Foreign aid donors (and the rest of us) will probably have to live with and learn to accept a modest amount of corruption and patronage. As the Brazilians put it, such “grease’ (or suborn, baksheesh, coma, morbid, or pot-de-vin---depending on the country you’re in) is what makes the world go around and makes the often-creaking machinery of government function. The problem is how to prevent this from growing into larger-scale or society-wide corruption and kleptocracy.