnage, and the blood that stained the earth, then the stones that were laid atop that earth as the city was rebuilt — again and again.

We climbed the Mount of Olives, just east of The Old City; Mustafa, the driver, deftly weaved through the crowds of tourists who crossed the street anywhere but at the crosswalks, the parked cars and buses taking up much of the driving lanes, and the young boys selling their window washing services. We passed the Church of all Nations and the Garden of Gethsemane. As we went further into East Jerusalem, faces turned more to shades of olive and brown. Garbage began to crowd the streets and sidewalks. Smells were stronger and more offensive here. This place was no one's priority.

We slowed in front of a four-story building surrounded by a high gate. I thanked Mustafa and greeted the children playing beside the car. Dust made the air feel thick, but the pure, youthful tone of al Aqsa's muezzin, reminding of maghrib prayers, carried easily. I opened the gate, picked up my bags and entered.

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Blog Post Posted November 19, 2009, 5:07 am by Bija Gutoff

Mama na come

Liberians have lots of great expressions, and I've enjoyed learning some of them as we traveled the country. I've shared a few of them here on my blog — how da body, tryin' small, a fish cup of rice.

My ear got used to the patois after we'd been here a few days, and I was happy to be able to rely less and less on our translators. I found myself slipping into Liberian English enough so that I could understand what people were telling me. I even was able to adapt my own spoken English with a touch of patois so that they could better understand me. It was fun and satisfying to connect with people through our talking, listening — and our shared language of simple human caring.

We met so many strong, proud Liberian people who are digging in to do the hard daily work of rebuilding their ravaged country. On this trip, we made a point of talking with lots of women. Most of the one-on-one conversations I had were with the grandmothers and mothers, sisters and daughters whose bright outfits often provided the only spots of cheerfui decoration against the drab browns of their mud-brick huts. Their personalities were as colorful and distinct as the fabrics they wore.

The fortunes of Liberia's people are being raised by hard-working businesswomen like Tetee, who has been supporting her family for two years by selling goods in her small shop. Photo: Nancy Farese for Mercy Corps

Liberian women are the cocoa farmers I met, like Mary and Samah and Annie. They're vegetable farmers who have also been trained in secretarial skills, like Isabella. They're businesswomen, like Tetee (in this picture), who has been supporting her family for two years by selling goods in her small shop. Many of them, like Wadey, have horrific stories of their experiences during the war years. It was hard to hear their stories of the violence that has scarred them.

And yet, they are looking forward with hope. That's the thing that stays with me the most from this trip.

To a woman, they talked about education — their number one priority for their children and themselves. "When there is no education," said Isabella, "you are blind. You can't do anything. Education is the key." They're earning their own money and counting every penny to try to save enough to pay school fees so their children can learn to read and write. They're absolutely ecstatic about the Mercy Corps literacy classes and other training that are helping them acquire the basic skills to get ahead.

They're also applying their own sweat and muscle to the hard slog of farming. They're eagerly absorbing new methods of planting, mulching and composting to improve their yields.

And the many people who have had Mercy Corps training in community-building are showing how much they have absorbed those lessons. Clearly, they deeply value respectful dialogue and inclusive democracy. At every village meeting I attended, people packed into the palaver huts to participate and listened with the utmost courtesy and attentiveness as each person spoke.

These are the some of the images and memories that will stay with me as I wind up this trip. I'm thinking about one expression I learned: "Papa na come." It means, "Things will be good," as in "Papa's gonna come." I think Papa here is meant to signify any family provider.

But after this trip, I've coined my own version of this saying. It's "Mama na come." Because I think the women of Liberia — the same women whose uprising helped lead the country away from a cruel dictatorship and towards a democracy led by a woman president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf — are showing the way to this beautiful country's future. I'm betting on their success, because I've seen with my own eyes what they're accomplishing.

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Blog Post Posted November 19, 2009, 12:00 am by Dan O'Neill

Thirty years ago today...

Thirty years ago, the Cambodian refugee crisis was the catalyst for a relief effort that would later become Mercy Corps. Photo: Jon Warren for Mercy Corps

A friend recently shook my hand vigorously saying, "Congratulations on celebrating Mercy Corps' 30th anniversary!" I thanked him and went on to say that I would phrase his comment a bit differently. But I'll get back to that later in the story.

As the decade of the 1970s came to a close, a horrifying slaughter swept the country of Cambodia capturing the rapt attention of the world in what would come to be known as the "killing fields." The radical communist Khmer Rouge launched a massive wave of barbarism across the stricken nation, killing as many as 2.2 million innocent men, women and children while forcing more than 600,000 refugees into exhile, mostly into Thailand.

