Culture Shock

I have been struggling lately with what I have recently realized is the second phase of culture shock. My honeymoon phase seemed shorter than usual (two weeks maybe) and I have been a bit grumpy lately, sliding into the "I don't like it here" attitude. To have you remind me that everything is ok is a great thing. “

D was able to remind me that life is good and we should give thanks for all that we have. It was a recent realization that I was suffering culture shock…it always takes someone outside of you to help you realize the symptoms. Really what I am suffering from is a lack of “intensity” or something. Let me try to explain: there is a difference between Development work and Emergency Relief. Development work is a long drawn-out affair that takes years and requires huge capital investment and plenty of hope. In my experience with the P, we spent over 30 million CAD and I do not believe that there was much use to it in the end. Not enough people were affected, and not enough people were able to take advantage and make a rolling-snowball bigger. Emergency Aid is different in that things are cut and dried. Decisions are easy, you either save a life or not. You do the right thing or not. And since THEM is an “independent MEDICAL aid agency” our role is self-defining. Save lives. This is the intensity I was looking for, the doing the right thing right away without the hassle of long-term commitments.

Here in Nimba Liberia, there is less of an emergency response and more “transitional to development”. Maybe because 15000 peacekeepers are onsite keeping the tensions down, or maybe folks are finished with the fighting and happy to move on to other things. The election, while many believed would be a dangerous and risky and unsettling time, was one of celebration and patience here in Sanniquellie today.

So here we are, a medical aid agency working in a development role. Words like sustainability is being tossed around. We are doing outreach work, passing out condoms, training HIV/AIDS, training TBA’s (traditional birth attendants), training midwives, training and training, building wells, fixing handpumps. Our four clinics have been constructed, upgraded, painted, roofed, furnitured, staffed… by us. Our hospital gets a paintjob, new furniture and new laundry lines (including the rope!) and more. And so I struggle with concepts of extending our assistance outside the terms-of-reference for the organization and its role. Where do we stop? And what is the threshold by which we step back and allow other agencies to fill the gaps with their money and expertise?

Emergency relief and Community Development are dangerous occupations, I think. The industry spends much money and effort struggling with concepts of “dependency” (do you think we should paint the hospital, or is that something that the Ministry of Health can easily do???) and “doing no harm” in its work. Rather than the imperialistic approach to business “here is the stuff and make yourself good” we are struggling for shared ownership and shared solution to problematic issues: poverty, education, healthcare, women’s rights and safety, the list goes on. So I struggle with the same issues. There is no right answer, but here I get no feeling that anyone is asking those questions (in my predeparture training all we heard was ‘money is no object’ - both a good and bad statement) so why should I???

Besides that it is true, with the 8 other expats there is no real friendships to develop, we all come from so varied a background and so varied a culture and experience and all are so transitional. So I spend lots of time reading. That and I am getting frustrated with problems that arise which are some how attributable to me as being caused by me? Such is the life of a logistics guy, when things are going fine all is quiet but…

Enough enough!

I forgot about thanksgiving. Days here roll one after another and since the expats come from UK and Germany there is less emphasis on North American holidays.