Five Things that Have Surprised Me About Life In “The Field”

Bean field, feeling misunderstood

1) Every work place has “a field” – whether a country office, district office, or literally, a field of beans. Headquarters is, likewise, relative. They all equally feel misunderstood by the others. 

2) The importance of having a back-up for the back-up. To get a simple phone call through to headquarters, I keep two internet connections, one dongle, a cell phone and a landline on hand. For a local call, most folks use two phone numbers on two different networks, text, or even WhatsApp to get through. Constant problem-solving, creative thinking, bobbing-and-weaving is a must.

3) Streamlining does not always equal most efficient/effective (see #2). Why don't we just....? All that diversifying makes it tempting to cut through the red tape with simple solutions. Sure, it might make sense in one context to buy goats from all one vendor. One set of paperwork, one contract. But spreading the risk amongst three or four vendors ensures that if one overstates their capability there’s enough of a back up to keep the distribution on track. I call it the Not All in One Basket approach. It's exhausting, but not as exhausting as explaining why there are no goats.

Proudly displaying mango #11

4) I wouldn’t have interpreted it that way, but…it works. In an attempt to keep track of our office inventory, our gardener numbered each one of the ripening mangoes in the yard with a magic marker. I once also worked with an office manager who knew the project was underspending, so she stock piled over 100 bottles of toilet bowl cleaner, toilet paper and other cleaning supplies in an effort to increase the burn rate. I am constantly reminded that procedures need context, people need guidance, and it's ok to not take ourselves too seriously.

5) Waiting is the New Doing. When our car ran out of gas (because we didn't follow #2 and get gas when we were still at half tank and trying to streamline our stops) and the only station within 100 km hadn’t had electricity to pump in 14 hours, there was literally nothing we could do. So, we sat in the station with a coke and a samosa. Several solutions eventually revealed themselves (ending with the electricity magically turning on.) When in doubt, wait it out.

Watered Down

View from the waiting area at the airport.
Normally, you can see a tree row at
the far end of the tarmac.

Although the rains were late again this year (see my host and dusty earlier post about Tropical Christmas), they made up for it by arriving with a vengeance. In fact, they arrived right as we were preparing to board our plane to Capetown. The whole airport shut down for approximately two hours while we waited for the skies to empty. We returned to a green and glorious Malawi.

Unfortunately, there can be too much of a good thing. Following an enormous typhoon off the coast of Mozambique the week of January 13^th, fifteen of Malawi’s twenty-eight districts were catastrophically flooded. Thus far, the government’s department of disaster management affairs has announced a state of emergency, mostly in the southern region. Estimates are over 60 dead, 150 missing and 200,000 without homes. This does not include damage to just-planted fields and loss of livestock, which are nearly too many to count.

My company doesn’t work in those areas, but I have plenty of friends who do. One friend is managing camp in Nsanje for over 5,000 people. Another friend has been frantically busy garnering resources and is hosting a delegation of donors next week. Malawi is on a “no aid” budget, but suddenly it’s pouring in. Malawi seems to be flooded every year, taken by surprise by the onset of such fast and heavy rains. Although there are always efforts to prepare, the environmental impact of poverty - deforestation, poor housing, land degradation are endemic. They don't lend themselves to being solved by one season of "no-aid" solutions.

Photo courtesy of Malawi Red Cross, near Nsanje Southern Malawi. 

www.FaceofMalawi.com

For us here in Lilongwe, the major impact has been electricity. It’s always been a bit variable in rainy season, but it’s much worse now. Reports are that a few of the hydroelectric power stations have had their water intakes damaged by trash, logs and detritus. To clean them out, the entire station has to be taken offline, leaving even more load-shedding than normal. 

For us now, it’s not a matter of if the electricity will go off, it’s when. When it does, we manage. The longest our power has been out is twelve hours. Not so bad really, but there’s not a lot of warning, so we try to keep our electronics charged and plugged in as much as possible. We have a lot of candles. It helps that the whole community is affected, because we rely on each other. I have only had to take one dish over a friend’s house (with generator) to finish a meal. As we go into week two, it’s getting a little less “adventurous” and more “annoying as hell” but all things considered - if it comes down to this or having my home washed away in a flood, you can bet which one I’d take. Having lived through the 1997 flood of the Red River Valley, I know it could be much, much worse.

