So I like to spend a lot of time on my blogs, and when I am unsatisfied with them, they never get published, which defeats the purpose of this whole endeavor. So from now on, I am going to post whatever drafts I have if I have not completed them after two weeks of starting. So here are three that I haven’t been able to commit to, flashes of what’s going on in my head.
Zambia Real Africa
Zambia has an informal slogan that is somewhat nonsensical. “Zambia Real Africa.” Everyone has a t-shirt that proclaims it. Over Easter weekend, Sherie and I went to Kafue National Park, about three hours east of Lusaka. We stayed at this great lodge called Mukambi, where Basel the Hippo walks up the verandah in the evenings and every evening meal is three courses. On a game drive we saw herds of zebra, four lions, several elephants, a spotted hyena eating a hippo carcass, and tons of impala and other deer like creatures. Afterward we took hot showers and roasted marshmallows to make smores. And for a few days, Zambia really did feel like the “Real Africa.” Gorgeous, serene, and teeming with life and promise.
The work we do is usually fraught with the opposite stereotypes about Africa—exploitation, hunger, unemployment, squalor, poverty, etc. Sometimes it is just nice to be on the other side again, although it’s also disorienting to experience abundance in such close proximity to scarcity. And it’s definitely hard not to feel guilty, knowing that in just a few short months my life will return to whatever I want it to be, but there will be thousands of refugees left in the dusty confines of their current lives for decades to come.
Maptitude
Maybe more than shoes, or French toast, all the women in my family have a proclivity for loving maps. The way they fold up (properly, do not bend against the crease), for one thing. Or show you vista points, or shortcuts. And make you feel so small and knowledgeable at the same time. But more than that, maps tell you where you are, where you’re going, and where you’ve been. The geography inextricable from the aspect of time associated with place- the very two components of life itself.
But maps are not static pieces of paper that are eternally reliable. Borders, especially in Africa, are porous and shifting. And where there might be a mass of grayish green color with no other demarcation on a two dimensional plane, on top of it in the real world there may in fact be a 500 square mile refugee camp, as forgotten as the cartographer who chose not to label the area.
Character Study
Some quirky notes and anecdotes about the non-refugee people who surround us.
Father Kim/Father Young- Two youngish Korean missionaries and Catholic priests who live in Block B with awesome facilities (as in satellite television and a gas stove). They treat us to refrigerated cokes whenever we visit and I am always sure to use their toilet just for the sake being able to flush it. They also make weird funny jokes about eating dogs. They are also trying to learn English, so sometimes you catch them repeating words to their computer screen for their English lesson software. Last time was “Fornication.” “Fornication.” “Fornication.” I kept trying not to laugh…
The Italians- A beekeeping couple from north of Milan who lived in Zone G for almost four years (holy cow). They have a pizza oven in their beautiful kitchen that they built themselves. They are teaching the community how to make honey and sell it to generate income.
Peace Corps- One volunteer lives just outside of Meheba and comes to keep us company when we are overwhelmingly bored (usually once every week or two). He recently ate a whole frog, alive, on a dare. They do nice things for us, like let us stay at their communal house in Solwezi when our car breaks down, or invite us for Thanksgiving meals.
Pharmaking- Sam, Raj and Vinod are three Indian guys who started a pharmacy in Solwezi, and hook us up with whatever meds we want because they are awesome, in the past they donated medicines to our health service centers, allowing us to treat over 1000 patients.
The Royal- Anthony and Corne are two young South African guys who work at the Royal Solwezi Hotel and ceaselessly make fun of us for being “dirty tree huggers,” and people who just want to “save the whales.” Corne lives on a chicken farm called Flamingo Farm.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Here and There
Here: If you find yourself at the end of a rainbow, you must bleat like a goat, or else you will turn into an albino
There: At the end of the rainbow there is a short green man with red hair, big ears, a top hat and buckles on his shoes. Next to him, you will find a pot of gold.
Sometimes our crazies collide.
There: At the end of the rainbow there is a short green man with red hair, big ears, a top hat and buckles on his shoes. Next to him, you will find a pot of gold.
Sometimes our crazies collide.
Voacb Lesson
Humanitarian jargon—what does it mean? Sometimes I use these words when I am talking to you guys, and realize that they might not make sense outside of the context of work.
Refugee Camp vs. Refugee Settlement: Meheba is a refugee settlement. That means that after two years of living here, refugees are no longer eligible for most relief type services (namely, food rations) and are given a two acre plot of land to cultivate for subsistence farming (Meheba is 750square kilometers). A camp is thus much smaller geographically and its residents tend to live there for a shorter period of time, during which refugees are assisted with food, education, healthcare and other services.
Protection: This word is used incessantly, by UNHCR, NGOs, and refugees alike. It actually encompasses anything and everything that safeguard’s a refugee’s security. It can range from food safety to physical safety to educational and employment rights. UNHCR’s responsibility is to “protect,” refugees, in this sense of the word, so if you can prove that you are “insecure” in the camp and are unable to return to your home county because you would be insecure there too, you may qualify for resettlement.
Insecurity: lacking in protection. Someone somewhere made the mistake of teaching this word to a refugee, and now every letter written by a refugee in Meheba hides a sentence in it that includes the phrase, “I am insecurity.”
Durable Solution: theoretically, no one should be a refugee forever. Being a refugee is a temporary solution to fleeing conflict. The three durable solutions are:
1) Repatriation- Returning to your country of origin. In Meheba, this is not happening as successfully as it could be. Our three largest demographics by nationality are Angolan, Congolese, and Rwandese.
A) The Angolan population has lived here for more than three decades. Culturally and linguistically they are nearly Zambian. Most young Angolans in Meheba were born here and don’t speak Portuguese, making it impossible to continue school or work in Angola.
B) Eastern DRC is still conflict ridden and too unsafe for the Congolese to return home.
