Just a little update

Ever have that feeling where whatever you do at work is the last thing you want to do when you go home at night? If you're in school it might be reading? If you work in an office it might be working on  the computer. Well for me home is hotels at the moment and work is anything involving reading and writing, really trying to keep track of anything, so forgive the lack of posts, I'll see what I can do about picking it up.

So let' see, I left the states a little over 2 weeks ago now and things have been moving along quite well. This week the research team  (3 national consultants) and I headed to Bireuen, which is about 4 hours away from Banda Aceh, where I'm based. We got to go out to villages, talk to people there about the programs and hear about the changes that have occurred since the tsunami. Many of the villages in Bireuen were actually far enough inland so they weren't affected, but 30 years of conflict leading up to the peace agreement that was signed after the tsunami left their communities in almost equivalent ruin, with schools and health centers burned and communities afraid to send their children to school and the like. I'm amazed by how much progress has been made, and by the fact that a severe natural disaster managed to bring an end to such a long civil war. From what I've heard, after so much devastation from the tsunami, neither side could go on the way they had and a peace agreement that gave Aceh a relative degree of autonomy was arranged. Given all the classes and degrees and theories about how peace is brokered, what does Aceh tell us? It doesn't necessarily tell us that those things don't work, but rather than sometimes it takes something shocking and out of the ordinary for fighting groups to stop and agree to peace. It seems like real lasting peace is so hard to achieve, that it's really a wonder that it appears to have succeeded here.

So back to it then. Village visits have been fun, but a bit trying at times because I don't speak Bahasa (Indonesian) or Acehnese (local language) so I try to participate, but also spend a lot of time looking at pades and watching people harvest rice, and trying to find shade to hide in.  The work is coming along well, although it's a lot to wrap my head around. But one of the senior researchers is here now and he's a very big picture guy so it's great to see what he thinks of all the community ranking exercises and interviews we've done.  So back to the field for a week tomorrow, off to Lhoeksamawe and Aceh Utara and I'll be back to Banda Aceh (and maybe heading to Sebang over the weekend!).  It's about 5-6 hours to get out there so I'll have some deep thoughts for my next post. Hope everyone's having a great Halloween and thanks for staying in touch!

welcome to the jungle

I wonder if it's a coincidence that it snowed in the Northeast right after I left for Indonesia?  Well according to Master Shifu there are no coincidences, so we'll go with no.  The landscape here is absolutely beautiful and it feels like a jungle even when it's urban, a bit of that is the heat and humidity, but part of it is all the palm trees and the roads lined with stands full of tropical fruit!

So I made it here after long hours of traveling and watching more moves and tv shows than I can count. I've managed to make quite a few fast friends on the way which has been helpful and hopefully forecasts a very nice trip. A friend on the plane from the US had his driver bring me to another terminal where my plane was to leave from so I'd make it on time. Sadly said airline lost my reservation and I stayed the night in Jakarta, but the effort was appreciated. I also made a friend at the place I am staying who offered to take me out to dinner last night. He was here for four years after the tsunami and said he'd want someone to look after his daughter who is my age if she was here. So did he take me for sate or noodles or Padang or Aceh food? Nope! Pizza and beer! (Medium pizza, $4, 1 can of beer $4) Who knew it could be found here. Apparently the owner, who is originally from Aceh, was living in Italy at the time of the tsunami and decided to come back and try to help get businesses started again. Now he's got a pizza place, a bungalow for guests, a fish farm and is starting a surf school soon. It was a delicious evening and through talking to Robby, who works in microfinance, and a couple other ex-pats in the restaurant I got a very interesting take on what's going on here.

Apparently the organization that hired my consulting firm is among many that are shutting down the majority of their operations, given that it's now five years after the tsunami and the emergency and even redevelopment phases are now winding down.  But it seems that millions of dollars when unspent and all this money has been turned over to the World Bank, who is now sub-granting out to organizations doing finance and economy related projects, both micro and macro, in order to continue building and growing the economy here. Aside from any prejudices I or anyone have about the World Bank, it's an innovative solution to a brand new problem. More money for aid and development than everyone knew what to do with.

