Bring on the criticism

Why is it that I don’t seem to be able to keep a new Nalgene bottle for more that a few days? The first I left on the foreign exchange counter in Nairobi airport. This second one got nicked along with about 100 radios when we were rushed by a community on my most recent distribution. I was feeing very bitter about that, but later found out that that night the town was raided by cattle thieves. They lost cows and house was burned. Fate is at least fair, and a bit of plastic isn’t too much to worry about.

The vacation to London was fun, but I didn’t return energized for the work. I didn’t really expect to, though. The time away was very good and I stocked up on all the things I wanted. It took 3 days, 5 stops and $1400 to get there, but the 8 days was very much worth it, if just to speak to my mother on a clear phone line and to thank my anal-retentive brother for neatly storing all of my stuff in his attic. He even shrink-wrapped my rucksack for me. Now that’s love. In between seeing family and buying all the stuff I needed, I actually had very little free time, but did manage to catch up with some friends. It was particularly nice to be cycling again, too. On leaving I managed to get everything into the suitcase, had 0.2kgs of luggage allowance to spare, got back to Rumbek in half the time it took to go and didn’t even have to bribe anyone to get out of the airport. So, all in all, a very good trip.

I faced some harsh criticism in the UK from a friend from whom I didn’t expect it. I was hoping that my time out of Sudan would give me the chance to cast a critical eye over my experiences of the last couple of months, and a positive outcome of his criticism was that it pushed me to do it. For this I’m grateful.

The charges were:
1) I have the air of a colonial.
2) I like telling people what to do.
3) I have little understanding of the culture.
4) I lack basic respect for the people and the culture and I owe it to them and to myself to leave.

Points 1 and 2 = yes, fine, ok, true. But I take as much as I give, and I’m the first to take the piss out of myself.

Point 3, also guilty, but that’s partly because I’ve not stopped moving since I arrived in an attempt to get these bloody radios out before the rains close off every road to everywhere.

Point 4 is what hurt the most, and this is why:

I visited a friend of a friend a year or two ago in Cambodia who was working for the UN. I was most grateful for the offer of accommodation and was suitably impressed by the plush centrally-located apartment, for which the rent was apparently extortionate. I was shocked, though, when I started asking him about the city and the country to find that he knew very little. He’d been there almost 2 years. How could you not know about the place in which you lived, especially as an expatriate working for a major development organization who has an influence on every part of society? Surely you NEED an understanding of the culture if you’re going to advise and put in place systems of governance for the country?

I didn’t express these thoughts to him, but picked up the following from conversations we had. His reasoning was that he was there to do a job at which he was more than competent and he offered skills that you couldn’t find in Cambodia. Importing them was the only option.

I disagreed. I felt there was a hidden cost to the presence of an expat. His employer paid his extortionate rent in hard currency. That landlord will never accept anything else again, nor will the neighbouring landlords. A similar inflation will happen in all the goods and services the foreigner buys. It’s good for the sellers but crap for the locals who live alongside the foreigner and who see everything they buy go up in price, because the foreigner and his army of colleagues don’t mind paying a dollar for a coffee. That’s cheap on their international salary, but still would take an unreasonable chunk of, say, his Cambodian admin assistant’s salary for just one drink.

And then there’s the culture thing. Surely an understanding of the culture is vital in order to be effective at your work, no?

Apparently not. It depends on who’s evaluating the efficacy of the work.

So based on this and on my experiences as a volunteer for two years in rural Ghana, I concluded that being an expat on an international salary in a developing country was a bad thing. If you’re going to be there, you should be doing and living like the locals, not ensconcing yourself in an air conditioned expat bubble.

I think I came to this conclusion a little too easily though: partly because I’m a little presumptuous, and mostly because I still desperately wanted a career in international development but had yet to make any headway into it. Criticizing made my position more comfortable.

I thought more on the issues. I spoke them over with a number of friends. I noted the salaries and benefits of said international positions. I re-concluded: there are a lot of international development jobs out there. I’m asking moral questions that most of the people who take these jobs don’t even consider. I’ve lived the volunteer life and have been passed by a big white UN vehicle whilst I was stranded in the middle of nowhere. I know how the other half lives. If I’m not in one of those jobs, one of them will be.