C) The Rwandese living in Meheba are predominantly Hutu and fear being persecuted as genocidaires if they return home.
2) Resettlement- Being adopted by another country (US, Norway, Denmark, Canada...). The process for resettlement is lengthy (up to two years and dozens of interviews and fact checking procedures) and a last resort. It is intended to serve the least secure refugees. Often they are victims of torture both in their home countries and in the camp.
3) Local Integration- Being accepted as a legal immigrant in the host country and living there indefinitely. Zambia is very unlikely to grant Meheba’s refugees this status. They believe that allowing other nationalities to live here would sow seeds for future political and cultural instability. This is what happened in eastern Congo over a hundred years ago. Rwandese were allowed to settle in that country, and ethnic and political tensions slowly built up until war eventually broke out. The Zambian government has told Angolan refugees that they will never be locally integrated.
Cessation Clause- A legal declaration that refugees are no longer welcome in the host country. For example, Zambia has issued the cessation clause on refugees from Sierra Leone. They do not have the right live or work in Zambia unless they have immigration papers, which can be extremely expensive to obtain. A work permit costs around 3 million kwacha ($600). UNHCR mandated wage standards for refugees in Zambia are around $40/month for fulltime work.
Unaccompanied minor or Double Orphan: Children under the age of 18 who have no parents. The word orphan here can mean the death of one parent, not necessarily both.
Vulnerable- The disabled, unaccompanied minors, and unaccompanied elderly.
Participatory development- A development philosophy that prioritizes community input in the creation of development projects. FORGE develops our projects collaboratively, assessing needs through community members themselves and developing proposals through community project facilitators. Great in theory, imperfect in practice.
Refugee Camp vs. Refugee Settlement: Meheba is a refugee settlement. That means that after two years of living here, refugees are no longer eligible for most relief type services (namely, food rations) and are given a two acre plot of land to cultivate for subsistence farming (Meheba is 750square kilometers). A camp is thus much smaller geographically and its residents tend to live there for a shorter period of time, during which refugees are assisted with food, education, healthcare and other services.
Protection: This word is used incessantly, by UNHCR, NGOs, and refugees alike. It actually encompasses anything and everything that safeguard’s a refugee’s security. It can range from food safety to physical safety to educational and employment rights. UNHCR’s responsibility is to “protect,” refugees, in this sense of the word, so if you can prove that you are “insecure” in the camp and are unable to return to your home county because you would be insecure there too, you may qualify for resettlement.
Insecurity: lacking in protection. Someone somewhere made the mistake of teaching this word to a refugee, and now every letter written by a refugee in Meheba hides a sentence in it that includes the phrase, “I am insecurity.”
Durable Solution: theoretically, no one should be a refugee forever. Being a refugee is a temporary solution to fleeing conflict. The three durable solutions are:
1) Repatriation- Returning to your country of origin. In Meheba, this is not happening as successfully as it could be. Our three largest demographics by nationality are Angolan, Congolese, and Rwandese.
A) The Angolan population has lived here for more than three decades. Culturally and linguistically they are nearly Zambian. Most young Angolans in Meheba were born here and don’t speak Portuguese, making it impossible to continue school or work in Angola.
B) Eastern DRC is still conflict ridden and too unsafe for the Congolese to return home.
C) The Rwandese living in Meheba are predominantly Hutu and fear being persecuted as genocidaires if they return home.
2) Resettlement- Being adopted by another country (US, Norway, Denmark, Canada...). The process for resettlement is lengthy (up to two years and dozens of interviews and fact checking procedures) and a last resort. It is intended to serve the least secure refugees. Often they are victims of torture both in their home countries and in the camp.
3) Local Integration- Being accepted as a legal immigrant in the host country and living there indefinitely. Zambia is very unlikely to grant Meheba’s refugees this status. They believe that allowing other nationalities to live here would sow seeds for future political and cultural instability. This is what happened in eastern Congo over a hundred years ago. Rwandese were allowed to settle in that country, and ethnic and political tensions slowly built up until war eventually broke out. The Zambian government has told Angolan refugees that they will never be locally integrated.
Cessation Clause- A legal declaration that refugees are no longer welcome in the host country. For example, Zambia has issued the cessation clause on refugees from Sierra Leone. They do not have the right live or work in Zambia unless they have immigration papers, which can be extremely expensive to obtain. A work permit costs around 3 million kwacha ($600). UNHCR mandated wage standards for refugees in Zambia are around $40/month for fulltime work.
Unaccompanied minor or Double Orphan: Children under the age of 18 who have no parents. The word orphan here can mean the death of one parent, not necessarily both.
Vulnerable- The disabled, unaccompanied minors, and unaccompanied elderly.
Participatory development- A development philosophy that prioritizes community input in the creation of development projects. FORGE develops our projects collaboratively, assessing needs through community members themselves and developing proposals through community project facilitators. Great in theory, imperfect in practice.
A day in the life
So I am asked variations of this question a lot, “So, what do you do?” blah blah project manager, oversee the development and implementation of a variety of empowerment projects with refugees, blah blah “No, like, everyday, what do you actually DO?”
There is no typical day, that is for sure. In fact, you could say each day is typical in how not typical it is.
Here are two examples of what a day could be like during rainy season.
Scenario A
7:30am: Wake up to some insane thunder. Like cracking, rumbling, booming sounds that make you think your roof is going to fall on you and lighting is going to blind you and then fry your brain.
8:00: Manage to light those darn coals, wait for water to boil.
8:40: Eat some toast and tea and read (right now, Invisible Man and The Stuff of Thought, both are awesome).
9:00: Examine the sky, it is still raining. Too wet to ride our bikes anywhere, and wherever we get to we probably won’t find anyone at our projects. Or our bikes will break from the bad road and weather conditions (this has happened to me twice!) and then you are stuck walking in the rain, grr.
9:30: It is still raining.
10:00: File some old monthly reports. Tape receipts from this month’s purchases into the accounting binder.
