It's been a hectic couple of weeks. Last week I returned to Manila and spent the week with a colleague calling on insurance companies, a distribution group we are interested in working with and a possible advisory committee member. My second trip in a month and I felt like a veteran. Harold the bomb sniffing dog was still on duty, sweet as ever. Wonder what would happen if he actually smelled something dangerous? My take aways from Manila are incredibly friendly people, great disparities of wealth, like most developing countries great inefficiencies in just about everything and food that is really not very good. I think there is a reason there aren't many Filipino restaurants around.
Not sure how to think about the inefficiencies. On the one hand unemployment is so high that there is great motivation to hire a lot of people to do things. In many cases hiring people is cheaper, at least in the near term, than investing in new technology. But these same inefficiencies will hold back development and add costs in the future. I decided I needed some new sneakers and walked to Landmark, the local department store. I counted and it took 7 people to sell me a pair of shoes. It could be however that I attracted a large crowd with my height and blond hair, trying on a variety of shoes and settling for a pair of classic white Keds. Also bought a cheap blanket for when family arrive in Sydney. The blankets in my neighborhood in Sydney were $300+ but I scored a made in China version at Landmark for $40. My carry on bag was bulging on the return flight with a week's worth of dirty clothes, the blanket and my Keds.
I am starting to shed some clothes, leaving behind things that I brought with the intention of not bringing them back home. A pair of black pants in Manila, a pair of shoes with a hole in them at the airport, (these were snatched from my hands before I could put them in the trash can) and now that I am in South Africa, another pair of shoes and a suit that has seen better days and will have another life here in Joburg. When I return from this trip it will be more vacation than work so the need for business attire will diminish.
A quick turnaround in Sydney last weekend, washed a few clothes and repacked and I left for South Africa. The trip is 15 hours. Yes 15 hours. Unbelievable. There isn't a recent movie I haven't seen. I resorted to watching old Glee episodes and some documentaries. A daytime 15 hour flight on a packed plane is as close to hell as I need to be.
It has been 25 years since I was in South Africa. I came here during the apartheid regime with the sense that there would be a major revolt very soon. Now 25 years later the transition happened, without violence and the country is still trying to find its footing. Crime is very high here and almost everyone knows someone who is a victim of crime. Despite high promises, the public education system is very poor, there are still shanties housing too many people and the infamous gates around South African's homes still exist. In talking to South Africans, they marvel that we live in houses without high stone walls surrounding the yards.
I traveled here for a meeting of LeapFrogs's investors. Americans and Europeans, all focused on some form of social impact investing and all major investors in the LeapFrog private equity fund. Really interesting discussions on the deals being done and on measuring the impact of the investments, the importance of the Double Bottom Line, profits with purpose or as we say at UE, doing well, while doing good.
Visited the call center for ALLife, a South African insurance company that offers life insurance to individuals who are HIV positive. There are 2 million South Africans who are HIV positive. With proper care these people can live a long time. Allife links getting the best care with life insurance. It will be an interesting experiment to watch and see if they can serve a large portion of the South African HIV population and if they can in fact extend the life expectancy of these individuals.
Going to head to a game park tomorrow morning for two nights. This will be the first time I have driven on the left side of the road, should be interesting and hopefully uneventful.
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