Child of Chisale

Starting anew

2009-11-01T23:36:00.003Z

I am going to try to start up with the blogging again.

My life has changed dramatically since I last wrote. I finished my Masters and the most major relationship of my life (apart from my parents) has shifted. I went to Malawi over the summer for dissertation research and to do some work with Bola Moyo. For a number of reasons (but still less than I can count on one hand) I decided to not go back and work in Malawi as I had planned to do for so long and I am no longer involved with Bola Moyo.

Eventually I'll write about all those reasons in this blog, but not today. This is a new chapter in the Child of Chisale saga. My personal and my professional life have shifted and I find that I've lost myself in the chaos of it all in the past few months. I've not been myself. I want myself back (how self-absorbed, I know), and the only way I've ever been able to get clarity about anything in life is to write myself through it. This will still be a mix of the personal and professional, because I've never been able to discern those different aspects of myself so well. (A recurring theme throughout my life that has caused me more trouble than I care to admit.)

So here I am. Hello world - Anachisale - that "clever lady" is back.

Not for better or worse. Not much could have been worse than these past few months. This time it's only for the better.

Back from Malawi

2009-04-21T20:46:00.004+01:00

Wow - what an insane month that was...

I'm always shocked by how busy I am whenever I go to Africa. I pack my suitcase chock full of books I'm just certain I'll be able to read, and I usually never have time to read any of them. This time I not only packed books, but articles upon articles to review for exams, read up for my dissertation, etc. I'll let you guess as to how many of them actually got read. One of the issues is that my time there is always limited, so I'm as social as possible whenever I'm there (for better or worse, ugh). That's one of the things I love there - the emphasis on relationships - but it proved to be less than helpful for getting any academic work done this past month.

As of this morning, I am back in London. Although I miss Malawi something fierce (my friend Chiara and I talked about how that place is a drug, and my how it's true!), I'm relieved in a way to be back. I'm looking forward to diving back into my academic work, doing what it takes to successfully complete this masters. The next four months will hold lots of adventure, sleepless nights, and coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

I promise a more thorough recap of this and 'lessons learned' soon - at a point when I can afford the procrastination... For now, I'm going to enjoy my hot shower, my own kitchen, and springtime in the city.

Malawi melacholia

2009-04-06T17:11:00.003+01:00

I have been in Malawi for a bit over two weeks, and I leave two weeks today. I am already feeling quite melancholy about leaving... Somehow whenever I leave a place, I never, ever fully believe that I'll be back again. Perhaps that comes with having moved 15 times and having gone to 10 different schools by the time I graduated high school. Living the gypsy lifestyle (to an extent - I was a preacher's kid) shaped my personality from a formative age. This has privileged me to a degree, as I've eased fairly easily into the "world citizen" lifestyle in the past couple of years. And yet I long for the roots I wonder if I'll ever have.

Balaka has become a certain kind of home to me, even though I've only ever spent a total of three months here. I have built a certain type of community here, and a good foundation of local relationships for working within this culture and this town. Every time I've come I've built it up by by bit, and then I leave it again. Each time I wonder what will be left standing when I return.

indoctrination

2009-03-19T09:49:00.013Z

Chaos.

I have been living on cappuccinos and energy drinks and about four hours of sleep a night for the past 10 days. My flat is a total disaster area, I have been sick for a week, I haven't run in two weeks, and I've barely seen my friends or my husband. But finally! My assessed work for this term is complete. I will turn it all in to campus this afternoon.

I leave for Malawi tomorrow, and between now and then I have to pack, buy some gifts and necessities for my trip, and download a zillion PDFs for my consultancy project research as well as dissertation research. Depending on how my work goes, I may come back to London a bit early (that is, if my work doesn't go well). When I booked these tickets I had no idea how much work there would be to do over this supposed 'break.'

