So I have been struggling to write this blog post.I can't seem to put everything together. There has been so much that has happened in the last two weeks or so.I feel more motivated right now about work, I have a better understanding of what I am doing but why do I feel this way?
I guess I should look back at what I have been doing in the last few weeks
-Struggles with work ----- lack of understanding of what my job is, how do I fit in
-Village stay ----- I lived with a family in a rural village called South Downs where I get to see first hand what small holder farming life is like (what an experience, I wish I could live there for a long time)
-The Malawian retreat adventure spectacular!!!
-The return to work
Ah. Before I start I just want to say thanks to Mike, Rose, Andrew and Matthew for the birthday wishes and card. I just got it the other day when I returned from Malawi. It was really great!
So I have explained my struggles with work before but I will remunerate them quickly for those who are just getting caught up here:
-overwhelmed with expectations. my co-workers could not stress enough how high their expectations were for me, although they never did explain they. the expectations were just high. have you ever experienced this?
-felt as if I was filling in gaps instead of capacity building (gap filling is doing work for others here whereas capacity building is assessing looking for challenges my co workers face and help them develop skills so they can solve the problem on their own......although sometimes...as in my office....a challenge is not having enough time or too much work, thus gap filling is capacity building time.....solution: time machine or somehow give everyone powers like the Flash....but then they could abuse it....fuck im rambling. need to stop swearing too..)(...would I abuse the powers of the Flash if I had them...depends on my morals I suppose....r-a-m-b-l-I-n-g)
-although I understood the Rural Prosperity Initiative from a project standpoint I was having a hard time understanding the long term effects (and short term ones also).
I left the office on June 9th to stay in South Downs until June 13th were I there returned to Kitwe for a day to wash my clothes, eat some greasy food and mars bars and pack to leave for a nearby town of Ndola. I was visiting our satellite office there to get a better understand of how big our area is and the challenges Mwakoi faces (the field officer there).
While I was in Ndola I stay with my fellow JF and good friend Patrick from U of Calgary, he is working with biosand filters which are being promoted by an NGO called Seeds of Hope International Programs....SHIP (he is a follower of mine, you should check out his blog....it is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better than this one).
Working with Mwakoi gave me the chance to see how marketing of farming products goes down, I never got to see this before. I had this giant image in my head that you need a suit and a speech prepared...nope. We walked into a bunch of hotels, asked the the purchasing manager, showed him/her the beans, the exec chef came in, smelt them, asked for a sample, asked for a price and then said they would call us back. Pretty easy, I feel as if I could do it now.
The main reason we were doing this was because the agreement that was arranged with Freshpikt (remember the beans, low prices being given after a higher price was contracted) was fucked to shit (agin with the swearing anthony....) so IDE is side selling the beans to hotels, government institutions (hospitals, universitys, schools) in order to get the price of 1 USD (K5000) instead of 0.73 USD. So far, so good. All the places were down with the price of K5000. Horrah! More money for rural farmers! Now we just have to wait if they want to buy the beans and if so, how many kilos are we walking about here (hopefully a billion kilos which = $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$)
This was a great experience to see how an NGO can really help out the farmers but the plan is not to always be doing this. Our program is for 3-4 years, we wont be here forever. What happens when we are gone....it is important not to do the work but to facilitate relationships between the farmers and buyers themselves. I see this being a major struggle right now but hopefully next year when/if they grow beans they can go sell them without us.
A major component of this is to help farmers identify new markets that they can sell to. There are many hospitals, restaurants, schools that are willing to buy fresh produce but there is no connection between the buyer and seller. This is were we come in, think of us like a matchmaker. We dont want to be the person that carries the lover letter to the cute boy/girl across the room, we just want to be the person who whispers into your ear who has a crush on you...then its up to you what you do.
I guess that leads into sometime very interesting we talked about at retreat during the IDE meetings which is IDE's development philosophy : When farmers are given the right information needed (whether it be for agriculture techniques, marketing information, gender equality...etc) they will use the information to maximise their benefit (it is not worded exactly like this I just made it a little more clearer here..I hope I did anyway). This goes back to the person telling you someone in your class has a crush on you...just because you know, that does not mean you are going to do it (ok ok ok... I know this is really different, you get not income benefits from dating someone...or do you?? how rich are they?...anyway..."benefits" aside...im rambling damn it). How do you teach others to make the right decision for themselves. What do you think about this? I would love to hear some feedback. I have yet to come up with an answer but it has been plaguing me for a few days now.