11:00: The power is still on orange (almost empty), impossible to do work on my uncharged computer (used the battery yesterday, when there was also no power).
12:00: No employees come to work at the sites that are on our compound because it is raining.
12:30: Make a tuna sandwich (yeah, I horde the contents of my care packages) because the coals have gone out and I am too lazy to re-light them and Alice (our sweet house lady) didn’t show up because of, you guessed it, the rain.
The remainder of the day we twiddle our thumbs and make plans, but really can’t get anything done.
5:30: Eat dinner early due to boredom, probably some sort of Ramen, lament my devolution to my collegiate ways. Exchange stories with Sherie, reminiscing all the crazy things that happen while on the job. You have no idea how much mileage we get out of one or two phrases that were funny when we first heard them, months ago. Re-telling the same sagas over and over is kinda a thing we do.
And they aren’t even funny to anyone else, examples: “We ran into a bit of trouble, somehow.” Or “Just build us a roof!” or “Dogs are bad.” Or “I can come after I finish typing Prince Ben’s police report.” Or “We are not refusing the bicycle.” I am chuckling to myself as I type this, and you all have no idea what I am talking about. Not to fear, I will regale you with these tales over and over (and over) when I return. Call it cabin fever, but leave us alone, we are starved for entertainment out here.
6:30: Play Scrabble with Sherie by candle light.
8:00: Take malaria medicine. Read.
9:00: Bedtime
Scenario B
7:00: Wake up, brush teeth, look outside, it’s going to be dry today!
7:30: Bike to Block D (7km) to meet with police and the Head Teacher at FORGE’s Kunachi Preschool about a burglary of our school.
8:00: Arrive at the police station, wait while some other case is being heard.
9:00: Describe our side of the story, we have recovered the stolen property (some jump ropes, soap, books, chalk, and random classroom materials) and don’t want to press charges against the 16 year old who broke into the school. Give the kid (who has been handcuffed to a pole in the backyard for a day or two) a lecture about going back to school, and tell him we will hammer him in court if he’s caught stealing again.
While at the station, discover that one of your employee’s bikes was stolen three weeks ago and never reported it.
10:30: Check in on our computer training staff, deliver some supplies to them (paper and scissors, very high-tech). Remind them to gather demographic information for their students to incorporate into monitoring and evaluation data collection. Commiserate about the bad power these days.
11:00: Bike to Block G (5km)
11:30: Catch the end of Dufatanye Preschoolers (our school in G) doing PE. Teach them “Simon Says,” they don’t really get it, hilarious but great.
12:00: A teacher asks for a salary advance, I tell him to fill out the appropriate form. The Project Coordinator and I discuss goats for the IGA (income generating activity, the parents of our preschoolers raise goats and then we sell them once a year in Congo for a profit that goes back into the project). A woman who takes care of an orphan doesn’t want to be responsible for having to take care of a goat since the Dufatanye student isn’t actually her child. Fine by me, taking in an orphan and sending them to school is good Samaritan enough. I also tell the coordinator I need to meet with our employee the “Goat Master,” because I want to reduce his work to half time and make a consequent pay reduction. The coordinator is surprisingly on board with this and agrees that the goat master’s work can be done in fewer hours per week, he says he will let him know to come see me.
He also tells me about an idea the PTA at Kunachi (the school in D) came up with, to all pitch in money themselves to create their own community lead IGA. Good stuff, I tell him we don’t have the budget to contribute to their initiative, but that we can definitely offer logistical support and maybe offer them a small business training workshop.
12:45: Meet with building contractor to check on progress of the construction of our new health service center in G. There is additional unforeseen structural damage to the building that needs to be repaired, the contractor wants to charge extra to fix it. Finally negotiate a price that is only slightly under the budget and keep fingers crossed that the exchange rate won’t fall.
1:15: Get hounded by a different carpenter who wants me to pay him for an old project he took seven months to complete, though the contract he signed seven months ago (and definitely understood) said he would be paid the balance only if he completed his work in 14 days (he has been paid for materials, and some, but not all labor). Internally debate whether or not to just pay him (his wife left him and he has many mouths to feed), tell him no, and decide to wait and see if it will blow over in a few more days.
1:30: Paint one wall of the new health service center (cut the construction cost by a couple hundred thousand kwacha by agreeing to do the painting myself). Tell the kid that keeps asking me to give him food that I will make him a math test, if he passes, I will buy him a biscuit, go study now. I am my mother’s daughter.
2:30: Meet with two applicants for the health advocate position at the new center. Neither speaks a word of English, I encourage them to take free English classes offered by FORGE and apply for a position with us in the future.
3:00: Bike back to D (5km)
3:30: Grab a cold pineapple juice at Sam’s (the only place in Meheba with a generator, i.e. power for a fridge and tv) and sit in the back row of the side room off his cafe to remain out of sight from any potential staff members who will tell me to buy them bike parts and rain coats and give them advances and sponsor them to university, etc., etc. Some movie that is reminiscent of Blade, but worse, is playing on VHS. Look around me at the kids who paid money to watch this and are glued to the television and wonder why they love it so much. Pay a “small boy,” 100 kwacha, which translates into exactly two cents, to fetch me some popcorn. Small boys are awesome, basically you can employ any kid under the age of 13 to do random errands for you (cut your grass, pump water, go find people you can’t locate while you do something else, etc.) Scarf down the popcorn and return half the pineapple juice to Sam, ask him to keep it cold for me and tell him I’ll come back later in the week to drink it.
4:00: Buy cabbage, bananas, and bread in the market.
4:15: Run into the FORGE English class teacher in the market. Remember that I gave him an extra set of Scrabble from our compound at the last staff meeting to use with his advance English class. We make a date to play the next day so he can learn to use it.
