I awoke with a start at the chicken pecking on the roof of my tin house. I can’t understand why the owners believe that placing their ground nuts on the roof keeps them farther away from pests, when the worst pests have wings. I lie inside my warm sleeping bag for a moment longer before the urgency to urinate kicks in. Living in a country previously colonized by the British, some habits have trickled down, including driving on the left side of the road and the electricity outlets. But the habit currently affecting me is the routine of drinking tea three times a day. Whenever a woman comes to visit, whether it is early morning, afternoon, or evening, it’s polite to ask “have you taken tea”. Whether they have or not, most women respond with “that’s just okay, I’m fine”. It’s the equivalency of asking your friends at home if they’d like a beverage, except here it’s always tea. Drinking tea three times a day, including the added three teaspoons of sugar in every cup really puts some pressure on your kidneys because (a) tea has caffeine which makes you excrete water more and (b) the sugar build up is partially mended by excreting it through urine. So whenever you need to use the latrine, it comes on quickly, and you will literally run with your roll of toilet paper and cell phone flashlight to the outdoor pit latrine in the wee hours of the morning.
Something I have loved during my stay in this foreign place, where I am the alien, is finding stuff that I am good at. Wrapping a skirt, and cooking Nsima are new skills, but I love finding traditional activities where I feel useful and my surroundings astonishingly feel familiar. After using the latrine, I began building a fire in the kitchen outside the main house to warm the water for a bath. It’s polished grey concrete floor, and soot covered walls give me a sense of comfort, as they remind me of my home village south of here, spending the evenings cooking with my little brother. After collecting dried corn husks, some corn stalks, some smallish sticks from the pile of collected branches, and a match (thank goodness for these), I begin the pang’ono pang’ono (little by little) process of building the fire. Building fire also gives me a great deal of comfort because it reminds me of my home in Canada, where living away from the urban and suburban centres means disposing of our own garbage. It was my responsibility for the last two years living at home to build a fire and burn the garbage, and living in the woods taught me how to gather the right underbrush to build with. I love fire, I love how unpredictable it is. I love how no matter where you go, fire will always be consistent. Or perhaps I like it because it’s an oxymoron.
After the fire is ablaze, I follow my flip flops over to the water drum, where we hold water for storage. It’s only 50L, but lends itself when we don’t want to walk to the Afridev pump 150 metres away every time we need to wash our hands or boil water for tea. I remove the lid, bracing myself for my reflection, only to see the bottom dried up. It is only 5:30am, and the sun is barely casting its light, but I pick up some buckets beside the pile of last night’s dishes, and open the squeaky wooden gate leading outside. My head is still dizzy in the morning light, and my flip flops drag and stagger as I walk along the path through the harvested maize fields. Once I reach the pump, I find two women, one is assisting the other as she places a 20L bucket on her head, the baby tied to her back has nodded off. I am reminded once again why women here have such amazing posture, they balance everything on their head with an infant piggy-backing to boot.
What catches my eye at the water pump are two small girls sitting on their haunches playing with bottle caps of the 5L jugs their mothers instruct them to fill. I take a closer look, and realize they are having what I’d call a tea party. They have a plastic cup for a pot, and three bottle caps the size of their small fists. These little girls are sitting together on the freshly swept earth, and the third ‘teacup’ belongs to the Santa Claus stuffed doll in between them. I see the mother calling them, so they replace the caps on their jugs, tie the santa doll on their back with a scarf, place the jug on their head, then follow the voice of their Mama. Seeing four year olds practicing the balancing act with small jugs, or tying their dollies to their backs brings a smile to my face. It reminds me of the time my mother bought me a miniature gardening kit, with seeds and plastic watering can, hoe, and hand shovel manufactured for a 5 year old’s fist. My mother has a green thumb, and just as I wanted to replicate my mother, these children were also following the cultural actions of their parents. Children mimic their parents, and this is consistent no matter where you go.
I loved finding that last consistency because it reminds me that people are just people wherever you go. I find those in developed countries places a picture in their minds that they are very different from those of another continent. When I told my family that I was going to Africa, they pictured me living in a mud hut with hunters wearing no clothes. When I told my roommates I was going to Africa, they pictured me going on a safari and seeing exotic animals. When I told my co-workers I was going to Africa, they pictured jungles of massive mosquitoes and diseases I had learned of in class. People picture themselves as different. It does not imply they place themselves above others however, they simply cannot relate or understand the other culture. After relating my childhood to the ones playing out in front of my eyes at the afridev pump that day, I felt connected to those girls, like we had something innately in common. Understanding that at the heart of people, there are things that remain consistent across cultures, it makes me feel like we are all a part of a world family. With the perspective that these people across borders are like your family, it drastically changes how you see, analyze, and react to the uncontrollable situations they face. If your own flesh and blood was trapped in poverty, sexual exploitation, lack of resources to increase their income that they barely survive on, or dying of preventable diseases, you would spring to action in a heartbeat. Perhaps this explains part of the reason why I am here, part of the motivation behind spending the summer in Malawi. I hope you have been given a chance to see how humanity is connected. We are equals, in a world filled with unjust inequalities.
