#146 Posing with Guns
For the younger, more red-blooded EAW male (and for others who would never dare admit it) one of the attractions of working in a conflict zone will be the abundance of weaponry on display.
All the weapons ever seen in films from Die Hard to Desperado will finally become an everyday reality. Invariably from Europe, where gun control is strictly enforced, the newly arrived EAW will play it cool and refrain from ogling the local army or militia’s firearms too much.
Over time, a few pics will appear on Facebook featuring the EAW standing next to men with guns. These will progress to pictures where the EAW is actually holding a gun (although he or she will be sure to hold the gun ‘ironically’). Finally, our EAW will get that picture he or she is really after — the one where the EAW is firing a gun.
And oh, the Facebook status! ‘Had a go on an AK with the army guys, not like in the movies!’ Friends will comment ‘Rambo!!! lol’ and uncle Frank from the States (who’s always had an unhealthy fascination with guns) will ask ‘Is that the pre-Warsaw pact 7.62mm variant?’
Now that the EAW has lost his or her gun virginity, it’s possible to comment with authority on the guns portrayed in video games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. ‘Not nearly enough muzzle recoil on that MP5,’ they tut. ‘When I was in Afghanistan….’
Upon returning home, the EAW will be sure to let everyone know how nice it is to be back in a gun-free environment.
Editors note: Please heed the following cautionary tale about posing with guns if you are planning to one day run an organization that claims to be liberating children from warlords….
#9 Links Expat Aid Workers Like
We’re late with Links this week. Damn day job gets in the way of our real purpose in life sometimes…. but that’s another story.
In links, check out Al Jazeera’s The Stream today (Monday, April 16)) at 15.30 EST for a piece on ‘bad aid’ complete with participant interaction and such. Our insider sources at AJ tell us that the Dignity2012 campaign and @tmsruge will be featured. As our regular readers know, the most edgy EAWs are Al Jazeera fans, so you won’t want to miss it.
In other dignity news, Richard Dowden goes after the BBC for the tired old view of Africa. This time it’s Liberia that gets the treatment.
Fast Company explains why designers should stop feeling sorry for Africa. (HT @kalsoom82)
@skateistan gives us the awesome picture of the week. (“Cuz it doesn’t always just suck here” says @elsnarkistani)
We discover where the Toms Shoes go in Haiti (HT @aidwatch)
“AidSource makes it to the big times….” according to @whydev.
@cynan_sez gives us Shit Happens. Read it and weep, EAWs.
@brettkeller does the nerdiest Hunger Games post ever with full-on statistical analysis of the survival odds.
@viewfromthecave @carol_gallo and @davidweek bring us the Developing Country Double Standard.
And On Motherhood and Sanity gives us 52 Reasons Not to Date an Aid Worker.
ToonsEAWL: Non-Papers
#145 Truly Local Bars
Photo: peranderspettersson.com
Submitted by Mr Mlungu.
It’s Monday morning in the Country Office and talk turns to the weekends events. While some have attended the “Family Day” at the local International School and others have spent the weekend watching Premier League at the Expat Pub, there’s always that one Expat Aid Worker in the office who will announce in a casual manner; “I went to Ngwede Club” waiting for the inevitable response from the others “I’ve never heard of that place” which perfectly sets up the reply: “No, you probably haven’t. It’s a local place.”
The mythical “Local Nightclub” is a place where all EAWs strive to hang out. It’s full of local folk drinking local beer or local liquors like “Hankey Bannister” while, most importantly, dancing away to a local band playing local music. EAWs are drawn to these places not because they are full of host-nation authenticity, but because they may very well be the only mlungu in the place, thus giving them supremacy over other EAWs, as well as plenty of Facebook fodder for the next day.
These locales are usually situated in places far away from the international school, expat-friendly coffee shop, import grocery store, and expat sports pub. The local pub is a place so off the track that when a local colleague hears you went there, you will score a look of amazement. (How could you go to such a crime ridden part of town, so far from my own comfort zone as a well-off local aid worker? You could have been robbed, or worse!? Why would you even want to associate with those people? These EAWs are a strange bunch….)