4:40: Get back to the compound (7km)
5:00: The health service center coordinator that works on our compound returns his key to me at the end of the day. 20 cases of malaria today and we are out of Fanzidar (anti-malarial meds), yikes! The sunny days in rainy season bring a lot of patients…
5:30: Bath
6:00: Dinner and story exchange with Sherie. Why do my preschools keep having to deal with the police? OH yeah, tell the story of how I fell off my bike this day, coming around a hair pin turn on a shortcut, in front of me, this guy has 5 huge bags of coal attached to his bike so he takes up the whole path and I have nowhere to go but straight and crash right into him. Grr.
6:30: TV. Between both of our fully charged computers, Sherie and I watch a few episodes of Friends (courtesy of Father Kim’s, a Korean missionary who lives in the camp, external hard drive). I knew this show was very popular in its day, and now I know why, laugh out loud funny. Then again, that might be due to the “bush goggles,” I am wearing (referring to our bad taste in everything due to our blurred perspective from living in the bush for too long). Then Heroes, if I hear the phrase, “Save the cheerleader, save the world,” one more time, I might give up on this show.
8:00: Take malaria medicine. Write a letter by candle light, more annoying than romantic, to many moths to dodge.
9:00: Read some pieces from 2008’s Best American Poems anthology. Modern poetry is kinda weird.
10:00: Bed
There is no typical day, that is for sure. In fact, you could say each day is typical in how not typical it is.
Here are two examples of what a day could be like during rainy season.
Scenario A
7:30am: Wake up to some insane thunder. Like cracking, rumbling, booming sounds that make you think your roof is going to fall on you and lighting is going to blind you and then fry your brain.
8:00: Manage to light those darn coals, wait for water to boil.
8:40: Eat some toast and tea and read (right now, Invisible Man and The Stuff of Thought, both are awesome).
9:00: Examine the sky, it is still raining. Too wet to ride our bikes anywhere, and wherever we get to we probably won’t find anyone at our projects. Or our bikes will break from the bad road and weather conditions (this has happened to me twice!) and then you are stuck walking in the rain, grr.
9:30: It is still raining.
10:00: File some old monthly reports. Tape receipts from this month’s purchases into the accounting binder.
11:00: The power is still on orange (almost empty), impossible to do work on my uncharged computer (used the battery yesterday, when there was also no power).
12:00: No employees come to work at the sites that are on our compound because it is raining.
12:30: Make a tuna sandwich (yeah, I horde the contents of my care packages) because the coals have gone out and I am too lazy to re-light them and Alice (our sweet house lady) didn’t show up because of, you guessed it, the rain.
The remainder of the day we twiddle our thumbs and make plans, but really can’t get anything done.
5:30: Eat dinner early due to boredom, probably some sort of Ramen, lament my devolution to my collegiate ways. Exchange stories with Sherie, reminiscing all the crazy things that happen while on the job. You have no idea how much mileage we get out of one or two phrases that were funny when we first heard them, months ago. Re-telling the same sagas over and over is kinda a thing we do.
And they aren’t even funny to anyone else, examples: “We ran into a bit of trouble, somehow.” Or “Just build us a roof!” or “Dogs are bad.” Or “I can come after I finish typing Prince Ben’s police report.” Or “We are not refusing the bicycle.” I am chuckling to myself as I type this, and you all have no idea what I am talking about. Not to fear, I will regale you with these tales over and over (and over) when I return. Call it cabin fever, but leave us alone, we are starved for entertainment out here.
6:30: Play Scrabble with Sherie by candle light.
8:00: Take malaria medicine. Read.
9:00: Bedtime
Scenario B
7:00: Wake up, brush teeth, look outside, it’s going to be dry today!
7:30: Bike to Block D (7km) to meet with police and the Head Teacher at FORGE’s Kunachi Preschool about a burglary of our school.
8:00: Arrive at the police station, wait while some other case is being heard.
9:00: Describe our side of the story, we have recovered the stolen property (some jump ropes, soap, books, chalk, and random classroom materials) and don’t want to press charges against the 16 year old who broke into the school. Give the kid (who has been handcuffed to a pole in the backyard for a day or two) a lecture about going back to school, and tell him we will hammer him in court if he’s caught stealing again.
While at the station, discover that one of your employee’s bikes was stolen three weeks ago and never reported it.
10:30: Check in on our computer training staff, deliver some supplies to them (paper and scissors, very high-tech). Remind them to gather demographic information for their students to incorporate into monitoring and evaluation data collection. Commiserate about the bad power these days.
11:00: Bike to Block G (5km)
11:30: Catch the end of Dufatanye Preschoolers (our school in G) doing PE. Teach them “Simon Says,” they don’t really get it, hilarious but great.
12:00: A teacher asks for a salary advance, I tell him to fill out the appropriate form. The Project Coordinator and I discuss goats for the IGA (income generating activity, the parents of our preschoolers raise goats and then we sell them once a year in Congo for a profit that goes back into the project). A woman who takes care of an orphan doesn’t want to be responsible for having to take care of a goat since the Dufatanye student isn’t actually her child. Fine by me, taking in an orphan and sending them to school is good Samaritan enough. I also tell the coordinator I need to meet with our employee the “Goat Master,” because I want to reduce his work to half time and make a consequent pay reduction. The coordinator is surprisingly on board with this and agrees that the goat master’s work can be done in fewer hours per week, he says he will let him know to come see me.
He also tells me about an idea the PTA at Kunachi (the school in D) came up with, to all pitch in money themselves to create their own community lead IGA. Good stuff, I tell him we don’t have the budget to contribute to their initiative, but that we can definitely offer logistical support and maybe offer them a small business training workshop.
12:45: Meet with building contractor to check on progress of the construction of our new health service center in G. There is additional unforeseen structural damage to the building that needs to be repaired, the contractor wants to charge extra to fix it. Finally negotiate a price that is only slightly under the budget and keep fingers crossed that the exchange rate won’t fall.