I knew I was opening myself up to criticism when I came here. I knew I’d be treading a thin line. I guess I was disappointed that the friend who I thought knew me so well, apparently missed such a sizable dilemma in my life.

I must apologize if anyone else is offended by my expressed demeanor or disdain, but I feel I have good reason for it. I feel I am consistent. I was disdainful whilst in Atlanta, Birmingham, London and Amman. I am equally disdainful here. It’s not a very nice quality, I know, but if I weren’t consistent, then I think there’d be a problem.

I have a basic respect for every person I meet for the fact that they are person and they have a story. Each may have suffered in their own personal way, but relative to each other I feel some warrant more time and effort. For example, those with access to free schooling and healthcare versus those with no access to basic sanitation. I do judge, also a bad habit.

Do I have respect for Sudanese culture? No, no not much, in all honesty. I haven’t seen much, nor learnt more that a few words of Dinka, but from what I have learnt, I can conclude that there is little Sudanese culture. Evidence of Cambodian culture hits the visitor immediately. Nothing like that happens here. There are not the practices and arts that you normally see of cultures that have pride: like Ashanti Kente, Jordanian Mensef, or English music concerts.

Instead, there is a pervasive practice of opportunism that is almost brutal, particularly against foreigners. If I am ever in a car accident/incident, I will be jailed and fined. If I fire one of my employees, even for drunkenness or theft, the courts will rule in his favour and I will have to pay compensation. Theft is a way of life.

Short-term thinking also pervades: get now, don’t invest time, money or effort in things that may pay off even as soon as tomorrow, such as a returning customer. Business owners fiddle the bills and over charge because you are here today, best take advantage.

There is little understanding or appreciation of the cause-effect relationship. My Sudanese employees do not appear to understand that by not doing a job properly now (like by slipping a few radios to a couple of guys nearby), there will soon be consequences (every guy nearby will rush at us to get one). The first instinct when something such as this goes wrong is to blame someone or everyone else: in this case the community was obviously insane.

The non-Sudanese employees and business owners are immediately apparent.

And then there’s the nepotism, corruption, tribalism...

So a lot of these you find anywhere on the planet, especially the nepotism, corruption, and fiddling of bills. The other issues we might explain by having just come out of a long-running war where you didn’t know how long you were going to live and knowing who your allies were governed whether you’d make it to the end of the week. What cause or effect is there, when if I’m connected I’ll be saved, if you’re not you won’t. Little else mattered. Incidentally where there was just as much South-South conflict as North-South conflict. Does this justify such behaviour today?

No, I think. But the fact that there was a war means I can better understand why it all happens. The best I can do, perhaps, is teach those I interact with that there is a better way. Or can I? Is that not being all colonial and imposing and disrespecting of local culture?

I recognize the atrocious and very long experience this country has faced, and respect that only 2 years after the formal end of the civil war, that there is little evidence of battles having been fought. But in almost every experience I have gone into since arriving, I have gone into with an open and neutral mind. I have later berated myself, in almost every instance, for not being harder or more brutal and for being a pushover. I leave with little respect for those I have interacted with, for the apparent harm they are doing to themselves. It gets to me after not too long.

It is because of this that, after even my short time here, I say that I see little promise and have little faith or respect for local culture. It’s harsh, but so is the environment. This isn’t across the whole country, of course. Just here in the Dinka strongholds of the South. Wau, a town about 4 ours away is a comparative paradise. We’ll be moving our office there in the coming months.

Ya, so you see the outcome of my critical thought and week-long vacation. My next vacation will have to be somewhere where I’m not allowed to self-analyze as much.

Why stay at all, you might be asking? There are pleasant experiences: wild monkeys on the road. Vibrant blue, red and yellow birds everywhere. No commute to work. Knowing that I am making a direct and immediate improvement to someone’s life. Frequent offers for marriage. Sunshine. Thunderstorms and lightening that put fireworks displays to shame. Being the only white guy in the mosque and seeing people’s reaction to me there. Eggs, chapattis and sweet tea by the roadside for breakfast. They’re not many, but they’ll do for now.

I’m still applying for jobs. I barraged the WHO with applications, but no love so far. Anyone know anyone who works for them who can put a good word in for me? Well, when in Rome…

Hope all are well.