**If you'd like to donate to victims of this flooding go to: http://www.unicef.org.uk/landing-pages/donate-malawi-floods/**

I (Won't Be) Home for Christmas

When my partner moved here, we decided that it was too expensive to fly both of us back from Africa to spend the holidays with our families. Additionally, with combined family spread all over the US, it likely wouldn’t be the relaxing, snow-filled, memory-maker we imagined. As a signal to the new era of Us, we decided to stay here and explore South Africa as a couple. It will be the trip of a lifetime! We crowed. By September, the tickets were booked.

Now that it is upon us, though, I’m struggling. It just doesn’t feel the same. It’s 95 degrees. I’m dusty. And tired. Although the air gets more humid every day, the rains refuse to fall. My brown garden withers under the protracted heat. The idea of a crisp snowfall and a hearty fireplace feels alien and unattainably awesome. I am slathering on sunscreen and trying very hard not to sweat. We both hope that Capetown is cooler.

But then I remember my favorite quote by Thornton Wilder: “The test of an adventure is that when you're in the middle of it, you say to yourself "Oh now I've got myself into an awful mess; I wish I were sitting quietly at home. And the sign that something's wrong with you is when you sit quietly at home wishing you were out having lots of adventure.”

Upon further reflection, I"m taking my discomfort as a sign that I’m doing something right. In the year of Tropical Christmas, I’m out having lots of adventure - even if feeling a tiny bit homesick. I'm grateful for the change and the discomfort. (That’s not to say there’s no Christmas cheer here at all. Unlike Bob Geldof’s idiotic song, yes they do know it’s Christmas here. With the largest evangelical Christian population in the world, it’s kind of a big deal.)

So, where ever you are this Christmas, remember that adventures happen in all forms. Being uncomfortable is good for you...and Santa will find you, wherever you are.

Here’s to an adventurous 2015!

One Man's Trash...

Trash elephant - downtown Livingstone, Zambia

A friend of mine came for a visit during the entire month of June. As she settled into the house, the inevitable question arose around garbage: “Do you have recycling?”

“Yes,” I hesitated, “But not in the way you may think.”

In the west, we are now hardwired to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. But, the separation of tin cans and plastic and newspaper and soft cardboard that ends up in blue bins doesn’t exist here. What does exist is another, more interesting form, more along the "re-use" spectrum.

Malawians don't typically own a lot of stuff, so what they do have, they treasure. This includes trash. I’ve seen bottle tops wired together to make toys, baskets, plant holders, fridge magnets, trivets. I’ve seen pop cans slit open and hammered flat to make toy cars, notebook covers and house siding. Plastic bags can be woven together to make purses. Plastic bottles, in particular, are most treasured. As a side business, many Malawians make “thobwa” a sweet millet-based beer, or mlambe (baobob) juice, to sell, so these bottles are in high demand.

This type of recycling inevitably creates a weird dynamic for an American expat.  For one, you know without a doubt that your garbage is being gone through on a regular basis. How would your habits change if you knew without a doubt that someone (or perhaps even the whole neighborhood?) was going to see what you threw away? I bet you’d shred a lot more documents. You wrap those maxi pads extra thick. You waste less food.

Lifecycle of a sparkling water bottle: full, empty, and thobwa!

I’ve taken to leaving out bottles I know that my housekeeper will want to use in making thobwa. My gardener wanted to try a terrarium out of wine bottles, so I leave those to slowly become yard art. He also put together the chicken coop from cardboard boxes and plastic garbage bags. It looks kind of like hobo-town around here, but I think it's cool.

I also find myself not throwing things away because I either don’t want someone to find it, or I can’t bear to see that embarrassing thing show up somewhere else (old, hole-y underwear).

What remains is still too much (plastic bags, arg!) but overall, this reuse is kind of cool. It makes you aware of the value of things that we take for granted. The mish-mash of garbage toys and plastic lined thatch houses admittedly contributes to Malawi’s shabby feel, but it’s also a testament of ingenuity, its MacGyver-attitude. 