Since I am talking about retreat now, I guess I should keep doing so. No?
Retreat was set in Senga Bay, Malawi (check it out on Google Maps, it is the most beautiful place I have ever been too. I will post pictures soon as I stop feeling bad for spending so much time there while my position should be about development work and not stunning beauty..anyway...rambling) where all 13 JF and about 7 long term volunteers got together to talk about:
-challenges that each of us are facing-our impact plans-development talk-getting caught up with EWB news and values-communication strategies
(haha. one of my talks in the challenges was about how I write my blog. I am never happy with it, I tend to ramble and put too much info. i said I would try and stop....well look at this post...shit)
I won't really get into the EWB news and values or challenges since I have talked about it a lot (work wise anyway...maybe I will talk about personal challenges...if thats what I could call them...). I have already talked about IDE's development theory, so we'll see where that goes. I feel lost here, hold on. My thoughts are fading.
Ok.Back on track.
Personal challenges.
One of the things I have been struggling a lot with but I have never vocalised it (keyboarded it) was my lack of satisfaction with the way I am communicating with experience with others and my self reflection. I have been having a hard time pulling myself from the moment of any situation and looking back on what is going on in the bigger picture. I feel like a tourist all the time, maybe that feeling won't go away but it is a shitty feeling. I am trying to to my best at integrating with people and work but I can't stop feeling like an outsider. Maybe this is a common feeling, I should ask around. I as if when I talk about my experience it is about what I am doing and not really what I am feeling during that time. This is the reason I have yet to talk about my village stay, I do not know how to convey it to everyone. I don't know how I feel.
I had some good ideas given to me on how I can convey my experiences in a different way. I will be trying them out over time to see what happens. Maybe you will notice, maybe you wont.
Our impact planning sessions were designed to help us set course in order to maximise our impact in 5 areas:
-project-office-personal-community-chapter/in Canada
Some of these are easy than others. Some are very difficult. Some just won't happen ( I keep telling myself not to talk like this but it's not work...or maybe it just takes time)
My two biggest focuses will be (and have been) my office and chapter/Canada. This blog is for Canada, I have also been planning some interesting learning sessions for members of UoG as well as some ideas for explaining the challenges rural farmers face everyday. As for my office I was given some great guidance and realisation about how I was going at things in the wrong way and I feel as if things are back on track (although I now have about 10X more work to do...but I love it, I just wish I could do it with you).
Other than those sessions we had a lot of fun. The place had a bar tab than you could run for your whole stay....I had the biggest bill...anyway..it was good to get together with people and celebrate. The experience made me realise how I get alot of reflection done by talking out my problems and solving them through conversation. I need to human wall to bounce ideas back and fourth (maybe I am just used to this because of all the group work we do in design classes at UoG and the working partnership I have developed with a rather excellent friend).
I will post pictures soon. I need to.This place is fantastic.
So how am I doing now that I am back?
Well I feel really pushed because I have some awesome objectives that are pretty fucking tangible (not just...oh hey do some capacity building...well they still are that...maybe I just understand better how to approach the situation) and I have an awesome drive to get work done now that I know what this program is all about (I am sorry I have not elaborated on this yet....ah South Downs...how you changed me in such a great way...maybe not a change but defiantly an appreciation for hard work and rural farming...).
I have tons of work to get done but I guess that means time will get by faster and we can be rocking and rolling the dance floor again.
This coming week is going to be hectic but a whole lotta fun.-Going to the field on Monday with some people from Freshpikt (the bean dudes) so that they can explain to the farmers why they changed the price on them-Tues and Wens are office days to work on a proposal for our final report/tool that we need to develop ( I will explain more about it once I get feedback)-Thursday traveling to Ndola to visit some farmers and talk to my co worker about personal development and capacity building (I will also be doing this here in Kitwe but I don't know when yet...this week sometime...I just need to get times from them)
Well.This has been a book.
I am sure there are blank spots.Ask me some questions and I will do better at responding to them.
Much love to you all.
Tony
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