The local nightclub is a place where the veteran EAW can truly feel and go native while dancing the night away, attracting both wanted and unwanted attention. It’s an opportunity to display longevity in host country by discussing obscure local poets and writers oppressed during the cultural era while stressing the correct pronunciation of their names. While at the local bar, the EAW will shun talk of Manchester United or Liverpool while gladly discussing the coaching deficiencies of FC Lusaka Free Star Boys Sporting in the domestic league. All of this is aimed to show that the EAW is one with the people, even though ordering a drink costs him or her 50% more than it costs ‘the people’.
The next day Facebook posts usually read something like “Hungover after a crazy night at Ngwede. Babalaza band was off the chain.” These status baits are dropped with the express purpose of triggering comments or messages inquiring as to the next trip there and can the commenter go too. On the few occasions when a neophyte is included in one of these local bar trips, the local-bar-connoisseur will inform the newbie that they are lucky to be allowed to tag along, as they don’t want to risk ruining the atmosphere by having it overrun by other EAWs. Because of this it is essential to keep the location secret.
On arrival with the newbie, the veteran will overplay his or her knowledge of club staff, hugging the bar tender or owner or manager like a long-lost brother and acknowledging the band like a former member, even though the veteran had his or her first drink in the place only a week prior. The veteran knows that come the next day the neophyte will be telling everyone about their crazy night at a truly local nightclub thus enhancing the veteran’s status better than any Facebook or Flickr update ever could.
#8 Links Expat Aid Workers Like
Where to start, where to start. So many good links this week. Well, certainly we will not be starting with The Sequel to THAT Film. Though if anyone’s watched it, let us know if we should spend the 20 minutes on it… or maybe watch this instead (HT @texasinafrica)….
And then ponder this Al Jazeera piece on the Subjectivity of Slacktivism by @sarahkendzior and this one on Why the Hipster Gen-Y Africa Movement Must Evolve (HT @kalsoom82).
And then get in on this sweet gig: DATS Hats (HT @meowtree)
If you’re still jonesing for more, celebrate Oxfam’s awesome Great Bra Hunt.
Wronging Rights thinks perhaps the Great Bra Hunt is an April Fools Joke…
Unfortunately our inside contacts confirm that no, not a joke, a real campaign.
Already convinced that viral videos and used brassieres are not the ideal path toward effective development support? There was plenty of academic stuff out this week on aid effectiveness…
More on the white man’s burden from Charles Kenny….
The phenomenon of “Shareholder Humanitarianism: “Under the twin banners of accountability and transparency we have seen increasing numbers of donors and other financing agents implement more complex reporting and accounting guidelines, significantly increasing the administrative burden on NGOs and other humanitarian actors. These organizations are then placed in the position of having to divert finances from the field to the back office in order to meet the new requirements. At the same time, “overhead” remains a dirty word, and donors expect to see less, not more of it. The end result is a series of increasingly complex finance and accounting gymnastics that adds nothing to the humanitarians’ real bottom line: helping people.” (HT @JPBervoets)
Yet another “sad result on aid effectiveness,” indicates that “aid has actually widened the gap between the rich and the poor.” (HT @owenbarder)
4 lessons about effective aid that both DFID and House of Lords appear to have over-looked. (HT @IDS_UK)
Alas, none of the above may even matter, considering this Guardian article noting that the golden era for aid is now over…
In other news, Duncan Green of Oxfam UK (whose scholarly opinion on the aforementioned Great Bra Hunt we’re dying to hear) asks why NGOs find blogging so hard…. “NGOs need to think about the bloggers not the blog. Blogs need human faces and personality, which seems to go against an instinctive corporate urge to suppress ego, promote the Oxfam brand and speak anonymously in ‘the Oxfam voice’. According to in-house blogging guru Eddy Lambert, this doesn’t work: ‘‘We have no evidence that people want to develop relationships with ‘brands’. It’s people, problems and ideas every time. However much we may wish otherwise, we struggle (as do others) when we place our brand at the centre and obsess over style/tone of voice etc.’
On a side note, we’re happy to hear Duncan’s decided he needs to start using Twitter and look forward to some engaging banter in short form.