Ebola Coaster

Today, I am over being afraid of Ebola.

Oh, I’m still concerned. This disease is nothing to sniff at. But, my focus and fascination and fear of this disease ebbs and flows. Today (thankfully), I’m on a low tide. It’s been a real process digesting the news from at home and across Africa, like a rollercoaster with its own stages of isolation, fear, denial, anger and acceptance.  I call it: my Ebola-coaster.

Isolation: Oh Look At How Interesting That is Far, Far Away from Here

When it was just African news back in July, I was chatting with a Western doctor living in Malawi and asked him his opinion. “It’s fascinating,” he said, “If my wife let me, I’d volunteer in a minute.” Why? “Because there’s so little known about this disease; here is a firsthand chance.”

Seemed like a rather macabre reason, but the development crowd – especially the adrenaline junkie humanitarian types- are known to run towards a burning building rather than away. I was impressed by his professional curiosity, but gave ebola no further thought.

Fear

As the epidemic grew, so did my interest.  I don't work in the medical field (agriculture), but just through living in here Malawi, I have a small taste for what the hospitals are like. Electricity and supplies are intermittent even during the best of times.  Families must provide food, care and wash the patient during their stay. If there are no families, there is no food.

Rickety public medical systems are already stretched by everyday medical needs (malaria, AIDS, TB, even having a baby). (A staff member of mine had to go to four different hospitals just to find the proper vaccinations for her baby).

Ebola has effectively demolished what little care there was, causing more deaths through non-treatment than on its own. And while people are dying, economies are tottering, for no one is planting, weeding, harvesting, buying or selling.  I watched the news with a sinking feeling in my gut, knowing that the smoke from this fire would waft far and wide.   

One night over drinks, my public health friend predicted gravely, “Things are going to get worse before they get worse.”  

I soon found myself double checking the number of international flights into Lilongwe per day (Four)? How many come directly from West Africa? (None). Again, I work in agriculture. Not something where you find a lot of sick people. Still, my alarm swung wildly from day to day. Was it going to come to Malawi? It would never come to Malawi.  OH MY GOD WHAT IF IT COMES TO MALAWI? What will we do if all the flights book up, and the borders close, and we can’t get back home? (pantpantpant).

With a Side Of….Guilt

In the middle of all this, USAID put out a call for help and a few friends started volunteering on the front lines. Whoa, I thought, this is getting serious. I felt guilty. I’m a development professional, I should go, too. But, would I really? (And what would I do? Milk cows?). I felt the terror fly through my veins, then shame, knowing I could never, ever be that strong.  I thought of my friend, the doctor from July, and wondered if his wife had changed her mind.

Then it hit me: This epidemic isn’t about me, and how I feel.  It’s not about putting up walls and barriers, trying to run away from or drown out the cries for help.  This epidemic is about common human decency.

I am simply flooded with gratitude for those who can and have volunteered, who continue to run towards the epicenter, who lift dying mothers into taxis and into houses, all the while, putting themselves at risk. I am grateful, and I am ashamed of myself, because I know I could never do it. These people are the real heroes, and I pray for them.

Anger

Nowadays, I’m more angry about blind panic than anything else. America looks pretty silly right now. Never before have our xenophobia, racial overtones and fear of the “Other” been so much on display. Never before has our ignorance of Africa’s geography been so well highlighted. My fervent hope is that we’ll use this fear to get educated.

While midterm elections swirl and politicians debate what kind barriers we should put up, I keep thinking: This is not about America.  I know that America is a big, messy, complicated place. Gnashing our horrible teeth and roaring our horrible roars and debating our horrible debates is part of who we are. But this epidemic is about doing what is decent for the global public health, even when it’s hard. Even when we’re terrified. 

Acceptance

While all the above emotions still linger, my partner and I recently made up a plan. Luckily, we are close friends with some people at the Center for Disease control here and can take our cues from them (“When his family goes, we go,” says Kevin).  **EDIT: It also helps that Malawi is over 3200 miles from the closest country with ebola. Folks in London are closer).***The ride isn’t over, but I am getting educated, and I am getting over myself.