Karina
Tuesday 9 August 2011
Puzzle Pieces
At the beginning of the summer, one of my goals was to find my place in the development sector. Much of what I knew about development, I had learned from my colleagues in the nursing faculty, EWB at the national and chapter level, foundation learning, and university classes. With my experience working with EWB, I had a pretty good picture of what roles I was interested in, such as fieldwork, research, practical work at a hospital, or managing meetings with donors and the national government. I told this personal objective to my coach during the long road trip up north to my placement in May, and he was super thrilled. Looking back in retrospect, I can make a good guess that he was not thrilled that I would find my answer, he was thrilled I’d set that big of a goal. To be honest, I don’t think any of us really know where our puzzle piece fits into development perfectly. My placement was based on both how Cat knew me, and how Jolly Ann framed the sanitation team’s strategy. It fit rather well, surprisingly, but whether it’s based on my flexibility or their finesse I don’t know. [I’ll go with their finesse]. I’ve had lots of learning experiences, but I still don’t know where my puzzle piece fits. If I am having difficulty finding a place to fit in EWB’s puzzle/approach, then how difficult will it be to fit into the entire development world?
I’d like to take a step back and explain what I mean about this analogy of the puzzle. The development sector is like a massive puzzle that cannot or has not been finished. There are pieces of every colour, shape, and size strewn over the floor. These pieces may say things like policy, donors, fundraising, fieldwork, research, corruption, trade, marketing, media, good intentions, publicity, money, matching t shirts, abandoned buildings, and the list goes on. Anyone who has experienced development work or the effects of it before would have another pile of word pieces to add. I feel as if through the evolution of EWB, they’ve chosen specific parts of the puzzle in which they wish to work with. You could say that each team strategy whether it be water + sanitation, agriculture, or enhancing infrastructure (forgive me if I’ve missed one of the West African ones) has its own part of the puzzle that it’s working on. We’re like a bunch of old ladies in a retirement home working on different colours of the puzzle. Don’t judge that vision, because I intend to be the puzzle making champion when I retire. From the water and sanitation team strategy I am a part of, we’re all working on the blue pieces that say key words like village volunteers, area mechanics, traditional authorities, extension staff, district support, the district water office, evidence based decisions, Ministry of Health, CLTS, and community financing. There are specific roles/pieces given to APS and also given to JFs. Unfortunately, when you are trying to put pieces together, or perhaps this is just from my experience with puzzles, 95% of the time the pieces don’t fit. That’s where the whole ‘failing forward’ idea comes in. So...that piece did not fit, e.g. volunteers are not actually dependable in sanitation, so let’s try leveraging the traditional authorities’ strength instead. Moreover, let’s publish a report on the work of volunteers in sanitation, so that other districts/countries working in sanitation will see the difficulty in forcing those two pieces together.
So how does this apply to you? Well, this post is mainly directed to those interested in working in international development someday. My advice for you is do not try change the system that you are working with, or add more pieces to the puzzle. Adding a new project or program just adds another layer to the deep pile of unorganized puzzle pieces. The empty buildings scattered across the country are just skeletons left over from good intentions. The matching t-shirts are sold and seen on the everyday farmer. The water point you fundraised for was placed 10ft from a pre-existing one. The development system is a pile of puzzle pieces that need critical thinking, coordination, and the willingness to admit failure in order to starting fitting together properly.
Karina
I’d like to take a step back and explain what I mean about this analogy of the puzzle. The development sector is like a massive puzzle that cannot or has not been finished. There are pieces of every colour, shape, and size strewn over the floor. These pieces may say things like policy, donors, fundraising, fieldwork, research, corruption, trade, marketing, media, good intentions, publicity, money, matching t shirts, abandoned buildings, and the list goes on. Anyone who has experienced development work or the effects of it before would have another pile of word pieces to add. I feel as if through the evolution of EWB, they’ve chosen specific parts of the puzzle in which they wish to work with. You could say that each team strategy whether it be water + sanitation, agriculture, or enhancing infrastructure (forgive me if I’ve missed one of the West African ones) has its own part of the puzzle that it’s working on. We’re like a bunch of old ladies in a retirement home working on different colours of the puzzle. Don’t judge that vision, because I intend to be the puzzle making champion when I retire. From the water and sanitation team strategy I am a part of, we’re all working on the blue pieces that say key words like village volunteers, area mechanics, traditional authorities, extension staff, district support, the district water office, evidence based decisions, Ministry of Health, CLTS, and community financing. There are specific roles/pieces given to APS and also given to JFs. Unfortunately, when you are trying to put pieces together, or perhaps this is just from my experience with puzzles, 95% of the time the pieces don’t fit. That’s where the whole ‘failing forward’ idea comes in. So...that piece did not fit, e.g. volunteers are not actually dependable in sanitation, so let’s try leveraging the traditional authorities’ strength instead. Moreover, let’s publish a report on the work of volunteers in sanitation, so that other districts/countries working in sanitation will see the difficulty in forcing those two pieces together.
So how does this apply to you? Well, this post is mainly directed to those interested in working in international development someday. My advice for you is do not try change the system that you are working with, or add more pieces to the puzzle. Adding a new project or program just adds another layer to the deep pile of unorganized puzzle pieces. The empty buildings scattered across the country are just skeletons left over from good intentions. The matching t-shirts are sold and seen on the everyday farmer. The water point you fundraised for was placed 10ft from a pre-existing one. The development system is a pile of puzzle pieces that need critical thinking, coordination, and the willingness to admit failure in order to starting fitting together properly.
Karina
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