For some in-depth thought and commentary from a broader set of aid workers who blog or want to blog or are afraid that blogging will cost them their careers, we suggest checking out the continuing discussion on “has being critical or controversial in an online setting negatively affected your employability?” over at Aid Source.
Other good Aid Source discussions this week:
How do you deal with cynicism in aid? and the related Does the Aid World benefit from cynicism?
Making aid marketing better (including discussions just starting off on NGO photography ethics and poverty tourism)
Professionalizing the Humanitarian Aid Sector – Is certification for Aid Workers inevitable?
And finally, we leave you with some Texts from Hillary Clinton.
Happy Weekend!
#144 Romancing
Submitted by C
Expat Aid Workers love romance. Nothing like a little relationship to add even more meaning to an already intense and selfless experience!
Leaving loves behind in various sophisticated cities and realizing fairly swiftly that the long distance relationship of any kind is pretty much a ‘dead end,’ (except for a few of our lucky commenters here….) the EAW begins the inevitable prowl amid the expat scene. This prowling urge leads to going native for some EAWs. Yet for others, romancing is done strictly within expat circles, where all previously known rules of engagement disappear*.
In an industry (or perhaps just a geographic location) where women outnumber men (and generally outdo them in both looks and brains… though not in top management positions) EAW men have it pretty damn good. Living in a town that is about the size of your street back home, date night options will likely include a dodgy Chinese place that doubles as a brothel and an Italian joint with the worst pizza ever (and where every date in the entire history of expat dating has taken place). Launching into a romantic evening requires nothing more than a penchant for good development chat casually littered with impressive field references, humour, a disregard for privacy and a lot of alcohol. Mainly a lot of alcohol.
A real EAW man will punch way above his weight and post the photos of his achievements on Facebook - the subtext directed at his mates back home who are still dating the same university girls and considering marriage and a mortgage. Our EAW wants to let the folks back home know (and does so explicitly in just one Facebook photo album entitled something clever like ‘Arty Shots’ or ‘Random Photos from [name of country]‘) three things: 1) not only is he joining hands to save the world and being paid to do so, but 2) he gets on famously with the locals (especially with their kids!!) and 3) here’s the bonus… he is scoring hot European totty. Eg., ‘Eat your heart out pasty friend with same old girl in pasty Aberdeen where you have always been.’ NB – proportion of photos of local people to expats very important in album so as to ensure all viewers can witness genuine cultural integration and not hanging out with too many azungu.
But it’s all good. And such a mix – of nationalities, of languages, of ages, of marital statuses, of development jargon. And it’s nice, so damn nice… Our lowly EAW is so far away from home, and what’s better than someone to hug and ask how the day was? An atom of normalcy in a sea of chaos and unfamiliarity…. But the aid work bubble has taken away the usual sorting system and, well, these relationships… can they last? do they last? and could they ever translate back home?
Well now, it just depends… considering that one massive hurdle that inevitably rises with this type of romance and career.
Sooner or later (and usually rather sooner) the EAW mission causes havoc. One of our lovebirds has to leave. And this is something that neither can separate from the EAW destiny (EAWs are all martyrs to their trade!) No matter how many visa renewals, extensions and refusals, there still comes the flight onwards… Oh god! The heartache of losing the one they love, ignoring the fact that had they been in any other context they would have never even dated.
This romance then quickly turns to a passion as deep as something from Twilight. Our EAWs try, they really do, to make it last as long as they can, but after ‘a lot of serious consideration and discussion,’ they conclude that they must go their separate ways. Really, they have to… for their career… there is simply nothing to be done….
The leaver has the upper hand – he or she is going somewhere new, somewhere unknown and mysterious. The leaver has the advantage of mentally checking out, distancing him or herself, sneakily lining up new encounters in new danger zones through ex-pat websites or, if heading home for the mandatory Masters and Christmas mummy love (a hero return party awaits along with that rather nasty reverse culture shock), our EAW simply rekindles past histories via Facebook. Now an enigmatic exotic traveler and aid worker, in truth these histories never really ended, all the EAW has to do to ensure he or she is missed is make the odd crackling phone call or send a carefully timed text and that’s it: has cake, eats cake too…. though monitoring the tagging of photos and subsequent comments on FB here can be cause for a slight panic attack.
