The Globals' Generation?

Or the "cool American 20-something heros" with the "white savior complex"?


This week I came across two very different articles about young people in international development work. The first is 


I encourage anyone who has time and has interest in this sort of thing to take a look at them both, and make your comments here.


The first is: "'Globals' Generation Focuses On Experience" by Sam Sanders (NPR)
The second is "The White Savior Industrial Complex" by Teju Cole (The Atlantic)


Together, from my perspective, the contrasting perspectives from these articles make an inseparable pair. I don't think you can understand one without the other. I don't think either is quite useful without the other. The fact is, there is a growing number of young people, like me, who want to not only see the outside world, but be a dynamic and valuable part of it. And as we will learn, assuming we learn with open eyes and mind, there is an easy way to travel the world and stroke your ego, and there is a difficult way, that takes time, frustration, confusion, and feelings of uselessness intercepted by small, real victories. When we get here, we all oscillate somewhere in between. 


The following is from an email to my colleagues in Burkina and Cameroon, as we have been discussing the Cole article and what it means in our partnerships.


The discussion of forging partnerships is one that we will have continually throughout our careers. It's part of what makes development work challenging- having to always reflect on the purpose of your work in the great context of global dynamics and the often blinded human desires to simply "do good for the world".

Of course, the Globals article resonated with me in terms of the trajectory of our lives as being strikingly different from previous generations. As development work and travel are getting more and more popular for "cool American 20-something heros" (as Cole calls them), we have to be concerned that young people aren't just flooding into Africa with all hopes of saving the world without having anything sustainable to offer.

As young researchers, I truly feel like we do have something sustainable to offer, as long as we do pay close attention to our relationships with our partners. We are fortunate here in Togo to work with very educated, very motivated people. One thing that draws me into qualitative research in international health is that the benefit we offer is not so much our resources or our privileged background, or our superior knowledge. It is a fresh and different cultural perspective, a means for people to look at their culture and society in a deeper and fresher way, that if done  in an ideal fashion, can be free of the superiority complex. Qualitative tools, I believe, allow for that, and are even more valuable when you have a diverse team of people designing and implementing them. In the same way, I think some of our Togolese partners should be invited to the States to help us do a qualitative study on why Americans waste so much energy, or what we really believe our health rights and policies ought to be.

I would never give up international work on account of "Dead-Aid"- like criticisms, but I find I need to constantly keep myself in check to really be a "partner". What we do here is a microcosm of what we want to happen in the world. We need to constantly be careful not to let the "white savior" in us prevail, and really strive to set grassroots for a world of global partnerships?

The hardest part of all this is the outside world's admiration for the "White Savior" and ignorance to the complexities of global politics, development, and culture. If the "Global Generation" is truly upon us, I challenge any of you young people out there to become leaders of it. Set an example of humility, patience, respect, and the importance of defining what you really will offer when you travel abroad. 

Pictures- Lomé and Kpolimé

My Street in Lomé

Kpolimé- where we went for a weekend hiking trip

Natural paints in the artist's village

A work of natural art on Annie's arm

Chez Paul- a cute little restaurant where we had lunch, fresh pineapple juice, and relaxed in the hills

The grand marché in Lomé

I fell in love with this one

What we're trying to do here

So I suppose now I’ll catch you all up on what I’m doing.

I’ll be here until August 24^th. Maybe. At least that’s the plan now. And then I go back. Maybe. And do a PhD? A Job? Maybe. Bounce around the world a little bit? Stay on the Togo project a bit? I’m not sure yet. I have options, which is great. Being here has invigorated me, and made me realize I’m still young, healthy, and able to really have the freedom to gather new experiences at my choosing. But for the moment…

I got this gig through Hopkins’ Research2Prevention project: www.jhsph.edu/r2p. It’s a USAID funded effort to find out more about what we call HIV MARPs, or “Most-At-Risk-Populations”. The populations we are focusing on here in Togo are MSM (Men who have sex with men) and female SW (Sex workers, aka prostitutes). There is really hardly anything known about what’s going on with these populations in West Africa because they are so stigmatized and hidden, but it’s about time somebody started paying attention. Funding for HIV/AIDS prevention out here typically goes to projects that are general, blanketed… that paint billboards of a man and woman couple holding a condom leaving MSM thinking that they’re not at risk. The point of this research is to first of all, get the prevalence of HIV and other STIs in MSM and SW and estimated the size of the populations. We’re doing this in Togo, Burkina Faso, and Cameroon. There are pretty cool methods to do this, and Annie is the advisor for these numeric, quantitative research activities.

