Who is this guy? And what's his angle?

This post is about the difficulty in understanding personal identities, something I’m experiencing in a few areas of life right now, which is all part of the game when things change drastically. And as such, this post is dedicated with love to Tara.

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Who is this guy? And what's his angle? These are burning questions for me of myself. What am I doing here? What is about me being located at this longitude and latitude working with these certain people on these certain things that makes any more sense than me working back home with other certain people on other certain things? These questions are tough to answer, and I think anyone who goes overseas in the capacity that EWB OVS do, involving hyper-consciousness of your knowledge, skill, and attitude gaps, is going to have to ask them eventually. If you’re humble enough to realize you don’t know jack, it’s always at least going to cross your mind: what can I possible do here that’s of any value or of enough value that’s it worth coming here? Those of you from EWB have heard this one a million times from OVS. It comes with the territory I think.

At this point in my placement, it seems to me that when you think about it hard enough, you see that there is a good potential answer to that question about your value: you can’t know until you find yourself doing it. Sure you can’t: if you thought you knew up front what exact value you can add, that would assume you knew up front what exact value you had within you that your partner could actually use to help them help their country, which requires you understand three things that I think can’t really be understood before you show up:

1. What is this country?
2. What is your partner?
3. Who are you when you’re in this country working with your partner?

So, yes, these questions I'm asking myself, trying my hardest to find an identity that makes sense here. Just as I have been ever since I decided to come overseas, though the learning curve just got a whole lot steeper. But, I'm not the only one asking these questions. The people I'm working with are in precisely the same boat as me. They don't know who I am or what my angle is either.

As an aside, the content of this post partly concerns my partner, I am aware that they have internet access and may read this at some point. If someone from my partner happens to read this post, I encourage you to come ask me about it. I feel I have nothing to hide and feel comfortable sharing these types of thoughts, so please read on and call me out on anything you see. None of these things I have to say here are criticisms, but rather my perceptions of the challenges of crossing cultural bridges when working together. If you think I have missed the point or are seeing things from the wrong perspective, I would LOVE for you to tell me about it. Zikomo kwawbiri!

Two weeks ago, I arrived at my partner and was introduced to the people who run the show. I arrived with Megan, my OVS coach, and we both communicated right from the get go that I hope that we can learn from each other: Mike from Freshwater and Freshwater from Mike. I was told to be “free” by the Executive Director, to “assess” Freshwater and tell them where their gaps are. This is very much the role it seems that I am expected to play, as an appraiser and solution finder. It seems there is an expectation that I know what should be in place here at Freshwater and, if I see that it’s not, I should be able to know how to fix it. Many times already since I’ve been here, I have been asked, “So, what problems have you found with Freshwater so far?”

Further, upon my arrival, I was given the title of “Programs Manager” (second highest in the organization, apart from the Executive Director) and given the executive office (second sweetest office in the building apart from the Executive Director). I have never worked in water and sanitation before and have never worked in Malawi before. But there I was, being introduced to my new job as a Programs Manager for a Malawian Water and Sanitation organization.

This floored me. My role, as I had expected it to be, was as an employee who floated and added value where he could, learning lots at first and adding more and more value as time and learning wore on. Someone who builds trust with everyone at all levels and understands their challenges. I never expected to be the big boss; I’m not qualified. I am overseas with EWB not because of what I know but because of the ability I have to learn. That is a very big distinction in my mind, and to me the distinction makes perfect sense. But for decades, so much of the development machine has been built on an unstated but very real assumption that “we”, western development professionals, know what “they”, people from developing countries, need to do. This is an assumption that I am not bringing with me, but the very fact that this is how things have been done for so long has built a large barrier to sending this message: for the time being I am here to help and learn, not to direct and criticise. And, yes, I AM open to feedback!

So, I made my concerns clear to Freshwater. I asked that my role be changed to “Capacity Building Officer” and that I be removed from the hierarchy. In addition, I invited two people who had no offices to come share mine with me. To Freshwater’s immense credit, they were open to my feedback on this (I broached the topic on day 2, Oooooo…), and they were willing to listen to my concerns. In fact, I think the fact that I nipped this early was something that Freshwater appreciated. This is a good sign.

The change in title and office made a pretty big difference I think, but actions tend to speak louder than titles and offices anyway, so I think I’m working this out. And I have worked to say this is words: “I don’t know the answer. I have worked here for 5 days, I don’t know what to do in this situation. I’m learning”. But saying this in words doesn’t quite seem to do the trick. Although I have changed the title and am now sharing the big office, I am still trying to place what the perceptions of my role are to the people around me. I am used to having to prove myself, but I am not used to having to “disprove” myself: to make it clear that I’m wearing my humility on my sleeve, acknowledging my own ignorance, but still trying to be useful as I am learning for the first months of my placement.

Now, with these challenges of expectation-setting in mind, let’s come back to my original point. I am struggling to find a life and an identity here. At my EWB chapter, I was the President. I was a facilitator, a poser of questions, a holder of key information, a sharer of this information, and someone who helped others grow (at least that’s how I saw myself). As far as I know, that’s who I was and what people knew me to be. On my hockey team I was the goalie. I was the backstop who could contribute to giving my team a chance to win by keeping our opponent’s score as low as possible, preferably zero (it was zero a couple of times actually!). In my recently ended relationship, I was the boyfriend. I was someone who was there to comfort, support, and share great moments with the woman I love. And at my job back in Canada, I was the researcher. I generated ideas, explored them, and shared them. But here, who am I?

