Conversation with Amani M'bale-Shronts

In this episode, I talk with one of my oldest friends and favorite expats Amani M'Bale-Shronts.  She discusses how her social awareness consciousness was cultivated in her formative years; growing up in the birth of hip-hop  80s NYC and how she has deliberately made choices in her life and career to pay it forward.

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Transcript

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[00:01:45] Nyra: I'm going to ask you Amani. Where are you from and how did you get on the road to where you. are today. It's a large question, but just take us from the beginning. 

[00:01:57] Amani: So I am an immigrant to the United States first and foremost. I arrived in the U S I must've been about five or six years old. My mom is from Haiti. Yes, my father is from the Democratic Republic of the congresses that he was from he's passed on now. But he was from the DRC. So my mother having been raised in Haiti and being, you know, understanding of the situation of women, she really instilled in me really, really early on the importance of education.

[00:02:26] And it's the only, it's the only guarantee that you have if you study the right thing. Right, right. And you know, that was her mantra. That was her whole mantra when I was growing up. So the other mantra she had was you are so blessed to be in the United States, to have access education, to have access to healthcare, and all the things you have access to do something in life to help people.

[00:02:54] That was the other piece. Like don't be like pay forward basically just by yourself, pay this forward 

[00:03:00] Nyra: the best lesson. 

[00:03:03] Amani: So I had that growing up, those were my two kind of big, you know, driving requests, if you will, from my mom. And when I was about 15, 16 in high school now, yeah, I became politically conscious. So I I learned about the slave trade. I understand that. What the middle passage was. I realized the situation of black folks in the United States and all over the world, actually. And it's not that I didn't know it earlier, but it, it kind of connected in my mind in a way that I started to think about my future and the situation of black people in the world.

[00:03:57] And I said, I, I want to do something and I want to give back. I want to, I want to help people women who look like me and who have not had the privileges that I have had. And so my political awakening was coupled with, you know, with that narrative from my mom, like help people, you know, study, but help people And so when I turned about 16 you know, I became, I would actually say I became a black nationalists.

[00:04:28] I mean, I think that's, there's no other way to say I, yeah. And I lived in that space, which was like, I Wanted to be involved with Africa. I wanted to support Africa. I wanted to learn about Africa. That was all I really was interested in. So when I went to college, I went to Brooklyn college initially, and I later transferred to NYU. I studied African history and African politics, and I studied you know, I already spoke French because my, my parents are both French speakers. So I already had French. And you know, so I was, I was all, you know, I studied African art, dance. I mean, I just drank it, everything. It was like, that is all, I mean, that's all I ever wanted to do.

[00:05:09] And I remember Julius narrator, who was the former president of Tanzania, came to NYU, when I was a student, I went to hear him speak. I took a picture with him. It was just like, he was like, he was like my Rockstar at that point, you know, he was a socialist and, and so on and so forth. As I began to learn more. I think that my viewpoints became a little bit more sophisticated. And I still consider, I don't consider myself. I will not use the word black nationalists to describe myself today. I would call myself a Pan-Africanist. And, and, and I can talk to the reason as to why I changed that That that, that characteristic or that categorization of my viewpoints, but that's, that's where I come from.

[00:05:56] That's what got me started. That's what piqued my interest. I will, I will say this also. I studied African history. I wrote a thesis in I don't know why you as for like an honors thesis. I wasn't I wasn't, again, in advanced classes at NYU. And I worked with a professor Richard Hall, who was like, you know, who was reading and he was , my African history professor. He was a white man, African history professor. And he like was so instrumental in the way I approached African studies. And I wrote a thesis, which I still have upstairs hard copy the role of market women in economic development, African economy, or effort, African economic development and that paper.

[00:06:43] And that thinking in that research, I did change my life. It actually changed my life. So I was on the road to become a professor. I was going to go get my PhD in African history and teach. Right. But when I studied African economic development, I realized I wanted to play a much more active role in supporting that development. And so I shifted from being a, wanting to be a history professor to wanting to be a development actor. And so that's how that, that research paper, which was, it was like, it wasn't the one for me. It was, yeah, it was a big major academic effort. Kind of changed the course of my career and my life. 

[00:07:26] Nyra: I want to explore, if you can just, I know you gave kind of like the broad strokes of where you are and there they were wonderful, but can you isolate just one part of the developmental of Amani that you can dive deeper into where you felt like this was a pivotal experience for you. 