 Then there is a qualitative side of it- which is what my job is focused on. We want to know the in-depth experiences of these populations as they relate to HIV prevention, testing, and treatment. Are they accessing services? We’ll being doing interviews and focus groups and talking analyzing qualitative data to really paint a picture of these populations that to this day are still many unanswered questions about.

But we are far, far from collecting the data. The project is interesting yet, but the preliminary work is tough. It’s going through documents, protocols, budgets. And Annie is great- she commands the room, knows how to push things along. But as for me, I just chime in every once in a while. It’s quite funny how Togolese, or most West Africans I am aware of in general, work. Every since line is debated upon, examined… And they typically show up at least 45minutes sometimes an hour late to the meetings. Our job at this point is translate the documents, let them work on them, and just to be there if they have questions, which they have lots. Our favorite in the past week was “Well why do we need to pay the participants for the qualitative interviews? They’re just coming into talk!”

We have quite a cast of characters. Some spunky women, sharp but menacing young men, a plump and jolly accountant, and a suave and hip, yet terribly fidgety young, gay guy.  Yet they are all very educated, and though the pace of work is slow here, they are really doing a good job. There are moments of laughter, moments of arguing, moments, many moments, in which I have no idea what is happening. But we are looking to finish the documents on Monday, which will be quite a relief. Then, we’ll work on trainings and site development. I’m not sure what to make of all this yet, but so far so good. Is this kind of work, this kind of life for me in the end? Too early to tell.

We had a little 4^th of July lunch for our colleagues. Annie and I impressed ourselves by making a genuine American picnic- hamburgers, hotdogs, potato salad, and a good ole apple pie.

I miss you all but have heard its quite hot back home. The ocean breeze and the rainy days are keeping us pretty cool. We’re off to some mountains for a hike today. I’ll get better about taking pictures.

Hope you are still reading-

Emily

5:00am- Well that was a fun run

Yes, yes. I'll catch you all up on what I'm doing for real here. Work and whatnot. And pictures. I promise. But first, a fun story from this morning:

Emmanuel is no bigger than me. Seems like a quiet, 19 or 20 year old boy, who works at the guesthouse I’m staying at. At least he seems rather shy if you talk to him, but when he goes around the complex mopping or gardening, he is in his own little world, singing unrestrained to his headphones like nobody’s around.

During the week, the other people who stay at this guesthouse, many foreigner aid workers, out of this place early. My schedule has typically been meetings with the partners in the afternoons, which leaves me the morning to myself to work on research documents and such around here. So I work in the charming terrace and have taken to starting up conversation with Emmanuel as he comes and goes from his housekeeping. He noticed that I’ve been going out before breakfast to do a little running, so he asked me about it, and then told me he goes running every morning at 3:00am.

“3:00 am? Why?”

“Well because I have to work early”

“I would go with you but…Can’t you go in the evening?”

“I work in the evening!”

There are other ladies who work here who were in on this conversation and helped Emmanuel figure out that if he got up at 3:00, and did a couple of hours of work, then we could run at 5:00 and he’d be back in time to help with the breakfast.

Oh boy. 5:00? Now it was morning when this conversation happened, and by evening I wasn’t sure if this was actually going to happen. But, what the heck. I set an alarm for 5:00. Just for kicks.

I woke up, then turned over to fall back asleep. But from my room on the third floor I could hear this rhythmic pattering down on the terrace. I looked out my window, and there is Emmanuel, jump-roping like a madman. As fast as he possibly can, then he stops, then he goes again as fast as he possibly can. Is this his normal routine, or is he just killing time waiting for me? I say hello to him from my window. Now I’ve gotta go.

By the time I got dressed and downstairs Emmanuel was tying his running shoes and we were off. We still had a good 30 minutes before the sun came up. “Let’s go to the campus,” he said. The University of Lomé was about a 20 minute run from the guesthouse, and we were off by 5:20.

We were keeping a pretty good pace, and I was happy to have found a running buddy. Of course, no one can replace Shaka (I remember that first ( http://em-mali.blogspot.com/2008/09/running-partner.html ) and longest run (http://em-mali.blogspot.com/2010/05/it-had-been-talked-about-so-much-it-had.html) with him like it was yesterday). But its good to have someone like this around.  I learned that Emmanuel went to bed at 11, and typically likes to get up early- today he was up at 1:00am. Crazy fool! He says sometimes when he is tired he goes to bed at 8:00 and then gets up at 3:00. When we got to the University, many others were running a big loop around the campus. By 6:00 am there were about 150 college students running in a group. Emmanuel got really excited when he saw them, so we joined.

Now when I say running, well, we definitely dropped the pace. The entire group was running in sync, militant, at a pace no faster than walking. Somebody kept beat with a cowbell. As time went on, and the sun came up, and the rhythm of the run built more and more layers. First, people started clapping in rhythm, a bit later, a call-and-response chant, then a song, then two, then three-part harmonies to the song, along with the clapping, the cow-bell, the call of the leader, and the patter of feet.