But I am looking forward to seeing everyone in Balaka again SO very much. At my university it seems like they tell us every day how we are going to graduate from here and automatically be part of the 'global elite.' I can see that this excites many of my classmates, but can I just say how utterly and completely depressing such a statement is?

The Global Elite - really?! I can't help but snort whenever I hear this phrase. Really, who the hell do we think we are?

I will have NONE of that, thankyouverymuch. I'm looking forward to coming back down to Earth again, even if only for a short while.**

**Although I am not looking forward to the 'wow, you've gotten so fat!' comments I am certain to be greeted with this time around... part of being 'back on Earth' I suppose.

PS - Go easy on me, Balaka friends. I doubt I can drink with the best of you anymore! I have gotten so weak. Shamefully, I am down to one or two times a week these days...

Paul Kagame, China in Africa, and my continual quarter life crisis

2009-03-12T10:23:00.015Z

We are not going to talk about the fact that I am sick again, because it is just NOT happening (my health fares better in tropical climes, I swear!). I am tempted to go into a long analytical tirade about the following topic(s), but will have to refrain due to fatigue and lack of time. However, these are topics I want to bring up now so I can re-visit them soon.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to a talk at Oxford by Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda. As is the Oxford tradition, there were plenty of loud protesters outside the event, calling Kagame a rapist and child killer due to Rwanda's alleged military involvement in the DRC and support of rebel leader Laurent Nkunda. I was trying to explain this involvement in the DRC to a friend, and how it stems back to the genocide - and was promptly given a headache trying to keep the complexities straight in my mind. In any case, I am a bit ambivalent about Kagame himself. His vision for development in Rwanda in AMAZING, but his counterproductive and morally questionable (although I would argue morally-understandable to some extent) engagement in the DRC is problematic, to say the least.

On a slightly different topic, however... Kagame talked about how he welcomes Chinese investors into his country, and that the West is wrong-headed to be talking about a "New Scramble for Africa." There is so much uproar among western institutions about China's entrance into countries all over the continent, loudly exclaiming about extreme exploitation. I suppose I have mixed feelings on this topic. China's engagement in small arms trade in high-conflict countries and repressive regimes such as Sudan is clearly objectionable (and heinous) and it's sad to see Chinese products replacing African goods in African markets, but they also build roads and railways in areas where no western development agency will touch. The World Bank has shied away from infrastructure projects in recent years, focusing instead on so-called community development (I'm pretty convinced the WB is a total failure at this). Clearly, I love community development as much as the next person (I studied it after all!) but roads are still required if any type of large-scale social development is going to take place. Kudos to the Chinese for that.

Another point is that I have never heard an African talk badly about the Chinese. Last year I went to a talk by Mo Ibrahim - the founder of CelTel (now Zain) and a man I greatly admire - who also vigorously defended China's involvement in Africa. Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo talks about the failures of aid and the opportunities the lay in the relationship between Africa and China. Am I really in a position to question China's various levels of involvement when I've never heard an African say a negative word about them (including non-elites)? They will inevitably become more important throughout Africa during this time of great crisis in the western capital markets. Consequently, their involvement should be engaged with critically but productively. The 'China in Africa' phenomenon is not going away, and for the West to take some sort of moral high ground in this so-called New Scramble is ridiculous. It is the soul of hypocrisy.

Kagame talked about how Rwandese need to view themselves as equals in the global marketplace - they need to frame Rwanda was attractive for investors instead of begging for the international aid we all realize is largely ineffective. (In this regard, perhaps this financial crisis is an opportunity for Africa instead of a crisis, as Dambisa Moyo would argue - an opportunity to be innovative and try new approaches). He spoke strongly of the failures of the UN and the international financial institutions, and clearly defined his vision for the actively self-determined future of Rwandese and all Africans.

I am inspired by this vision. I think it is the only way to move forward.