1:15: Get hounded by a different carpenter who wants me to pay him for an old project he took seven months to complete, though the contract he signed seven months ago (and definitely understood) said he would be paid the balance only if he completed his work in 14 days (he has been paid for materials, and some, but not all labor). Internally debate whether or not to just pay him (his wife left him and he has many mouths to feed), tell him no, and decide to wait and see if it will blow over in a few more days.
1:30: Paint one wall of the new health service center (cut the construction cost by a couple hundred thousand kwacha by agreeing to do the painting myself). Tell the kid that keeps asking me to give him food that I will make him a math test, if he passes, I will buy him a biscuit, go study now. I am my mother’s daughter.
2:30: Meet with two applicants for the health advocate position at the new center. Neither speaks a word of English, I encourage them to take free English classes offered by FORGE and apply for a position with us in the future.
3:00: Bike back to D (5km)
3:30: Grab a cold pineapple juice at Sam’s (the only place in Meheba with a generator, i.e. power for a fridge and tv) and sit in the back row of the side room off his cafe to remain out of sight from any potential staff members who will tell me to buy them bike parts and rain coats and give them advances and sponsor them to university, etc., etc. Some movie that is reminiscent of Blade, but worse, is playing on VHS. Look around me at the kids who paid money to watch this and are glued to the television and wonder why they love it so much. Pay a “small boy,” 100 kwacha, which translates into exactly two cents, to fetch me some popcorn. Small boys are awesome, basically you can employ any kid under the age of 13 to do random errands for you (cut your grass, pump water, go find people you can’t locate while you do something else, etc.) Scarf down the popcorn and return half the pineapple juice to Sam, ask him to keep it cold for me and tell him I’ll come back later in the week to drink it.
4:00: Buy cabbage, bananas, and bread in the market.
4:15: Run into the FORGE English class teacher in the market. Remember that I gave him an extra set of Scrabble from our compound at the last staff meeting to use with his advance English class. We make a date to play the next day so he can learn to use it.
4:40: Get back to the compound (7km)
5:00: The health service center coordinator that works on our compound returns his key to me at the end of the day. 20 cases of malaria today and we are out of Fanzidar (anti-malarial meds), yikes! The sunny days in rainy season bring a lot of patients…
5:30: Bath
6:00: Dinner and story exchange with Sherie. Why do my preschools keep having to deal with the police? OH yeah, tell the story of how I fell off my bike this day, coming around a hair pin turn on a shortcut, in front of me, this guy has 5 huge bags of coal attached to his bike so he takes up the whole path and I have nowhere to go but straight and crash right into him. Grr.
6:30: TV. Between both of our fully charged computers, Sherie and I watch a few episodes of Friends (courtesy of Father Kim’s, a Korean missionary who lives in the camp, external hard drive). I knew this show was very popular in its day, and now I know why, laugh out loud funny. Then again, that might be due to the “bush goggles,” I am wearing (referring to our bad taste in everything due to our blurred perspective from living in the bush for too long). Then Heroes, if I hear the phrase, “Save the cheerleader, save the world,” one more time, I might give up on this show.
8:00: Take malaria medicine. Write a letter by candle light, more annoying than romantic, to many moths to dodge.
9:00: Read some pieces from 2008’s Best American Poems anthology. Modern poetry is kinda weird.
10:00: Bed
Saturday, February 21, 2009
And… I AM BACK!
HI EVERYONE!
I am so sorry for dropping the ball on keeping this blog alive, my apologies; it won’t happen again, I promise, I actually need this thing for my own mental health! I’ve really missed writing, it helps me feel connected to you all, my dearly belovedsJ. The past few months have been a crazy concoction of vacations, visitors, and all consuming graduate school applications. Let’s recap- no electricity, no internet, no peers to commiserate with about how much that sucks. Wth was I thinking??
Many computer crashes, seventeen (this number is REAL) essays, one solid panic attack, a million copies of my resume, and a few torn out gray hairs later, I have at least one acceptance letter to show for this bad idea, actually transforming it (miraculously) into a not so bad one, YAY! Hopefully this bodes well for more good news in the future, but I am relieved and thrilled to know that at least I will be going somewhere I want to be come fall, and with the added bonus of never having to examine my background and career goals in 500 words or less ever again.
And where FAFSA killed my desire to participate in the self-important and very expensive institutions that human civilization has created to satiate our intellectual curiosity (sometimes I just wish I had the life of our baby cat, Jambo, the cutest living thing to bless my life so far), vacations and visitors were wholly restorative in reframing my “perspective on life.” That phrase should not really be found in any respected writer’s, or in my case, ANY writer’s, semantic repertoire, but how else can I say it? Embarrassing word choice aside, I have never shifted my paradigm of thought and the way it pertains to our being, so many times, in so short a period of time before.
But if the expanses of the mind could take on a physical being, Victoria Falls would be the place where it happens. Truly the most astonishing and spectacular thing I have ever seen, or more accurately, experienced. I am prone to hyperbole, but it is impossible to exaggerate how magnificent this place is. You know when you watch Planet Earth in high definition on your big screen with surround sound and marvel at the miracles of the natural world? Remove from celluloid and multiply by a factor of ten and that’s still a vague description of how awesome the falls are. An unknown void, a part of my life that I never knew was incomplete has been filled by some exclusively gorgeous and incommunicable thing. Its immense physical scale, sensational beauty, primordial age, were all so wondrous. No matter how you describe it, it can never be over-hyped because its existence transcends linguistic expression, relying instead upon the poetic intricacies of the unspoken and universal language of the soul.
I felt like I was being swallowed up. And that this world, for all its cruelty, treason, and resolute unfairness, is in fact driven by rhyme, rhythm, and reason. Perspective, before just a banal noun, after was transformed into the truest combination of letters in the English lexicon. Never had I felt so strongly that life on this planet, our one Earth, was a privilege and a responsibility. Why should we ever waste time here? Unhappiness should be made right. We owe it to God, Mother Nature, Xenu (wiki it)…to take care of ourselves, each other, the ground beneath us, and the heavens above.