[00:07:51] Amani: I graduated NYU and that thesis paper I wrote was my, you know, my, the combination of [00:08:00] my academic studies and in African history. And I had decided during that process of writing a paper that I was, I was not going to pursue my PhD and that I was going to go and work in Africa, in villages with women, with people I wanted to, I didn't want. I didn't want to be arms length from, you know, my area of interest. I wanted to, to have 

[00:08:24] Nyra: hands dirty. That's what they say.

[00:08:26] Amani: I want to get my hands dirty in the village. I want to deal with it. That's right. So my first job. I got a job right after college. Because my mother was like, get , a job quick. So I, I worked for the New York city commission for the United nations. Okay. That was my first job. So it was working for the city of New York, but the city of New York hosts the UN. And so this was the city of new York's office at the United nations. And it was amazing. I got to go to the UN every single day and deal with I guess the diplomatic Corps providing New York city services to them and helping them navigate New York city.

[00:09:03] A lot of these professionals diplomats, you know, come from all, all over the world and New York city hosts them. And so my office job and I was a deputy director at the time. My officer's job was basically to support them in their In their I guess integration engineer, city, life, and laws and parking and schools, and, you know, navigating the public school system.

[00:09:25] But that was just a kind of a stop I needed to kind of finish school, get a job land on, you know, and, and figure out how do I get to Africa? That was my goal. I need to get to the continent. And I was I was too radical at the time to go to the peace Corps. I was not prepared to support in the peace Corps at the time, I was like, I don't want to go with the peace Corps.

[00:09:46] I want to go with something else. And this is going to be funny much later on because I totally started working for the U S government later. But at that point I was like, no, I want to do it on my own. So I found a private [00:10:00] volunteer organization called visions and action, and they had programs in Mexico and they had programs in Africa and I honed in on their program in Tanzania.

[00:10:11] Okay. And so you had to apply and you have to pay to go, okay, so you are supporting yourself. This is not, you're not you know, sponsored by anybody unless you have your friends, you know, pay for, help, pay for you, whatever. But this is a self-supported volunteer experience. And I was like, okay, this is what I'm going to do. So I got into the program and after a year working for the New York city commission for the United nations, I resigned and I moved to. I was 20, I think, 22 years old or something

[00:10:51] I got on a plane. I, you know, there were a bunch of volunteers. It was like, maybe like there were less than 10 of us, maybe seven. Like most people don't do this, you know? Our assignment was to live and work with local communities and local organizations in Urrutia Tanzania. Yeah, that was a whole experience in and of itself. I could delve really deeply there. But that's that, that was the step one testing my thinking that I don't want to be a professor. I want to be a development worker. And so I loved it. I mean, it wasn't easy. I got malaria, I got better. You know, I. I had wonderful friendships with Tanzania men and women.

[00:11:37] I learned a lot. I worked, I learned to speak Swahili, beautiful language, you know, just fulfilling my dreams, really fulfilling my dreams. So yeah, that's that is, that is how it started for me. And I did it. I did the year. So it was a year assignment. I worked with [00:12:00] two organizations. Both of them were supporting economic development. So again, I was taking the research that I had done at NYU. I was working with local NGOs that were supporting. People who were retrenched or, or let go by the government because of downsizing. This is like a world bank restructuring programs that had the government kind of release a lot of its staff. So some of these people needed jobs. And so I was, I worked within an organization it's called the center for informal sector promotion.

[00:12:31] I can, believe, I still remember that. And the head of the organization was Dr. Marconi. And I worked with him and his family and, and his staff to provide microfinance programs and, and programs to help entrepreneurship among our target population. I got to go into rural, really rural areas. I lived in you know, I wasn't in the Capitol. So I was already in, you know a satellite urban center, if you will. And I have language classes. Of course I had a minor love affair. Of course,

[00:13:07] we're still friends today He is in New Jersey now. So, so yeah, so that's, that's what it was. I also worked for another organization called the regional economic development Institute which has not looked at the whole region of east Africa. And how do you breed economic domain? So I was put on the path. I had a natural inclination towards studying economic development in Africa, at undergrad. And I pursued that in my my volunteering experience in Tanzania. And during that time I applied to Columbia university, the only Squire by two at that time in my life, there were only two places that mattered to me in the world.

[00:13:47] And that is New York city. And in the continent of Africa, there was nothing else. There was nothing else for me. There was there wasn't, that was my whole world and the New York city.