On a more self-centred note, as someone who has envisioned living a good bit of her life in Africa, I have to ask myself, where does this leave me? If it is truly up to Africans (and it is!), what is the point of a life like mine? Is there still a place for stubborn do-gooders such as myself, or is it time to give up the ghost? It's difficult to parse this, because my personal and professional passions are indivisible. I'm left not only with questioning an entire industry, but questioning the basis of my entire self-image and self-worth. I've envisaged spending much of my life living and working in Africa for many, many years now... but is there any way to harmonize this with a self-determined future for Africans? You'd think I'd be able to answer this question after spending the past six months studying and obsessively dissecting "development," but no. The answers I've found only lead to more difficult questions.*

*[Addendum, added 14 March: I suppose I should say that it's not that I didn't make these sorts of observations before re: Africa's future and MY personal/professional future - because I did, quietly, all the time. But now that I've invested so much into my so-called profession with this grad school business, I really have to start asking the hard questions about what role this means I can play... and what I'll need to sacrifice from my own personal vision to help realize this greater vision. Soon I'll no longer have the luxury to simply ask questions, soon it will be time to get off my arse and act. As is usually the case, I suspect my life will look quite a bit different than I envisioned some years ago. Different in ways I couldn't have imagined or predicted.]

That's enough self-reflective wankery for now. Back to work.
Onward!

Joyously inappropriate

2009-03-10T21:17:00.003Z

As an interlude to the stressful hell of my life right now...

I had one fantastically fun commute home tonight. My friend who is visiting from the states right now is an ABBA fan and saw Mamma Mia with me the other night. Tonight we rocked out from Central London the whole way back to my flat on the Underground, listening to ABBA Gold Greatest Hits on my iPhone. Interpretive dancing to Dancing Queen, Lay All Your Love On Me, Voulez-Vous, Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight), and Waterloo might have occurred.

The Brits are so funny. Everyone in our carriage was so obviously entertained by our unabashed goofiness, yet were very intentionally and strategically avoiding eye contact or even vaguely looking in our direction.

I get better and better at being improper the longer I live in this proper country.

pang'ono pang'ono

2009-03-08T15:46:00.018Z

I am due for a bit more pole-pole in my life... also known as pang'ono pang'ono, depending on your locale.

Thankfully, Nathan is doing a bit better. I was not at all impressed by the 'care' he was given at the emergency room. I have been in the ER many times with my father and other people, and never have I seen such shoddy care (and this in one of the more developed countries of the world!)... Not even a glass of water offered in 16+ hours, much less anything done to address what was causing the terrible pain. So, still no answers. We are existing in a space of unknowns together right now. At least we like each other. If only just a little.

Generally I am a fan of the NHS, but when it comes to emergency services, apparently they are SORELY lacking. Anyway, Nathan is home now and semi-ambulatory with crutches, so that's an improvement. I considered cancelling my Malawi trip, but he is insisting I go. His father will probably be visiting for part of the time instead, which is good since he is due for a visit anyhow. I've taken two days off work for this - which I don't regret AT ALL for a loved one - but now I am that much further behind. Now running running running to catch up!!! (Figuratively speaking, not so much literally the past few days.)

Optimistically, the next couple of weeks carries promise of the London Eye, a couple of musicals, a big end of term dinner with friends, too much coffee, lots of late nights of panicky research for my internship followed by several days of manic essay-writing. Then I throw things into a backpack and fly away.

I realize how ridiculously lucky I am when I list all of this, and yet I ask that you please humor me while I indulge in a bit of escapism right now.

I'm a pretty simple girl, really. Right now my perfect day would be an afternoon of hanging out with these beautiful people,

followed by a bit of gossiping, dancing and singing with the adult learners in Balaka,

then an evening of Stout, fried chicken, and silly dancing, probably with these girls:

(PHOTO CENSORED)

Or I'd be going swimming in the Indian ocean with these kids, whom I adore to excess,

later watching these kids in Balaka doing my favorite dance (I forget what it's called, but it's brilliant!),

Then beers with my friend Mshila, the village nurse in Takaungu, Kenya - the funniest person I know ...