I am so sorry for dropping the ball on keeping this blog alive, my apologies; it won’t happen again, I promise, I actually need this thing for my own mental health! I’ve really missed writing, it helps me feel connected to you all, my dearly belovedsJ. The past few months have been a crazy concoction of vacations, visitors, and all consuming graduate school applications. Let’s recap- no electricity, no internet, no peers to commiserate with about how much that sucks. Wth was I thinking??
Many computer crashes, seventeen (this number is REAL) essays, one solid panic attack, a million copies of my resume, and a few torn out gray hairs later, I have at least one acceptance letter to show for this bad idea, actually transforming it (miraculously) into a not so bad one, YAY! Hopefully this bodes well for more good news in the future, but I am relieved and thrilled to know that at least I will be going somewhere I want to be come fall, and with the added bonus of never having to examine my background and career goals in 500 words or less ever again.
And where FAFSA killed my desire to participate in the self-important and very expensive institutions that human civilization has created to satiate our intellectual curiosity (sometimes I just wish I had the life of our baby cat, Jambo, the cutest living thing to bless my life so far), vacations and visitors were wholly restorative in reframing my “perspective on life.” That phrase should not really be found in any respected writer’s, or in my case, ANY writer’s, semantic repertoire, but how else can I say it? Embarrassing word choice aside, I have never shifted my paradigm of thought and the way it pertains to our being, so many times, in so short a period of time before.
But if the expanses of the mind could take on a physical being, Victoria Falls would be the place where it happens. Truly the most astonishing and spectacular thing I have ever seen, or more accurately, experienced. I am prone to hyperbole, but it is impossible to exaggerate how magnificent this place is. You know when you watch Planet Earth in high definition on your big screen with surround sound and marvel at the miracles of the natural world? Remove from celluloid and multiply by a factor of ten and that’s still a vague description of how awesome the falls are. An unknown void, a part of my life that I never knew was incomplete has been filled by some exclusively gorgeous and incommunicable thing. Its immense physical scale, sensational beauty, primordial age, were all so wondrous. No matter how you describe it, it can never be over-hyped because its existence transcends linguistic expression, relying instead upon the poetic intricacies of the unspoken and universal language of the soul.
I felt like I was being swallowed up. And that this world, for all its cruelty, treason, and resolute unfairness, is in fact driven by rhyme, rhythm, and reason. Perspective, before just a banal noun, after was transformed into the truest combination of letters in the English lexicon. Never had I felt so strongly that life on this planet, our one Earth, was a privilege and a responsibility. Why should we ever waste time here? Unhappiness should be made right. We owe it to God, Mother Nature, Xenu (wiki it)…to take care of ourselves, each other, the ground beneath us, and the heavens above.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
YES WE CAN!
The headline is probably painfully cliché by now (I have no access to the media, but I can imagine the magnitude of Obama-mania sweeping the country right now), but before you roll your eyes or throw up a little in your month, bear with me. The last time I posted a blog, it was from the Royal Solwezi Hotel where my fellow Americans and I pulled an all nighter, my first in years, to view the American elections. Glued to the television for hours, eating the most American foods we could find on the menu (mac ‘n cheese), playing protest songs on our ipods (Bruce Springstein), that distinctive mixture of excitement and trepidation that precedes most momentous occasions was thick in the air.
Eight hours and many caffeinated drinks later, my heart swelled. After Obama gave his victory speech, the hope I hadn’t allowed myself to feel finally burst, breaking the dam that had pent up my closeted optimism. Deep wells of conflicting emotion emerged. I was proud of America, but I also felt guilty for not having expected high standards of her. The feeling of being wrong was one of pure joy and also shame.
The undeniable thing was that this moment was history. My parents remember when Kennedy was assassinated, when man landed on the moon, when Nelson Mandela was freed. After 9/11, I will remember this day more than any other. A testament to the United States. Proof that the dream Americans hold of making something of themselves, of making our country better, is not one held in vain. The day American people of color were convinced that you really can be anyone you want, do anything you want, and that one person can be the impetus for worldwide change.
I have debated the question internally for a long time: how is change best created? For years I worked for institutions, believing that operating within existing systems was the best way to change them, and convincing myself that those changes inevitably effect the population as a whole and consequently move society forward. But corporations, The White House, think tanks, and the Department of Justice were all gigantic stepping stones that lead me downwards. I felt weighted by the sluggishness with which those organizations slowly chip away at barriers on the fringes and shift paradigms in the margins. Knowing that I saved someone from paying an extra few cents on bleach was important in protecting the free market and a competitive economy, but it was not inspiring. Anyone who knows me will tell you I am impatient, for better or worse, immediate gratification motivates me. So every red tape barrier drove me deeper into the ground, finally reaching the grassroots.
I chose to move to Zambia and work in the field (er, bush) to observe the flipside of public service. I sought to gain a holistic view of the sector from the ground up, to experience change on a personal level and observe it happening in a perceivable way. I thought that here I could make an impression on one person at a time and that it would be tangible and evermore fulfilling. And of course, now that I am here, I am frustrated by reverse challenges. Only making a difference in the most miniscule way possible, denting the lives of a few thousand people at most, is grueling and painstaking work that can break your heart.
Just as despondency began to cast its shadow on my outlook, I mailed my ballot for Barack Obama. We wrote it in at the Peace Corps house, off a tiny unpaved back road of Solwezi, Zambia. It was thrilling, empowering, enfranchising, more than any vote of mine in America had been. I needed an outlet that granted me access to way the world’s biggest decisions are made. I needed to believe that though my work in the field may be inconsequential in changing the way the world works, it matters deeply to a community that would be otherwise overlooked, forgotten, or ignored.