Now think about this: if I am not even sure of who I am here, how the hell can I expect anyone else around me to have a clue? Especially when they are used to seeing foreign people like myself playing a certain role. Is it even remotely reasonable to expect people not to paint me with the same brush as most of the other azungus (azungu being a Chichewa word approximately meaning “foreigner”)? No, of course not.

In trying to make sense of all of this, I tried to picture a situation in which the tables were turned. In order to do that, I tried to think of something that one might want to do in Canada for which we might be likely to have someone from Malawi come and try to positively impact. And, actually, I had a lot of trouble coming up with anything that truly fits the example. Does that mean I’m not thinking hard enough? Or does the reverse context really not exist? Even if it does exist, it’s certainly not very common unless I’m just ignorant or badly read (to quote Chambers for the second time this blog).

So, for lack of a better example, I'm going to go with maize farming. People in Malawi are awesome at farming maize (corn) in what could be considered non-ideal conditions: dusty soil, rains that might not come on time, no mechanization, high instances of waterborne disease and malaria reducing your productivity, etc. But people in Malawi make it happen somehow. Maize is the staple here, and for a great many people in this nation, it’s the unequivocal backbone of their livelihoods. (See questions at the bottom of the post if you have thoughts on this example)

Let’s imagine this situation: you and your colleagues, let’s call them partners in your maize co-operative, are trying to grow a maize farm in Vancouver. You know how to do it and have been doing it with moderate success for years, but have a lot of constraints and problems that you aren’t sure how to solve or don’t have the resources to address. You are about to receive a Malawian volunteer from Maize Without Borders, a Malawian NGO dedicated to the end of crappy maize crops in the developed world. You and your maize growing co-op partners in Vancouver greet him excitedly because he’s from Malawi, where people grow lots of really good maize, and he’s come all the way to Canada for a year to help you out. Now imagine you ask him to tell you what you’re doing wrong, and he says that he has no experience with maize growing co-operatives, so he can’t give you any direct advice. He just wants to smile, be your friend, know your problems*, understand your work, and see what ideas come up over the next year, but the process has to be driven by YOU. What would you say? Maybe something like, “Ooookaay, so what are you doing here then”? Now imagine that, for 50 years prior to this, co-ops like yours had seen Malawians pouring into Canada telling you that you’re doing things wrong and you should do it this way because this works in Malawi. Wouldn’t you then be even more confused by the situation?

*I borrowed a bit from Eric Dudley in this sentence.

One of my best friends in the world and the type of person who makes you consider being proud to be human, Troy Barrie, helped me to work this out. He reminded me that, even if someone does listen and acknowledge what I’m saying about not being the boss and is OK with it, there’s still the problem of figuring out who I am instead. In The Critical Villager (an excellent and highly recommended book for anyone interested in humanity, not just development), Eric Dudley talks about “Recognized Authorities”. Basically the idea is that everyone has some notion of what is done by whom, and that those ideas are not universal.

It goes something like this: in a village in Malawi, it may be obvious to the locals the identities of who carries water, who fixes the roof, who sells this type of crop but not that type, who sweeps, who does this and who doesn’t do that. But to someone like me, it’s all a total mystery, at least at first, just as it would a mystery if a Malawian cobbler came to live in a frat house in Canada. The issue here is that the international development workers have in many cases established themselves with an identity that I don’t want to share, and in other cases have done a poor job of establishing themselves with any kind identity that is at all understandable to local people. When a development worker comes in, people are forced to ask: who is this guy, and what’s his angle? This is where societal and cultural filters really start to make this messy, because in Canada the establishment of one’s identity might look like something like this:

“OK, I thought this guy was an X, but he’s acting more like a Y, so he must be a Y”

Whereas, in Malawi, since I am still struggling to define my identity and because my angle is not necessarily clear to everyone around me due to cross-cultural communication challenges, it might look more like this:

“OK, I thought he was X, but he’s acting more like a, ummm…. hmmm…. What is he acting like actually?“

What Dudley suggests as a way to handle the situation of unclear identities is to simply act, and with time, people will begin to give you an identity. I’ve said it in words, “I’m not the boss”, and I’ve changed my title and my office setup to be non boss-like, but I’ll have to walk the walk as well. What does walking the walk mean? It’s hard to say at this point, but for now, I’m just going to try to be helpful and valuable in everything I do and support by co-workers in any way they seem to need. In so doing, I hope to be able to learn what their challenges are and see Malawi’s reality from their perspective. And as I learn about that, I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

Questions for thought and comment:

-When explaining that one of the questions you need to answer is who you are in this country working for this partner, I made an assumption that people are actually different people in different contexts. I have a feeling this is true: everyone acts differently around their friends than they do around their parents, but they’d probably say they’re still “being themselves”. What do you think? Where does the line get drawn between simply being yourself and doing what feels natural and trying consciously to find an identity? What does this mean for me in Malawi? What does it mean for you in your life as it is static or in your life is it changing?

-When I tried to think of a reverse example for the overseas sending scenario, I came up with something pretty lame. Can you think of anything more realistic? If so, please share. If not, what do you make of that in terms of the way people see people in developing countries and the way people in developing countries see Canada? Does the fact that the ratio of Canada’s GDP to Malawi’s is about 50:1 make all the difference? Or does it run deeper than this? What can you think of that you do in your everyday life that you think a Malawian could do better?

-Have you ever been in a situation in which you were perceived as someone who you felt you weren’t? How did you go about understanding people’s perceptions of you, and what did you learn? How much do people’s preconceived notions about who you are affect how they will interact with you, and how do you change these perceptions?

Loaded questions. I really hope to get some feedback here. Can’t wait to hear your responses. As always, any other comments are more than welcome, too.

Thanks for reading! I miss you all.
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