If only all of these loved ones lived in the same village, I'd keep it as my home forever.

Back to work now...

What does YOUR perfect day look like?

Sh*t, meet fan

2009-03-06T22:53:00.003Z

I will probably delete this post at some point.

I have had a horrible shit day. It is nearly 11pm, and my husband has been in the emergency room for 7 or 8 hours now. He injured his back horribly this morning at about 8am, to the point that he collapsed on the floor and has not been able to move on his own since. He cannot walk or move at all on his own, and sitting is unbearably painful. They have given him an amazing amount of drugs at the ER and they haven't helped AT ALL. There was not even a chair for me to sit in at the ER. I had to go home, because as lucky timing would have it, we had a friend come into town today to visit for 10 days. We had no food in the house so I had to figure out how to feed her. And now I'm going to try to get some rest, I guess, because the doctors seem to have given up at this point. They have no idea what's wrong with him nor do they have any idea what to do with him. Normally they'd just send him home, but since he cannot move at all, that's not an option.

I hope I go to sleep and when I wake up, this day has just all been a very bad dream.

Hilarious buzzwords

2009-03-01T14:13:00.012Z

The essay I am writing contains all of the following terms:

neopatrimonialism
collective action
deconcentration/delegation/devolution
rent-seeking
elite capture
horizontal solidarity
social capital
vertical dependency
clientelism
vita civile
panacea
magic bullet (this always sounds dirty to me)
institutional arrangement
intended beneficiary

The other day, after going shopping with a friend when I REALLY didn't want to, I complained that the outing didn't have 'mutual utility.'

I know, guys. WHAT?!

These days, I am full of it. There's no other way to describe it. I have become the caricature of the person I always made fun of. It's a shame! (Or as they say here... such a pity.)

Such language can be useful in certain contexts. I just hope I can discern the appropriate context when all of this is over.

Gratuitous photo post: Day in review

2009-02-27T19:05:00.000Z

(NB: Another dissertation post with beaucoup thoughts on development coming soon. But for now my brain needs to take a break, hence the following.)

This hasn't been an easy week. I've been waking up at 6am or before most mornings to make coffee and immediately start working. (I am not alone in this. I've talked to several other fellow grad students who have had to ramp up the same way as the workload seems to be spiraling out of control nearing the end of term. 4 hours of sleep per night seems to be about average for my cohort.) As my sleep deprivation increases throughout the week, so does my coffee consumption. Today I had a cup of coffee, two cappuccinos, and I've ended the day with green tea. I won't be consuming alcohol this weekend because I will probably be putting in 12-16 hour days on both Saturday and Sunday (oops, aside from a Sunday brunch scheduled with an old college friend passing through town). Tonight I am staying home from Brazilian Carnaval festivities to get started on an essay. This promises to be one of my rougher weekends of the term.

Last Friday night I was doing this:

But today, since I knew I had a rough weekend ahead of me with no partying in sight, I decided to seize what was left of this rare beautiful London day as soon as I got home from class and dragged Nathan out for a walk in the park:

But I felt guilty for having not run yesterday, so I turned around, went back home, and went for a run. This was when I caught back up with Nathan again:

I discovered running about a year ago, and I have to say it is one of the most amazing things ever. It keeps me more sane and happy that just about anything else (although perhaps the 'sane' part isn't so evident in this picture). I am hoping to do a half-marathon in May when I get back from Malawi, but I'm having my doubts now since I realized I probably won't be able to keep up my running regime when I'm there. (Unless there are any azungu in Balaka looking for running partners - let me know, Tamara!)

Oh yeah, so I'm going to Malawi for four weeks over spring break. Although it will be fun, this will be a WORKING vacation. I have a big consultancy project report to finish, which is due the day after spring break. Not to mention the bulk of my initial dissertation research. And I'll be touching base with Bola Moyo's work most of the days that I am there, like a good board member would do. I'm looking forward to seeing the kids again and the adult literacy students (apparently there are MANY more now than the last time I was there). These are some of the people who inspired me to go back to school, so it will be good to have a reminder of why I am doing what I'm doing this year. It is all too easy to forget.