And what about the EAW left behind? It’s pants… that airport trip. The check-in queue never seems to move and almost every person in it is known and mournfully watching, The conversation runs dry along with the likelihood of seeing each other again. Then the kiss and high five…. Everything our happy couple had evaporates, lost in translation and out of location… a vague romantic promise of one day meeting again, down by the river..(?!) A sigh and a tear and the drive home from the airport… that feeling… like a death… the drama… everything so familiar yet so different… just like that… back on their tod with a bloody great 4 x 4 and a drunk houseboy – it’s just a bit, er, shite.
Until that bit of rotation. And they start again. A new arrival, a house party invite, a drunken kiss, even lower heights, one night together, a hoodie left… a friend request, another night, then more, then there’s no point in them each getting their own place is there?? and, well, it’s all ok… and phew… another nationality, another NGO, another love… it is absolutely, categorically, most definitely love.
*drop us a line if you need the password to view the link
#143 Predicting Rain
Submitted by @ErolYayboke who blogs at Tales of a Traveling Turkey.
Expat aid workers are skilled people. We have sacrificed jobs back home that would unquestionably be handed to us on a silver platter in the ‘private sector’ to help those in need of our unique, and locally unavailable, skills. Despite the fact that we may have no practical work experience in any world (much less the developing one), many EAWs are born leaders and natural experts in areas generally not handled by political science graduates (like poop). We are quick learners and, in addition to those we already bring to the table, we develop innumerable skills during our stints abroad. Almost overnight, we become fully proficient in local culture and dress, obscure languages, and the location of the best expat coffee shop.
However, the most underrated skills of an EAW come from those days and nights spent in the bush under the stars, swatting mosquitoes and protecting our anti-bacterial hand sanitizer as if it were the cure for cancer. It is only after time (at least a week) spent in a remote field post that one is qualified enough to predict the weather.
Comments like “It’s oppressively hot today with little wind; it’s definitely going to rain tonight” are generally met with clicks, sucking sounds, and nods by other approving EAWs. Local staff may or may not showcase a quizzical expression upon hearing this, but what do they know? ”The compound cats aren’t catching rats like they used to. It’s not going to rain until next week.” *click, click* You are so right, man. *click* Right on.
Thankfully for EAWs, this is a very transferable skill. When deciding whether to walk or take the gondola in Venice on R&R, being able to accurately predict the coming rains can elevate your status among attractive locals who desperately need more impressing, even after that story about how you had to outrun a pack of hyenas just last week. We won’t even discuss the aphrodisiac-like effects such an event would have on a ‘regular tourist’.
Traditional methods of weather prediction – when clouds turn an ominous black or when Jennifer Delgado worries CNN viewers about an upgrade of a tropical storm in Micronesia – are typically useless in the field where tv and internet are a distant memory, making the EAWs powers more important than a good portable mosquito net. Nothing ingratiates an EAW with local leaders (or leads to his or her immediate expulsion from the community) faster than a prediction of impending rain. We are awe-inspiring experts in drought mitigation, emergency water relief, hygiene and sanitation… so why not believe us when we tell you it will definitely rain at precisely 17:43pm this afternoon?
In many cases, however, it’s the EAW’s keen ability to quickly harness local knowledge that allows us to understand the ancient local rain-predicting methods much better than our friends and cousins left back home. Whether by native dance or by an analysis of the wind-blown direction of a snot rocket, we pick up on all the idiosyncratic signs that certainly mean rain, scoffing all the while at weather people on tv with their newfangled ‘modern’ technology. Don’t they know they just need to throw a bamboo pole up in the air four times alternating hands to know when and where it will rain?
#7 Links Expat Aid Workers Like
Our vote for best conversation on Aid Source this week…. Has being critical or controversial in an online setting negatively affected your employability? (Ever wonder why most of us blog under pseudonyms here at SEAWL?)
Lend your leg!
The “lend your leg” campaign feels a bit off to us. Is it the photo series or are we being unnecessarily cranky today? HT @nicolejohnston
New developments related to “that video” seem to be never-ending… Teju Cole expands on his original tweets calling out the White Savior Industrial Complex.