Emmanuel is having the time of his life, singing, running, blending in with the college crowd he never had the opportunity to be a part of. Of course I didn’t blend in at all. And people took to making sure I learned the words of the song and sang them out loud. There were quite a number of girls in the group though too, pleasingly.

We did a couple more laps then ran back. “They do this every Saturday morning! It’s so encouraging!” says Emmanuel. When we got back to the guest house, the front door hadn’t been opened yet. We rang the bell and one of the housekeeping ladies opened it. She squealed seeing us both there, sweaty from the morning humidity. By the time I was showered and downstairs for breakfast, Emmanuel was already sweeping the terrace, singing along to his headphones.

“I didn’t know you ran like that” he said. We had done about 8 miles, all but those middle two at a good place.

I laughed, returned the compliment, and asked him what time church was on Sunday.

“6:00 am, 8:00, or 11:00. I go to the 6:00. “ Of course.

He sensed my lack of enthusiasm, and said, “We can go at 8:00.”

Ok.

Back on West African streets

Ok everyone. It’s about time I tell you what’s up.

 I’ve been here in Lomé, Togo for about a week now, missing you all and thinking of home, but also excited to embark on a new adventure. I’m going to catch up on this blog in the next few days to tell you about my surroundings, my work, and the people I’ve met. I’ll tell you about my personal thoughts, mostly along the same lines as in Mali, about my struggle to find how I can best make an impact. But this time it’s a bit different. Just a forewarning- I’m not out in village. In Dombila, I could describe the feuds of Shaka and Irene or talk honestly about how B cheated me out of my money. But not here. I’m surrounded by more modern colleagues and neighbors that could have access to what I post here. I’m doing a research study that involves sensitive and confidential information. So while I will chronicle daily trials and tribulations, there are depths of this experience that I have to reveal to you in conversations off record.

 In many ways, being here in Lomé is not new at all. It’s amazing how similar this city is to Bamako. Going down the streets that turn from pavement to flooded dirt, I see the markets, the children playing in the streets, the half-finished buildings, and the intersections crowded with weaving motos. Children run up and point to me, some rude men hiss at me, and any time of day or night, you can always get a great egg sandwich on the street for about 35 cents. But the familiarity is a bit of a façade. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to put my foot in my mouth because I’m trying not to speak Bambara. It feels like my territory, but it isn’t. My French is good enough to get me around, communicate, survive. But I no longer have my secret weapon. The other night I went to get some street food- I went out to the lady with all her big pots covered on the table, and the people sitting on wobbly benches eating their rice or greasy spaghetti. I asked for beans and couscous. She looked annoyed. Everyone around me was talking in Ewe, the local language here. I’m sure the first thought that came to her head was here’s a stupid foreigner that has no idea what this food is and is probably going to get sick off of it. In Mali, I could prove her wrong, and take every one in the vicinity by surprise by busting out some bean jokes. I would have had her smiling in a second, and she’d become a regular friend that I’d pass by and greet. Instead, her thoughts about me being a stupid foreigner were valid. And I probably would get sick off of the food. And she looked at me with a bit of distain, handed me my change, said, “Merci” and I left.

 Now people here are friendly, don’t get me wrong. And I’m both jealous and grateful for my colleague and good friend, Miss Annie Chen. Annie was a classmate of mine at Hopkins and is the other Hopkins representative of this project (more on our work in the next post). Annie however, was Peace Corps Togo. This IS her territory. She worked her entire second year in the exact section of the city that we are in now. We walk down the street and little kids know her name, she bargains taxi drivers in Ewe, she commands the street, the language, most of our interactions, and I tend to feel reliant on her for many things. If she wasn’t here, I would not be experiencing the Lomé I am now. She has taken me to the markets, the beach, parties with other foreigners, fun little restaurants, pools, found me a place to live, explained to me what local food is must-have and which to avoid. I am outstandingly grateful. And though it is fun to experience a new place, it is so much like Bamako, I wonder why I’m not just in Bamako where I know the ropes (well, yes, besides the coup and all that… and that reminds me of another story…).

 But of course, there are interesting differences here in culture, some of which I will elaborate on in future posts. As for me, it feels good to be out here. Of course it comes at a price- not as much nutritious food, being far away from my family and friends, struggling to stay in shape. But I’m back out here in the field. And though the work so far has been slow, I feel like I’m doing something really important. I love this field- I feel so blessed to be able to do this work. And I’m still young, adventurous, and able to have experiences like this.

 More to come later. And maybe I should start taking some pictures too.

 Yours again and always, Emily