This is a frantic pace. At times it scares me, but I love it. And this weekend I will embrace it.

3 more weeks!

See you on the flip side.

Ode to People!

2009-02-25T15:30:00.001Z

As an addendum to my last post: just so you know, I don't actually hate grad school. Most days, at least. Monday was just an exceptionally bad day! Most days I love it here, although I am challenged by the new experience of feeling dumb on a daily basis compared to my peers. They amaze and inspire me. I work so much harder and learn so much more because of them.

Take one of my bestest buds, Maggie (also known as Zamibia - yes. Zamibia!). I don't know how this girl does it, but she's both a rampant partier (she's from Vegas!) and the hardest, most efficient worker I know (probably doesn't read as many blogs as I do!). She moved here after living in Namibia for four years, and we saw each other through immense culture shock when we both first arrived in London. She is one fantastic lady. In fact, the longer I'm here and the more I get to know people here, the more I adore them--unusual for a misanthrope such as myself. I was at a birthday dinner the other night and I realized that almost all of us were from different countries. (And somehow, we never tire of talking politics and development, or making fun of one anothers' accents in the most non-politically correct manner possible!) Where else could I possibly experience such company? It's hard to believe I only have three more weeks of class--then it's spring break, exam time (scary!), and dissertation writing time (scarier!).

Life is beautiful, and too short.

Grad school induced profanity

2009-02-24T06:40:00.003Z

(No, really. I MEAN IT, folks! This is uncensored frustration...)

So yesterday I went to this seminar that I have every Monday. I almost didn't go due to exhaustion, but I think, 'What's the worst that could happen?' Well, the worst (or one of the worst, barring injury/death) is that the teacher could pick on you to give a 10 minute presentation on all the literature (drawing all these different linkages, etc) with only 20 minutes to prepare, while everyone else gets to give a 'rigorous academic critique' of what you say. Fuck you, PhD students who think you are hot shit and can torture masters students--seriously, FUCK YOU. That is what I will think from now on whenever I see this lady.

I mean, obviously I lived through it, but still. How does that actually facilitate learning in any way whatsoever?!

Managing the contextual challenge of behavior change media

2009-02-23T08:48:00.000Z

I think this is what I have settled on. I am most excited about this one, and I also think I have the most resources for it in terms of contacts right now. I still need to talk to my dissertation supervisor about it... but seriously, he really doesn't care too much about what I do. I could go into that more (a tirade in fact!), but I won't.

I like the idea of using media to reach the masses--like soap operas and radio shows--especially for isolated areas. Facilitating contact with and knowledge of the outside world, etc, even/especially for those who are illiterate. However, there is this immense challenge of context. How do we engage in promoting behavior change through mass communications when the context of, say, risky behaviors that contract HIV, is different everywhere? Is it even possible for mass media to adapt contextually? And if so, how can we measure the impact of contextual adaptation? And what the hell kind of methodology am I going to use to answer these questions?!?!

Woah. I need more coffee. There is never enough time to think about it all and get it all done! I am tired yet inspired all the time these days. Off to campus for class now. This life is exhausting and fantastic...

Edutainment/Soap operas in Africa?!

2009-02-18T11:37:00.001Z

One of the ideas I keep coming back to that seems more frivolous than others is the general topic of education through media as well as social marketing, specifically via soap operas. I never watch soap operas in the states, but I know they have a wide audience throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and thus huge potential for information dissemination. I also seem to keep finding organizations that are doing this sort of work over and over and over this year....