[00:14:02] Hmm. So I had applied to Columbia and

[00:14:05] Nyra: I just want to insert like, like, when you say this New York, like, there's a reason why you didn't have to go outside of New York, like New York at that time. Had it all, it literally is the melting pot. So if you even want to have a little bit of Africa in your life, that's right. You can go to the neighborhoods and get that little bit of Uganda, Nigeria Ethiopia, you know, South Africa, whatever it is, pocket. Place in, in New York. So I absolutely get it. And then, you know, needless to say, the UN is there and you were already at ties and connections there, your needs were met. And even to the point. When you said you were black nationals in high school, like that was also a really awesome time to be a black national, culture of New York.

[00:15:02] You understand what I'm saying? We're talking about eighties. Hip hop is breathing. We're talking about

[00:15:12] Amani: we're talking about that. Like, you know, walking around with the medallion in the red and the green and the black, I mean that. That was the context within which I came into political consciousness. Absolutely. Absolutely. 

[00:15:30] Nyra: Just out of contrast, like if you were coming up in this time, could you have made those same decisions, do you think?

[00:15:37] Amani: I think the, the way I was raised at home pointed me in this direction anyway. So if we backtrack a little bit, my father was a diplomat. Okay. Okay. My father worked for his government and from the DRC as a diplomat, at that time he met my mom, my mom and my dad met at the United nations. My mom was not a diplomat. [00:16:00] She was working, she worked in the fashion industry and I think she went to a party and she went my dad. So, you know, I, my brother was born in Canada. I was born in Sweden. You know, I lived in India before I lived in. I spoke French before I spoke English. And English was just the second language on route to the third languages, which was Swahili.

[00:16:19] And then I picked up Spanish, but we'll get there later. So I think I was predisposed. I, I, you know, one thing I have realized.is Who you come from, where you're raised, how you're raised, you know, what's normal quote, unquote, normal in your house will, will definitely has an impact on the direction of your life. And that's just not, that's not to say this all could have gone south and I could have just, you know, worked in New York city and never left New York. That's that's I have cousins who are like that too, right. On both sides on my mom's side, as well as my, my dad's side. But I think I was just naturally curious about traveling.

[00:16:56] And my mom talked to me a lot about the way people live in other countries and that the United States is not the end all be all right. So the United States offers incredible privilege and incredible opportunities. You have to seize them. The system's not designed for your success. That's clear, you know, But realize that, you know, even though you're going to have to fight like hell to make it here as a black woman there are women out there who don't even have that chance. I want to fill out my picture a little bit more. My mother made sure I actually traveled internationally as a child. She was not wealthy. Right. You know, she, she, she scrapes you. She found ways. But when I was. There was also a chance in luck. There was also that I have to say when I was in the fifth grade my mom, my stepfather and myself, we moved to Papa new Guinea.

[00:17:51] Okay. Okay. Yes. I lived in Port Moresby for a year. My mother really enjoyed the experience. I learned how to swim. I [00:18:00] learned to play tennis and I read my first book book. Like not just like, like a, like a novel, you know, like, because I didn't have access to television. There was no TV in that country. It was really, really a developing countries. So there was that. And when we, while we were there, we traveled to the Philippines to Singapore, to Hong Kong before it was part of Chinese. So, you know, exposure to other cultures was really important for my mom. And so she made sure that I got those opportunities. The other piece is I have, so I come from my father's African right.

[00:18:31] And African families sometimes have a lot of kids. So I have like six or seven siblings. And one of my siblings, my sister, Michelle lived in Belgium and she sold [word not clear] us. And when I was 12, my mom sent me to Belgium for the summer. So I stayed in a small town in Belgium called Atlanta. And I got my French and that's another way to sustain my language.

[00:18:59] Yeah. I fought, I fought the French, I call my mother would speak to me. And then she sent me to Europe in a French speaking environment for the summer. You know, they're like, you gotta speak French here. So that kept my French alive, basically. When I was at Hillcrest in high school with you, I went to I went to Mexico with a group of students that was organized by the school

[00:19:21] Nyra: What? How could i not know about that ? when was it ?That was clubbing. I

[00:19:34] Amani: that was my mom pay for that. You know, so there were things opportunities, I would say throughout my childhood where my mom was like, you need to leave the United States. I don't want you to think that this is it. There are other realities. There are kids, your age have been living very different lives. And I want you to have an appreciation for that. So. So it's not just school. It wasn't just school. It was home too. And these kind of extra [00:20:00] activities that my mom made sure that I got into I'm because she did a great job. 

[00:20:07] Nyra: And I just know you're doing a bang up job with your girls doing my oh yeah.

[00:20:11] Amani: I had to one up her. I was like, okay, my mom did that for me. What do I have to do for my own kids? Right. So, yeah, that's the thing, that's also a way of paying it forward for her, you know, it's like, okay, make sure that your daughters, you know, get at least what you had. So we, we, that my box ha been checked.