Obama reminded me that the world is not binary. Whether talking about the left or right, or the unity of our fifty states, Obama’s message is one that can apply to so many realms. He reminded me that systemic change complements the work I do here, and that the work I had done in the past was not ineffectual. In hindsight, it is may seem obvious, even glib, to proclaim that both approaches to public service are symbiotic and important. But I had never believed this to be truer than on this day. My renewed cognizance of this fact injected some much needed positivity into my attitude and helped revive the spirit of my work here. And for that, I would seriously like to thank you, Mr. Barack Obama, the President Elect of the United States of America!
P.S.
I would also like to thank those friends of mine who poured their blood, sweat, and tears into his campaign. It is because of your sleepless nights and tireless efforts that this was made possible!
Eight hours and many caffeinated drinks later, my heart swelled. After Obama gave his victory speech, the hope I hadn’t allowed myself to feel finally burst, breaking the dam that had pent up my closeted optimism. Deep wells of conflicting emotion emerged. I was proud of America, but I also felt guilty for not having expected high standards of her. The feeling of being wrong was one of pure joy and also shame.
The undeniable thing was that this moment was history. My parents remember when Kennedy was assassinated, when man landed on the moon, when Nelson Mandela was freed. After 9/11, I will remember this day more than any other. A testament to the United States. Proof that the dream Americans hold of making something of themselves, of making our country better, is not one held in vain. The day American people of color were convinced that you really can be anyone you want, do anything you want, and that one person can be the impetus for worldwide change.
I have debated the question internally for a long time: how is change best created? For years I worked for institutions, believing that operating within existing systems was the best way to change them, and convincing myself that those changes inevitably effect the population as a whole and consequently move society forward. But corporations, The White House, think tanks, and the Department of Justice were all gigantic stepping stones that lead me downwards. I felt weighted by the sluggishness with which those organizations slowly chip away at barriers on the fringes and shift paradigms in the margins. Knowing that I saved someone from paying an extra few cents on bleach was important in protecting the free market and a competitive economy, but it was not inspiring. Anyone who knows me will tell you I am impatient, for better or worse, immediate gratification motivates me. So every red tape barrier drove me deeper into the ground, finally reaching the grassroots.
I chose to move to Zambia and work in the field (er, bush) to observe the flipside of public service. I sought to gain a holistic view of the sector from the ground up, to experience change on a personal level and observe it happening in a perceivable way. I thought that here I could make an impression on one person at a time and that it would be tangible and evermore fulfilling. And of course, now that I am here, I am frustrated by reverse challenges. Only making a difference in the most miniscule way possible, denting the lives of a few thousand people at most, is grueling and painstaking work that can break your heart.
Just as despondency began to cast its shadow on my outlook, I mailed my ballot for Barack Obama. We wrote it in at the Peace Corps house, off a tiny unpaved back road of Solwezi, Zambia. It was thrilling, empowering, enfranchising, more than any vote of mine in America had been. I needed an outlet that granted me access to way the world’s biggest decisions are made. I needed to believe that though my work in the field may be inconsequential in changing the way the world works, it matters deeply to a community that would be otherwise overlooked, forgotten, or ignored.
Obama reminded me that the world is not binary. Whether talking about the left or right, or the unity of our fifty states, Obama’s message is one that can apply to so many realms. He reminded me that systemic change complements the work I do here, and that the work I had done in the past was not ineffectual. In hindsight, it is may seem obvious, even glib, to proclaim that both approaches to public service are symbiotic and important. But I had never believed this to be truer than on this day. My renewed cognizance of this fact injected some much needed positivity into my attitude and helped revive the spirit of my work here. And for that, I would seriously like to thank you, Mr. Barack Obama, the President Elect of the United States of America!
P.S.
I would also like to thank those friends of mine who poured their blood, sweat, and tears into his campaign. It is because of your sleepless nights and tireless efforts that this was made possible!
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
If Wall Street Got Drunk…
Then someone should tell Bush that our sector is suffering from a potentially fatal hangover. Much worse than a mere headache, startups, especially non-profit ones, are being hit by a maelstrom of factors that may have terminal consequences for many organizations that don’t have the capacity to weather the storm. Though bailouts galore will not anchor the financial markets enough to reduce the impact of this tempest to zero, they at least provide some sails for the heaviest players in the game to stay afloat.
Meanwhile, nonprofits the size of FORGE have absolutely no protection against macroeconomic fluctuations that affect the pool of disposable income available to us from individual private donors, our primary source of funds. This fact, combined with the bad luck of being rejected in the final rounds of two large and prestigious grants, and not making as much money as we had hoped from a traditional fundraiser (fancy expensive dinner featuring Tom Brady, Giselle, etc.), have lead to dire straits for budgets in the field.
Last week our Programming Director informed us that Meheba had to make around 24,000,000 kwacha worth of budget cuts to remain operational through March1st. In perspective: over HALF of our budget needed to be slashed. The PMs hashed out some drastic changes, entire programs were cut, and 10 staff members (almost a quarter of our workforce) were laid off in total. The PMs took a pay cut in solidarity and decided to use the money toward creating a small severance package; but the timing of the announcement was brutal, only four days before pay day, leaving no time for employees to budget their money. However demoralizing the facts of the financial situation are, the suddenness of the situation was by far the worst part of the announcement, and it severely limited our ability to damage control.
In Meheba, there is no free market economy. There are NO other employers in the camp. Wages are standardized to already pittance levels and the World Food Programme is no longer providing food rations to anyone in the camp (including the elderly, disabled, orphans, and other vulnerable people) beginning January 1st. Unlike other camps where salaries are incentives for people to work, to lose your job in Meheba is to lose any possibility of having some livelihood. The only other option is to become a farmer, but cultivation has already begun, if you haven’t prepared your field already, it’s too late to start for this year’s harvest. Some of those let go include FORGE’s first employee ever, and all of the staff from FORGE’s first project.