In any case, if I were to write my own soap opera script, it would be about a young Malawian (or Kenyan, since that's what I know) woman in her mid-20s, married with a few children who goes back and pursues her education through informal means. In fact, I think the story would involve a whole group of women in a literacy program, the daily ins and outs of their lives, as well as the trials and tribulations they encounter as they try to achieve 'personal development.'

Oh my gods, this sounds like SUCH fun. I am a HUGE dork.

mal d'afrique

2009-02-11T19:14:00.000Z

This might sound ridiculous, but life in London is hard right now. I have been in a melancholy mood for the past several days.

This is a city in which it is challenging - to say the least! - to keep a connection with nature, with a cause, with yourself. It is a concrete and asphault jungle, one in which it is so easy to get lost...

February in London is a wall of clouds.

I wish I could take advantage of all this city has to offer, but this year I have neither the money nor the time. And I'm left feeling selfish and a little ridiculous because even as I enjoy all these big city luxuries and try to appreciate them, I can't - or at least I don't. And oddly I am left missing the cold bucket baths, the filthy tired feet, and the rooster-induced sleep deprivation of the days I've spent in Africa. Hello again, Romanticization, my tired friend!

I know this is at least partially Mal d'Afrique - an old familiar feeling, one that is always uncomfortable and disconcerting. One that I love to hate... or hate to love? I'll never know.

Vomit forth!

2009-02-09T15:56:00.000Z

WARNING!!! One of my favorite high school English teachers told me that the beginning stage of any paper is called the "Vomit Forth!" stage. When you have writer's block, just beginning writing. Let go of your inhibitions and write - anything at all. Scribble down ALL the ideas and arguments that pass through your mind, even if you know they're terrible. The important part is to just write SOMETHING, and eventually you'll happen upon the right argument. In my experience, she is absolutely right. Even my best work has always had to go through this stage.

Let this serve as a warning that this entry is one of THOSE entries.

I reiterate: you've been warned.

***

Alas, my dissertation idea has not become more clear or more definite as time has gone on. Instead I just change my mind every 5 minutes. There is just too much that is interesting in the world that I desperately want to investigate!

My recent "ZING!" idea would have had me examining the relationship between NGO prevalence and state capacity/institutional development. This came to me as I reflected on the time I spent in Kenya and Malawi, both countries I view as oversaturated with NGOs (particularly the latter). Many of these NGOs provide public services and essentially replace the state in that regard. I have to wonder, why would any rational state actor be motivated to develop their institutions to better provide such public services as health and education if international NGOs are falling all over themselves to provide those services to their citizenry? Why are some states, such as Malawi and Bangladesh, still so desperately poor after decades of NGO attention? Do they NGOs provide a perverse incentive to the state to further formalize and develop? (Of course, there is also the tried and tired question of, are NGOs reinforcing povery in order to keep themselves in business???) Unfortunately, there is not much empirical evidence out there on this. I instantly run into problems with my methodology -- if I look at a weak state with significant NGO prevalence, I cannot trace the direction of this correlation. Are NGOs there because the state is weak, or is the state weak because the NGOs are there? I feel that if this question were actually answerable, there would be literature out there tackling it. So far I haven't found anything. My spouse and my best friend here at LSE are both extremely excited about this idea and very encouraging, but can't quite point to a solution for the problems that have come up in terms of methodology and data. And I'm certainly in no position to be doing hundreds of regressions and cross-country comparisons in a 10,000 word dissertation. I couldn't even touch the iceberg on this issue, which makes me sad. It's so damn interesting.

I've also been considering looking into the impacts in countries where governments have prohibited informal markets (as in Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Malawi). This seems to be a trend in Africa in the past several years, and I cannot really wrap my mind around it. It seems utterly insane for a government to prohibit the livelihoods of 80% of its population, especially when those same governments have such ridiculous requirements for formal business registration. My first assumption is that it makes the lives of the poor that much harder, and black markets that much more clandestine, but maybe that is not the case. Perhaps these governments have softened business registration requirements and the formal market is being strengthened, which would be a good thing -- but I suspect that is not the case. I want to determine the coping mechanisms of the poor under such circumstances.