Week after week images of the dead and the dying filled the global media. "How could this be allowed to happen before the eyes of the entire world?" I wondered. In November 1979, First Lady Rosalynn Carter traveled to the Thailand-Cambodia border to witness the devastation first hand.

At the same time my wife, Cherry, and I agonized over what we could do if anything. After all, what can one or two people do in the face of such an overwhelming human catastrophe? We approached Cherry's father, entertainer Pat Boone, suggesting that he approach his extensive network of friends and industry colleagues to provide emergency aid to the suffering multitudes. Pat immediately said, "Dan, use my phone and rolodex to convene a group of concerned friends." His wife, Shirley, added, "We'll open our house for a dinner to discuss what we can do together."

I jumped on it, naively placing a call to the White House asking to speak with Mrs. Carter. To my utter amazement, she took my call and offered her support. She dispatched The Reverend Doctor Bob Maddox, a Special Assistant to the President, to our November 19 dinner event. More than 60 leaders from various sectors attended the dinner, which was covered by network TV news and print media.

The meal consisted of rice and dried fish on paper plates, the same diet as most of the Cambodian refugees. By the end of the evening, it was unanimously decided that an urgent fundraising drive would be launched and that I should lead the effort we called Save The Refugees Fund.

Graciously, Mrs. Carter invited me to the White House and requested that I serve on the Cambodia Crisis Committee. I opened an office in Seattle and — supported by the dinner guests and Mrs. Carter — raised nearly a million dollars to send help and hope to countless refugees.

At the end of the year-long project, I was convinced the effort should continue by reaching out to assist in other disasters and refugee scenarios. So in July 1981, Save The Refugees Fund was permanently incorporated as Mercy Corps. Since that time we have worked in 107 countries providing nearly $2 billion in assistance. Today, more than 3,700 staff are on the Mercy Corps team in 40 countries, helping those who are numbered among "the bottom billion" people on the planet.

And it all began with a handful of committed volunteers determined to make a positive difference 30 years ago.

Do we celebrate our anniversary? Let me put it this way. Because incalculable death and suffering heralded the occasion of Mercy Corps' founding, it is difficult to say we celebrate it. We mark it like a somber memorial, redoubling our determination to make the world a better place. The challenges are many but, with the help of caring friends and partners like you, we will continue upward and onward!

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Blog Post Posted November 18, 2009, 8:47 pm by Janice Setser

Six days on the road

I'm both exhausted and exhilarated by my six-day journey through the red clay rocky back-roads of Tajikistan's border area with Kyrgyzstan in the Rasht Valley.

Moving village to village to meet with women who have been patiently awaiting my arrival for six months, I feel humbled by their expression of enthusiasm upon seeing me. They greet me with near-celebrity status, and are utterly unaware of how much I am awed by them, completely inspired by them.

Photo: Janice Setser/Mercy Corps

These women, who have somewhere between a third and seventh grade education, live with their large families in a highly mountainous region where unforgiving winters last between six and seven months — severely shortening the growing season — and where they are miles from any market or hospital. Getting to a market or hospital in the winter time isn't generally an option anyway, except on foot or by horse. Occasionally, a government plough will clear the roads and, in a streak of good weather, it may be possible by car.

Electricity is also scarce and unregimented; houses are heated with wood they collect themselves or coal they buy, if they have the money. These women are the first to rise and the last to go to bed, providing the care for their children, their husbands, mothers- and fathers-in-law, the livestock and the land attached to the house. They stoke the fires, keep a constant pot of tea boiling and cook their one or two hot meals a day; they are the back bones of a large family, starting from the young age of 17 or 18, when they enter into an arranged marriage.

After three days in this Central Asian outback, my cuticles are split and bleeding and I'm constantly applying my $20 wheat germ oil to try to salvage my parched skin. Meanwhile, they are in and out of the house, to and from the detached kitchens, moving through the harsh elements — wind, rain or snow. There is no indoor plumbing, and sometimes the only running water is blocks away. Whether it is clean water or not is another issue.

The women thank me profusely for coming and I am at a loss to express my respect and admiration for them sufficiently. Even though it is my dream to live off the land, build my own house and have my own food forest, when I look at these women and their lives I wonder, could I ever do what they do? Could I ever really live as they live? Would I have the strength, the stamina, the fortitude to endure this beautiful but cruel environment such as they do?

I am grateful to these women, in this environment and with their workload, for actively participating in our program of health and agriculture education — some coming from long distances to meet together and hold discussions. This is a new habit for them, and the health and agriculture village educators who volunteer for us tell me that it was very difficult for them in the beginning to convince the women to come.