Beyond our staff, the community is equally affected by the abruptness of our scale back. Vulnerable (mentally and physically disabled or orphaned) preschoolers who are already psychologically unstable now must completely change their schedule midterm and adjust to new teachers with no training overlap, who are unfamiliar with the new students (personally, linguistically, and culturally) and are taking on twice their previous workload. The example is one of many.
I made it through the emergency staff meeting that we held to announce the changes. I made it through nine of the lay offs, where the PMs stoically and calmly took turns repeating the same words over and over: “unfortunately,” “the reality of the situation,” “I am so sorry,” “absolutely nothing to do with your performance,” etc. Finally we reached the last one, an outreach worker named Given, who I personally manage for the health services project. Given’s coworker is his good friend (and mine) and holds the exact same position and was not being let go because of her certification has a psycho-social counselor. She was the first to cry all day. And then quietly, the tears just started flowing, leaving cool trails on my cheeks, evaporating quickly into the African heat.
Being a young manager, for all the advantages it holds in energy, innovation, optimism, dedication, freshness, and drive; my youth in this case did nothing but long for advice. I missed my dad, a seasoned manager who has supervised hundreds (maybe thousands?) of people and let go of a few in his time; someone who has navigated through organizational and financial turbulence with deliberate finesse and forward thinking. I have no tools to deal with this from a managerial stand point, nor from an emotional and psychological one. And none were given to me by the executive team that is equally as wet behind the ears as I am, and whose responsibilities, as is the case in any startup, are already spread paper thin.
Having grown up in the entrepreneurial culture of the bay area and then having worked for one of the largest bureaucracies in the world (the U.S. government), I had once concluded unequivocally that the latitude of having a youthful, flexible, approachable group of supervisors and employees would be the strongest advantage FORGE has to “Go get ‘em.” And that fact remains. But in this situation I see more clearly than ever the benefits traditional, conservative, and most importantly experienced, leadership can have in tempering instability.
Ironically, this whole experience may be exactly what develops all of us into more mature managers, ready to take on bad news and expertly handle it whenever it’s thrown our way. Unequivocally I look at this as an experience I look at as an opportunity to grow. Here’s hoping!
Meanwhile, nonprofits the size of FORGE have absolutely no protection against macroeconomic fluctuations that affect the pool of disposable income available to us from individual private donors, our primary source of funds. This fact, combined with the bad luck of being rejected in the final rounds of two large and prestigious grants, and not making as much money as we had hoped from a traditional fundraiser (fancy expensive dinner featuring Tom Brady, Giselle, etc.), have lead to dire straits for budgets in the field.
Last week our Programming Director informed us that Meheba had to make around 24,000,000 kwacha worth of budget cuts to remain operational through March1st. In perspective: over HALF of our budget needed to be slashed. The PMs hashed out some drastic changes, entire programs were cut, and 10 staff members (almost a quarter of our workforce) were laid off in total. The PMs took a pay cut in solidarity and decided to use the money toward creating a small severance package; but the timing of the announcement was brutal, only four days before pay day, leaving no time for employees to budget their money. However demoralizing the facts of the financial situation are, the suddenness of the situation was by far the worst part of the announcement, and it severely limited our ability to damage control.
In Meheba, there is no free market economy. There are NO other employers in the camp. Wages are standardized to already pittance levels and the World Food Programme is no longer providing food rations to anyone in the camp (including the elderly, disabled, orphans, and other vulnerable people) beginning January 1st. Unlike other camps where salaries are incentives for people to work, to lose your job in Meheba is to lose any possibility of having some livelihood. The only other option is to become a farmer, but cultivation has already begun, if you haven’t prepared your field already, it’s too late to start for this year’s harvest. Some of those let go include FORGE’s first employee ever, and all of the staff from FORGE’s first project.
Beyond our staff, the community is equally affected by the abruptness of our scale back. Vulnerable (mentally and physically disabled or orphaned) preschoolers who are already psychologically unstable now must completely change their schedule midterm and adjust to new teachers with no training overlap, who are unfamiliar with the new students (personally, linguistically, and culturally) and are taking on twice their previous workload. The example is one of many.
I made it through the emergency staff meeting that we held to announce the changes. I made it through nine of the lay offs, where the PMs stoically and calmly took turns repeating the same words over and over: “unfortunately,” “the reality of the situation,” “I am so sorry,” “absolutely nothing to do with your performance,” etc. Finally we reached the last one, an outreach worker named Given, who I personally manage for the health services project. Given’s coworker is his good friend (and mine) and holds the exact same position and was not being let go because of her certification has a psycho-social counselor. She was the first to cry all day. And then quietly, the tears just started flowing, leaving cool trails on my cheeks, evaporating quickly into the African heat.
Being a young manager, for all the advantages it holds in energy, innovation, optimism, dedication, freshness, and drive; my youth in this case did nothing but long for advice. I missed my dad, a seasoned manager who has supervised hundreds (maybe thousands?) of people and let go of a few in his time; someone who has navigated through organizational and financial turbulence with deliberate finesse and forward thinking. I have no tools to deal with this from a managerial stand point, nor from an emotional and psychological one. And none were given to me by the executive team that is equally as wet behind the ears as I am, and whose responsibilities, as is the case in any startup, are already spread paper thin.
Having grown up in the entrepreneurial culture of the bay area and then having worked for one of the largest bureaucracies in the world (the U.S. government), I had once concluded unequivocally that the latitude of having a youthful, flexible, approachable group of supervisors and employees would be the strongest advantage FORGE has to “Go get ‘em.” And that fact remains. But in this situation I see more clearly than ever the benefits traditional, conservative, and most importantly experienced, leadership can have in tempering instability.
Ironically, this whole experience may be exactly what develops all of us into more mature managers, ready to take on bad news and expertly handle it whenever it’s thrown our way. Unequivocally I look at this as an experience I look at as an opportunity to grow. Here’s hoping!
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