For one of my classes this week we are examining the role of the private sector in development. So now, of course, I'm interested in Corporate Social Responsibility (and the common opinion on this is that it's a joke -- but I'm interested to see the extent to which this is true), the co-production of development in societies by business + NGOs, and the co-creation of actual business systems by those actors (and the symbiosis developed between profit and non-profit ventures). I've long since thought NGOs were mostly inefficient and ineffective in what they do, and there is still this lingering question in the back of my mind about so-called development which one of my classmates put so well the other day when he exclaimed "If you want to bring someone out of poverty, give them a damn job!" So many think of microfinance as the panacea. We can talk about empowerment, but let's also talk about wage employment and more importantly, CHOICE. Not everyone has the skills to be a self-employed entrepreneur, not everyone wants to, and they shouldn't HAVE to. So in this, where is the role of business? I think it's key, in a lot of respects, yet as I mentioned before the governments of many underdeveloped countries put up insane barriers to new businesses (both local and international). What is their motivation for this, and how can such destructive policies be changed in a non-exploitative fashion? I ask about larger businesses (small to medium enterprises, not necessarily multinationals), because more and more I am entirely unconvinced of the merits of microfinance for many reasons - which I won't go into now, or this will become even more of a tirade.

And then another idea. This morning on the plane (we took a quick last-minute "let's get the hell out of London and go somewhere sunny" trip this weekend) I was talking with my husband about the difficulties of insurance policies in the developing world -- and how very badly the poor need insurance for anything and everything (crop failure, widowhood, livestock, life and health, etc)... and yet insurance companies by their very nature have to deny as many claims as they possibly can. The burden of proof for crop failure is on the client, and at the same time the client could falsely claim crop failure at any time. Insurance is very difficult to do right in such a context, and I am racking my brain for a solution that has not yet come to me. For issues such as health, it's a bit easier with insurance in the form of vouchers -- in Uganda there is a program with malaria vouchers, which allows the poor to buy them when they have the money to use at a later date -- and when they come down with malaria they have protection. But how can insurance be done properly for crop failure and livestock death? This is a huge issue. Any ideas, dear readers?

I'm also interested in the role of adult and informal education, but this is a topic I've researched a lot and have done previous papers on. I kind of want to do something different, yet it is stil one of my biggest passions and perhaps for a dissertation I should focus on exploiting my comparative advantage? ;)

Owww... such topics go round and round in my head and often collide with one another with full force. It's enough to give me a full-on headache, and yet I love it. I have been told by more than one that I am a masochist for doing what I'm doing. But I am so lucky to be here, to be doing what I'm doing, and I would not trade it for another life or line of work for anything in the world.

****

And with that, it's time for a beer with the aforementioned friend, Maggie. My friend Dustin recently decided that the answer to any of life's tough questions was "Beer!" I suspect he might be onto something.

Possible dissertation topic

2008-09-19T11:29:00.000+01:00

Since the masters program I'm about to start is 9 months of classes and (approximately) 3 months of writing the dissertation, I've been trying to think of a dissertation topic so that I lay the groundwork ASAP. Three months for writing is NOTHING so I want to have a topic chosen in order to have as much time as possible for actual research.

I just had a lightbulb go off in my head and I want to write it down before it fades or goes away. This is REALLY rough as I just thought of it about 20 minutes ago. I'll be sure to share more as I flesh it out in a much more academic fashion.

A bit of background first, however: During my summer in Malawi, I observed the absolute saturation of the country with NGOs. I think just about every big NGO has several projects throughout, and there are certainly countless others. The Danes, the Japanese, the Americans, the EU, the Swiss, the Italians, the Scottish... you name it, they're probably there. If you are a Malawian and somehow get a job with an NGO, you are considered to have "made it." Government ministers and NGO workers have the highest status and highest income in the country. That being said, you can imagine the amount of dependency this has created, not just in terms of income.