Photo: Janice Setser/Mercy Corps

Now, however, they come willingly and faithfully, eager to learn and discuss the topics of safe pregnancy, breast-feeding and supplementary feeding of children over six months. They tell me with fire and passion all of the different details that they know and have learned from Mercy Corps on these subjects. They tell me how the greenhouses have changed their lives too — eating tomatoes and cucumbers that they have produced themselves when they previously thought it was impossible in their region. They also express their gratitude that the jars that they have canned with fruits and pickled products are no longer exploding and being lost because of improper canning methods — now they are able to keep their jars and use them through the winter.

They are also grateful for the social time — the brief respite away from their large volume of tasks in the house — to meet together and exchange information, share problems and support one another in a forum that was previously unavailable to them.

Over and over their pour out their gratitude and appreciation to Mercy Corps for starting this program in their communities. I tell them that, in the Garm office alone, we have 74 staff that are all working for them and that, without them, without their participation, we would not have a program. I thank them, but I am thanking them for much more than just their participation. I am also thanking them for being amazing teachers of strength, capacity, warmth and extraordinary generosity — even though I fail to properly express this with my faltering language skills.

I hope they get it on some level — I hope they understand that they are the reason that I am here.

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Blog Post Posted November 18, 2009, 4:21 pm by Mary Tam

Heritage and hope

It has been a year and a half since the devastating Wenchuan earthquake struck China. Being half Chinese, I felt particularly impacted by this event. Many decades ago my Tai Tai (great grandmother, also Taipo) emigrated to Hawaii from Macau, China. While Macau is not part of Sichuan Province, after the earthquake I couldn't help but wonder what distant relatives of mine might have been affected by the disaster.

Photo: Norman Ng for Mercy Corps

One thing I did not have to wonder about was how to help. I knew that Mercy Corps was working with local partners to provide immediate aid to the survivors, and that the organization would continue to offer ongoing support to the people of China, long after the topic disappeared from news headlines. Recently the San Jose Mercury News posted a video featuring children dealing with post-earthquake trauma. Naturally, after witnessing such devastation, children found it hard to concentrate in their daily lives. With images of crumbled schools and lost friends in their minds, they acted out in class and had trouble sleeping at night.

It is wonderful to see how Mercy Corps' recovery programs are truly helping them cope so that they can enjoy being children and continue getting the most out of their education.

While China is experiencing significant economic growth, there are still many people who have limited access to jobs, land and public services. Since 2001, Mercy Corps has been addressing these needs by working with local partners. As Thanksgiving approaches, I am sincerely grateful for Mercy Corps' ongoing programs in China, and for all the people whose generosity has made these programs possible.

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Blog Post Posted November 18, 2009, 11:31 am by Kate Dilley

The tenuous return

These are the raw materials for the roof and door of a hut that will house a once-displaced Acholi family as they return to their home village after years of war. Photo: Kate Dilley/Mercy Corps

Dennis, my driver and impromptu translator, and I walked through the resettlement site towards the grinding mill where we were going to talk with a Youth Empowerment Program beneficiary. We walked past so many huts and I couldn’t help but feel that the camp was too quiet for the number of homes in the area. There weren’t enough children playing or men and women working.

The camp felt eerily like a ghost town.

When we reached the grinding mill, we began to attract a crowd. Children gathered around us playing in the worn down foundation of a hut. Some of the children were naked, others in tattered dirty clothing. Some watched quietly, the curiosity clear on their faces as they crept closer to me and reached out to touch my bag or my skirt. Others played and laughed, oblivious to us, too busy engaged with their playmates to pay attention to the grownup discussion taking place.

We talked with program beneficiaries about life in the camps. Many people are leaving the camps and the resettlement sites for their home villages. The Acholi people or northern Uganda are farmers — they rely on the land for their subsistence. Life in the camps has decimated much of their traditional way of life. They long to be back in their home villages working their land with their own hands to earn a living and provide for their families.

While many people have returned home, the return is not always easy. Having spent so much time in the camps, many people may not know how to farm, or lack the tools or income to purchase tools. Others have lost their drive to be self-sustaining; they are used to the handouts from the aid organizations and are now dependent upon them for their survival.

The finished hut, with a straw roof and a door made from recycled cooking oil cans. Photo: Kate Dilley/Mercy Corps

A cease fire was brokered in mid-2006, but the effects of the conflict are still felt out in the villages. With no final peace deal, many are reluctant to say that the conflict has ended.

As people return home, most of them have to rebuild from the ground up. Their homes have been burnt, and the bush has encroached on their homesteads and gardens. Too many villagers find unexploded land mines out beyond the camps, leaving them dead or maimed. The combination of these challenges and fears creates a tenuous situation, at best, for return.