[00:20:32] Nyra: So so you're amazing. You're amazing. How'd you meet your husband.

[00:20:37] Amani: Okay. So now I'm at Columbia university. I didn't want to hear it now. That's a perfect you perfectly. I didn't meet him when i was in Tanzania, I got into Columbia finally. Cause I did try twice. By the way, I failed the first time I did not get in. I have to try again. So I got in the second time, remind me to tell you a story of USB [word not clear] my master for go ahead. And so I was living in Harlem going to school at Columbia. And I lived in a one of those beautiful, big brownstones. I had like a room. So the person who owned the brownstone rented rooms out to students from, from Columbia and But he also happens to have a family friend who decided to send his son or their son to New York to work in the New York city restaurants.

[00:21:25] He was a chef. He is a chef. He was, we met at this building and we started dating. And that's how I met my first husband, who was my, essentially was my neighbor. And. He's Spaniard. And he was, he had a very different childhood than my own. But it was very, very, very open-minded. And I remember when I was graduating from colombia. I was offered my first job in Benin in west Africa. And I remember asking him, or, well, I, you know, I need to move to Benin for this job. And he was like, oh, that's so awesome. I'll just come and see you. I was like, okay. And he was like, where is Benin. Is that in Asia?

[00:22:22] I was like, no, it's in west Africa. He was like, oh, okay. That's fine. So innocent. So I was like, it's fine. Yeah. We've been dating a couple of months and he moved in. He moved to west Africa with me. 

[00:22:41] Nyra: And then did he find work there. 

[00:22:43] Amani: Eventually, yes. So he is trained, he's a trained chef and he was working in New York city and, you know, in restaurants, very good ones. And so when we moved to Benin and I worked with Catholic relief services he found a a job in a really nice restaurant in Benin and he became their head Chef. And it was like walking distance from our house and it was walking distance from my office. So he did work. He did working with Africa.

[00:23:08] Nyra: Wonderful. 

[00:23:10] Amani: And we were in Benin for three years three good years in, in west Africa. And my French got solid. I mean, cause I had no, I mean that was, I was like working in French now and then we moved to Zimbabwe was the next one. And in Zimbabwe, when we got pregnant with my daughter, with our daughter, Sophie, and unfortunately we were only in Zimbabwe for a year. We moved to Mali, went back to west Africa and that's where I had, I had our second daughter, Isabella. Yeah. And and then we moved to Sierra Leone. West Africa, and then I'm going to just jump and we can go back to any of these countries. And then I got into business school and we moved to Spain because I applied for business school in Spain.

[00:23:54] I didn't, I decided at that point, I didn't want another graduate degree from the United States. I kind of wanted to study in another country. So I said, well, he's, you know, my husband's from Spain. Let me study an MBA in Spain, there was a great business school there called IE business school. It was a program in English because my Spanish was not going to handle business school level like issues now.

[00:24:17] So we moved to Spain and I got an MBA there and that's where I picked up from my very ordinary mentoree Spanish. 

[00:24:26] Nyra: Oh my gosh, what a world win around, but I mean, so bold. So I mean, your, your life is one of adventure, but I'm sure you didn't even pick. Did you really, did you really tap into that though? Or were you just moving with where you had the decision that you were making for your life? You never, so I would imagine that your, the lines got, there was no lines for you. 

[00:24:56] Amani: I think I had worked really hard to, so my life is about experience more than like, for example, I wasn't trying to get to a certain physician at work. Right. I just wanted to live and work in Africa and do meaningful something meaningful. Right. Of course I want it to, you know, pay off my student loans. You know, I had, you know, I have to be real. I couldn't do it for free. But but it wasn't like I had like a particular ambition. I was very content kind of taking on these positions and, and, and, and saying yes to opportunity.

[00:25:33] You know, I, I liked the organization I was working with. They were, you know, asking me to, okay, you've done your time in one country. Would you consider this undergraduate? And I was like, yeah. Awesome. Because it's like, the continent is. It's the county story. There's so much you could see. And I haven't, you know, been to every single country. And so the opportunity to live in another country, I absolutely said yes to, I was not. Although everything that happened, wasn't wonderful, but I was never disenchanted with my decision to move to Africa and to live in Africa. And I had a partner who was with me. He was like, yeah, let's move to .