I had a long talk with Dustin, the Executive Director of Bola Moyo, last night. Bola Moyo is the non-profit I worked with my last year in Portland, and they are also the organization I worked with when I was actually in Malawi. What has impressed me so much about Bola Moyo is that Dustin and Cara have emphasized self-determination from the beginning. (This may seem incredibly obvious, but believe me, most NGOs don't even consider doing this.) They asked Malawians what they needed and wanted instead of assuming that they needed a hospital or school, etc. Bola Moyo has now existed in some form for about four years now. Dustin was telling me that he wants to actively head toward making Bola Moyo self-sufficient. They've been spending several months out of the past five or so years in Malawi, working closely with staff. The goal was always to eventually have the project become self-sufficient, but now they want to make serious strides toward doing that as soon as possible. (Self-sufficiency in this case would involve getting the organization involved with other foundations to secure streams of funding; but the actual work in all senses would be Malawian-driven.)

I'm all for this, of course. What IS so-called development if not a direction toward self-sufficiency, after all? However, I've had a few concerns pop into my head. Foremost in my mind is some type of resistance to organizational self-sufficiency that I observed in a lot of Malawians themselves. I suspect Bola Moyo will experience this to some degree with various staff members as they make strides toward self-sufficiency. I can't say why this is the case, exactly -- whether they resist it because becoming detached from azungu (whites) decreases their funding and their prestige (I was astonished to see and experience for myself how racialized everything is in Malawi) or any other host of reasons. But this resistance to self-sufficiency indicates not only a lack of self-confidence but a lack of dignity. What are the causes behind this? What legacy (in terms of colonialism, institutions, politics, indigenous culture, etc) lies at the origin of this phenomenon? I would want to conduct interviews with Malawians and long-term foreign residents of Malawi to examine these attitudes and the origins thereof.

This would certainly require some amount of fieldwork and in essence it would be a case study. I don't know if LSE allows "case studies" in masters dissertations, but it's worth thinking about at least.

the greatest lesson

2008-09-06T09:44:00.001+01:00

Sometimes life just works out. Most of the time, in fact.

This may seem like the most cliché statement of the year, or even a bit pointless, but for me it's been an absolute revelation. This has been my strongest lesson from Africa and from the past year of my life.

Those who know me well (such as my darling husband) are probably quite aware that in general I've been a pessimist in life. I haven't wanted to give up control of a lot of things for fear that they will just automatically fail without my constant influence. I don't know if the course of my life has taken a turn for the better recently, or if I'm just able to open my eyes and see the wonderful aspects of my life now. But everything is working itself out, even though I'm not worrying about every single last detail. This is really quite amazing to me. The trick is, it works out in the end. The means of getting to the end are often incredibly different than what I'd envisioned.

A former professor of mine contacted me this evening (one of my favorites of my undergraduate career) to tell me that he'd had a dream about me last night - that I was telling him and a group of people that I was happy with the course of things. He said it struck him that I was literally beaming with happiness.

And the truth is, I am happy. Happier than I've ever been in my life, especially with the course of things. That doesn't mean I remember to be happy every moment. I still struggle with being happy. But in the general sense, this is the place I have come to. It fills me with wonder.

Because of this, I especially love my Rob Breszny this past week:

Taurus Horoscope for week of September 11, 2008

After studying the astrological omens, I had a psychic vision of you jumping up and down, screaming with joy as if you'd won the lottery. That doesn't necessarily mean you will actually win the lottery, though. My visions are usually symbolic, not literal. So what does it mean? It could prophesy the imminent arrival of a good surprise. It may signify that your physical vitality will be exceptional, or maybe you will be visited by an exhilarating revelation about the future. To get yourself in the proper spirit, why not jump up and down and scream for joy right now? Then keep doing it at least twice a day until the breakthrough actually occurs.