Despite the challenges and obstacles, many people are hopeful that their lives will soon return to normal. They look forward to getting back to their villages and their gardens. They hope that their children will continue studying in school. They see much opportunity for their lives in northern Uganda. I hope that those who closed the doors to their huts in the camps and have returned to their villages are safe and content to be back home.

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Blog Post Posted November 18, 2009, 9:11 am by Bija Gutoff

A fish cup of rice

Rice is a staple food in Liberia. But it's not easy for Liberians to fill their bowls or their bellies these days. Like poor people the world over, they've been slammed by the steep increases in food prices of the past couple of years.

Driving around the country, we do see rice for sale — in small shops and roadside stands and open air markets. I stop to talk to the vendors about what it costs.

A "fish cup" of rice now costs about 28 cents in Liberia's cities — three times what Liberians paid just four years ago. Photo: Bija Gutoff/Mercy Corps

This photo shows what Liberians call a "fish cup" or sometimes a "salmon cup" of rice — the empty sardine (or salmon or mackerel) can is the common unit of measure for a small purchase, perhaps enough for a family's meager meal. In the capital Monrovia, a fish cup of rice now costs about 28 cents. In the rural areas, a fish cup of rice costs half that much — about 14 cents.

Little as the amount is, it's three times what Liberians paid just four years ago. And the hike in the price of rice is just one of the factors that are causing people to go hungry. Liberia is among a handful of countries at the very bottom of the list of the world's poorest.

I've seen gut-wrenching evidence of the country's poverty in my travels this week. Even for a writer like me, it's hard to put in words.

But I've been haunted by my photo of the fish cup. It reminds me that you can measure suffering in these very real daily examples — and you can measure progress that way, too. Mercy Corps is working in tiny towns and villages around Liberia to help people grow more food, to fill their supper pots with more fish cups of rice today and, most important, to learn the farming techniques that will keep them supplied with fish cups long into the future.

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Blog Post Posted November 17, 2009, 1:38 am by Bija Gutoff

What the heck is infrastructure, anyway?

The jeep bounces hard over deep ruts, and strains to get a grip though thick, slick, sloshy gullies of mud. Photo: Bija Gutoff/Mercy Corps

When Mercy Corps talks about rebuilding infrastructure in a country ravaged by war, the words can sound abstract. What the heck is infrastructure?

Think of it as the body of a country: the roads are like bones, the electrical grid is like muscles, the communication and water systems are like veins and nerves. Each one gives the body an ability: to move, to work, to speak and listen, to make things happen. In Liberia, it's a body that's sorely damaged and gravely dysfunctional.

The cars they use here seem held together with gum and duct tape. Photo: Bija Gutoff/Mercy Corps

This is what happened to Liberia's roads after 14 years of conflict. This is not a remote village track. It's the main road to the villages of Gbarpolu County, in the north. The jeep bounces hard over deep ruts, and strains to get a grip though thick, slick, sloshy gullies of mud.

As I bump up and down, I think about how SUVs in the U.S. are used to haul groceries and get the kids to soccer practice. Here, an SUV would be genuinely useful. But local people don't have them. The cars they use seem held together with gum and duct tape.

People here say that road repair is a number-one priority. It's essential to all their goals and projects. In order to build anything, do anything, you have to be able to get there. I'm glad that Mercy Corps is helping to repair the roads and bridges that allow villagers to get their goods to market.

There's much more we can do to help bring this body back to life, so the Liberian people can get where they want to go.

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Blog Post Posted November 16, 2009, 6:50 am by Bija Gutoff

Every child should be in the picture

Photo: Bija Gutoff/Mercy Corps

In Parker Town, Gbarpolu County, in the north of Liberia where Mercy Corps has a number of agriculture programs, I rounded up these children for a group portrait.

I guided the older ones to stand in back and brought the smaller ones to the front. This everyday exercise, where we live (as a mother, how many times have I heard my own daughter or her friends grumble about the obligatory group photo?), seemed to be an entirely new experience for these kids.

Still, like children everywhere, they quickly got the idea, and a few were soon posing and posturing. Each child is so different. The thumbs-up boy in the blue t-shirt seemed a natural leader. The girl in the turquoise v-neck dress had an intensely frank and honest look about her. The one in bright green was so open and friendly. And the littlest ones, though a bit wary, were eager to take their place up front.

Every child wanted to be in the picture. And that's the way it should be: every child should be in the picture. Each one can grow up to make a contribution to Liberia's recovery, if they simply get the essentials: nutritious food, a decent education, a chance.

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