@zunguzungu gives us “The Jimmy McNulty Gambit.” “In short: we can imagine killing Kony, or fining or shunning Apple only because doing so would do nothing to disable the systemic forces that make Kony possible in the first place, would do nothing to change the system that makes it economically “necessary” to treat workers the way Foxconn does.” (more on Jimmy McNulty if you are missing the reference.)
To head you into the weekend… there’s, er, “getting naked for Kony2012.” Because it’s always easier to care about child soldiers when you are naked. (And no, we’re not referring to Jason Russell here). HT @texasinafrica
Tired of explaining why choosing an organization based on their overhead rate is a stupid idea? Here’s a post and a guide that exposes those tricks INGOs use for hiding overhead…. HT @wmyeoh and @saundra_s
Share your development stories. “This project seeks to gather together stories from people in the thick of it. From Africa and Asia to the Caribbean and the Middle East – anywhere that development is taking place. In Development looks for stories from all angles of international involvement: humorous, successful, not so successful, honest, observant, heartfelt and thought-provoking.” HT our FB page.
So you want to be a consultant? HT Rachel L.
And ending on a somewhat unrelated link…. Ellen brings us a cruel spoof pronunciation site.
ToonsEAWL: Wearing Many Hats
#142 Sectors
submitted by Scott Bohlinger who blogs here and tweets at @scottbohlinger.
Aid workers, ca 1954.... (Photo unmultimedia.org)
Somewhere in the mists of the unrecorded past there was a moment when the first two aid workers encountered one another in the sexy conflict/hot zone of their time (forgotten not because it was before writing, but because it was before celebrities). After one-upping each other and having a fair bit of personal drama, they came to a draw and decided they could share the world of “helping people”.
The first thing to do was to protect their superior position on the human moral hierarchy by making their work seem more technical; they had to invent jargon. However the jargon had the impact of legitimising the field to legions of lesser mortals who normally would have pursued parent- and spouse-friendly careers and who now flocked to aid. Unfortunately, upping the number of syllables from “aid” to “development” didn’t reduce the flow; and besides, the bright-eyed newcomers gave the older “development” “professionals” a large influx of people to lord over, share their beneficence with, and destroy the idealism of, and also some were hot.
And so it was decided that aid/charity/development/poverty alleviation should be divided into “sectors”. A sector is a specific kind of thing that is done in a specific kind of way to help a certain kind of person in a certain kind of way. Sectors require “technical specialisation” and therefore a master’s in something (the subject is not as important as the ability to have spent money on an issue programme in a preferably cool location where you spent 1-2 years filling your life with anecdotes to carry you forward). The technical specialisation is less about learning how to do a thing than it is learning the jargon of that thing so that others are suitably impressed.
Most importantly, specialisations constrict labour markets and ensure that EAWs can maintain their lifestyles. The gender specialist is master of her or his discourse and all that pertains thereto. Woe betide the livelihoods specialist who tries to tread on that hallowed ground. The livelihoods specialist knows how to dole out money to people but is inept in sensitivity to gender issues. Neither can tackle the issue of governance, which is generally left to the multilaterals, lest the EAW have to back up her or his superior political reasoning with more than a blog or Facebook post.
The need for sector specialists is also convenient because it decreases other staff’s workload. The need for a specialist in a narrow specialty who has the time, willingness, and ability to come to a project site in Remote Location X where Assessment Y needs to be done explains delayed project timelines and fills gaps in conversation at the expat coffee shop. It also helps maintain a healthy amount of alienation from HQ, ensuring that field staff create less work for their desk officers.
EAWs continue to evolve by natural selection, and this is notably changing their approach to sectors. Ever negotiated a long bribing and approval process to get your season of Battlestar Galactica out of customs? You’re a governance expert! Installed a new toilet and actually tried to get it to work? Presto, wat-san (a.k.a. WASH) is your baby. Haggled for the thing-imported-from-China that will look sufficiently authentic for the folks back home? You just completed a market framing and supply-chain analysis!
EAWs beware, however. The current cross-sector pollination, might produce a new breed of EAW; one with a global perspective on development and their place within it…followed off by the realisation that the EAWs and locals might just benefit more if beneficiaries sold mobile phone airtime instead.
