Walls

I am sitting in the District Hospital’s Environmental Health office while I write this blog entry. I was perusing my notes from pre departure training, and I am overwhelmed at how useful they are! Note to self and future JFs, take notes about what you learn during pre-dep and in-country training! One specific entry I made in my notes was a fear I had. Going back to that headspace before I left Toronto is so interesting. The fear I had was “losing my ambition, drive, passion, ideas, and critical thinking because I keep running into walls”.
These ‘walls’ can be many things, like small details that get in the way of progress or cultural norms that you must learn to live with. One example of this is what JFs lovingly call “Malawi time”. Unlike Canada, Malawians don’t rush to beat the clock. In fact, I have only seen two people carry a watch since I came here. If a meeting it set for 9:00am, it’s not likely to start at 10:30, it WILL start at 10:30, and people will plan for such things and come late. Another small frustration I can think of happened this morning. I was coming into work and no one left the keys for me to get into the office. So I wandered around until I found a friend with an office open so I could charge my phone with the electricity outlet. Maybe this ‘wall’ is not related to efficiency and is a cultural barrier. My placement involves gathering information about hygiene practices of villages to determine the open defecation free status, and how the major players in the village contribute to this status. I have learned that as a white woman, I am treated as a black man, with respect, a chance to voice my opinion, and the highest seat at a meeting with the village. The women of the village sit on the ground and only speak when spoken too. This cultural norm is difficult to work with because the depth of information that I am looking for is mostly found from the women’s perspective. I cannot simply walk into a village meeting and gather accurate information about the village households. Nor can I simply gather this information from the government office. This makes my placement so incredibly interesting and fun to tackle, because I must literally work (harvesting, gathering water, attending church, cooking, cleaning, meeting with the women groups, etc) to gain trust and acceptance from the women of the community. What are the hygiene practices in the household REALLY like outside of what the village leaders are saying or the government is assuming? This is a wall I am having an amazing time scaling.
Let’s go back to that fear of mine, of getting frustrated and losing my ambition because I keep running into these ‘walls’. Other illustrations are swimming upstream or running up an escalator that is going down. However, these walls are not made by anyone but myself. I am the one trying to beat the clock, I am the one who is used to having my own office space, and I am the white foreigner who expects in depth information now now now. I am the one who likes structure, making lists, punctuality, reliable internet, and itineraries that actually happen. I am the one building these walls. I am the problem.
Therefore I have decided to go with the flow. The other day, I went to visit the women in a neighbouring village, but rumours had been spread of finding a body, so no one attended the meeting. Luckily, this meeting was set to happen in a school and there were a hundred children around. With the good ‘ol EWB spirit I developed a workshop targeted for school children on hygiene practices on the fly. The children were really excited to interact with me, and I them. We had fun, and I gathered some really interesting information from children about their household’s hygiene status in terms of open defecation. This is an example of where you just have to go with the flow. Like my coach Duncan told me when he dropped me off in my very much loved district Chitipa, always have a plan A, plan B, plan C, plan D, etc, and if these don’t work, plan on the spot. Being able to scale the walls that you bring into the country is a difficult task, but you just need a positive attitude and recognize that perhaps you are the problem. When this light bulb comes on, gleefully get out of the way of progress.
Have a super fantastic day!
Karina
Disclaimer: this blog is from the perspective and opinion of the writer only, and does not represent any other parties that the writer may represent, such as Engineers Without Borders Canada. Thank you.