[00:26:12] Okay. Let's move. You know, Molly, let's go to Sierra Leone. One might've said, oh, Sierra Leone had a civil war. And you know, it's not, you know, but it's not an active war right now. And the, and the work that I am able to do, I can deliver it in, Sierra Leone. So let's, let's not say no. There, there was only, there was only one country that I said no to, and it was a little bit too unstable because I had very young children and I just need one of the basic, basic things you, I think you need to look for, especially if you have young kids or you have a house issue.

[00:26:48] That's the other thing is that basically is health care. Because if the health care system, you know, could help manage whatever you had to throw at me or whatever happens then then I was inclined to say yes, if I felt that the healthcare system was not going to give me good pediatric support. That's when I had to pause. If I did not have the kids at that point, I probably would have said yes. 

[00:27:12] Nyra: Which country was that ?

[00:27:13] Amani: Guinea Guinea Conakry yeah, I was like, I'm not, I'm not going to go to Guinea. Okay. And that was, that was an offer to become a country director. And I said, yeah, at that point, I, they were like, would you be interested in being the country director for this country?

[00:27:28] And I said, I can't, I have, my kids are too small and it's a little too fragile. Right. Right. 

[00:27:35] Nyra: So if you were, it was just you, you might've been able to guide them. 

[00:27:40] Amani: I don't have any health concerns myself, so it's fine. You can deal with, you can deal with like the tropical diseases in any country like malaria. And they see that everyday, all day. That's nothing You don't want to have Malaria in United states,. That's when you become weird, but in Africa, if you've got a malaria [00:28:00] case, 

[00:28:00] Nyra: I had malaria in Kenya. They got you a bottle of this that and you are fine 

[00:28:10] Amani: they handle that very well. But but yeah, for little babies and vaccines and I was like, No, I'm not, I didn't feel comfortable. And I, I spoke with colleagues who had lived in the country who actually advised me to think twice, but they were like [sentence not clear]

[00:28:33] Nyra: you know, it's my dream to, cause I've always felt like I wanted, I just knew that I always would have that the remainder of my days,. Whenever I decide that will be. That I would have a place in Africa. Funny enough. I always felt west Africa because I'm also Haitian. I don't know if you know that I do my father's side. Right. So I said, you know, I would go to new Guinea, you know, or, or Cote d'Ivoire is really the, the place to go 

[00:29:06] Amani: for me that is the paris actually, I would say at its time, it was like the Paris of westAfrica, but I think dot card[word not clear] gives it a good running. If you want to say French, if you want to say Francophone, those two cities are amazing.

[00:29:23] Nyra: I had to choose a country in Africa to live the rest of your life. What's your favorite and why?

[00:29:36] Amani: All right. Well, first of all, for those, for those who are listening on Guinea, Guinea has improved greatly. So Guinea back in the day was a little rough in some way, then Guinea is doing a little bit better now. So I just want to update the, the, the crew on Guinea. So if, if I had to, if I had to choose this kind of, unfortunately this country is still having problems, but I would choose Zimbabwe.

[00:29:59] [00:30:00] I absolutely loved, loved, loved Zimbabwe. Am I also love, love, love Tanzania, Tanzania? Oh my God. 

[00:30:11] Nyra: I can sit at the beach and watch the water. 

[00:30:19] Amani: You see? Okay. So first I have to tell you a little bit more about why. These countries, both Tanzania. I'm sure it's gonna be, I mean, this region, I have a map of Africa right here next to my desk. I love mountains. I love mountains. I like cool weather. If you'd give me option between a day at the beach and the day in the mountains, I'll take the day in the mountains any day, right? The mountains in Zimbabwe are, are inspiring. They are inspiring on top of that. You have. The you have access to Botswana, and you have Victoria falls, which is like the most amazing waterfall ever. You have the Zambezi river, you know, I mean, using, and I've never been to Namibia. I haven't been to Botswana.

[00:31:02] So just, just it's like, it's like being in New York city and then having access to like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, like all of the states around you're still interested. So Zimbabwe was awesome. Unfortunately, they are going through a very tumultuous time. But if they, if they were stable, super stable, I would, I would seriously consider buying property there, the next place. And actually my very, very first love was Tanzania. So when I went, when I was in my twenties, I fell in love with the country. They also have amazing, beautiful mountains on the set. You know, of course the Serengeti and rhino, you know, amazing the culture, the, and the different tribe. Oh my God. And the fact that you can speak one language and move throughout the country throughout the country.

[00:31:44] That is so key. So here's the thing, here's the thing you can be. So I moved in Zimbabwe in 2003, four, right? You can have Africa the culture. And all that comes with the language, the music, the dress, the vibration and everything, but you can also have yoga classes, tofu you know all the things that you might want or miss from the Unigted States, if they're too.