So back to my work, for now I'm working with a team of national staff to interview staff from the organization as well as members of the government and other NGOs to get at their thoughts and perceptions of the work and it's successes and failures. Then the plan is to head out to the field on Tuesday and start gathering data through interviews, surveys and focus groups.  The countryside is supposed to be beautiful, so I'll be posting lots of pictures soon. But here's a picture of the Grand Mosque, which is absolutely on my itinerary for this weekend.

Take care and keep warm!

Get ready... get set...

One of my professors' favorite, or maybe just most used, descriptions of emergency response work is that rather than "get ready, get set, go" it's more like "go, get ready, get set". You're off the starting block before you have any chance to prepare, because that's the essence of an emergency. You can do your best with emergency preparedness, but to a large extent you will always be somewhat unprepared.  And so off I go to Indonesia. For those of you who've been asking, I'm working on a project assessing a major NGOs 5 year long tsunami response program, which is in the process of winding up. We're evaluating whether their outcomes match their objectives, whether the money was spent well and whether it was effective at causing change. I'll update more about what I'm doing as I do, but for now I'm working on reviewing program documents starting in 2004 before the tsunami and designing data collection tools, quite the task!

I'm leaving NYC on Thursday morning (and am off to Indonesia on Saturday) and I'm almost surprised by how nostalgic the idea of moving away has made me. Since I moved here in 2006, from living in the Bronx to Washington Heights to Harlem and all the rats and late night reggaeton I've heard in between, I've always know New York wasn't the city for me. I love the range of things to do, places to eat and people to meet, but I'm more of an open spaces person I think. But above all, leaving has reminded me how many great people I've met here and I'm glad I'm going to be able to come back in December to finish out my work and see everyone again, and definitely go ice skating. I went out to dinner with a friend tonight (pupusas!) and he asked me what I regretted not doing here. After I made a list of things like apple picking, ice skating and kayaking, he pointed out that they were all things that could be done other places. So as much as I'll miss it here, I'm at go, here's hoping I'm ready and set.

On the Road Again

Just a little update/warning to everyone subscribed that this blog is going to be back in action, for the time being at least.  Some of you are on an email list so you get emails every time I update, I thought I would give you fair warning before you get barraged with updates. New news to some and old news to others, I'm heading to Indonesia in a bit, leaving 3 weeks from yesterday.  I'm working for a small private consulting firm/NGO until the beginning of December. I'm working on a final evaluation of the tsunami response programs implemented by an INGO (international non-governmental organization), and I'm working on a literature/desk review for about a month from home, and will then be in Banda Aceh, Indonesia for about 5 weeks collecting data and then contributing to the final report.  Banda Aceh is in Northern Sumatra and is run relatively independently of the rest of Indonesia, operating under Sharia law. To the right there's a link to news updates about Banda Aceh if you'd like to learn more. I'll give more updates as I have them, but thought I'd get back into the habit of blogging now. Below you'll find a poem I stumbled across that describes one side of NGO development work and it struck me as quite accurate (in some but not all development situations). Enjoy, happy fall, and thanks for reading.

The Development Set, by Ross Coggins

Excuse me, friends, I must catch my jet
I'm off to join the Development Set;
My bags are packed, and I've had all my shots
I have traveller's checks and pills for the trots!

The Development Set is bright and noble
Our thoughts are deep and our vision global;
Although we move with the better classes
Our thoughts are always with the masses.

In Sheraton Hotels in scattered nations
We damn multi-national corporations;
injustice seems easy to protest
In such seething hotbeds of social rest.

We discuss malnutrition over steaks
And plan hunger talks during coffee breaks.
Whether Asian floods or African drought,
We face each issue with open mouth.

We bring in consultants whose circumlocution
Raises difficulties for every solution --
Thus guaranteeing continued good eating
By showing the need for another meeting.

The language of the Development Set
Stretches the English alphabet;
We use swell words like "epigenetic"
"Micro", "macro", and "logarithmetic"

It pleasures us to be esoteric --
It's so intellectually atmospheric!
And although establishments may be unmoved,
Our vocabularies are much improved.

When the talk gets deep and you're feeling numb,
You can keep your shame to a minimum:
To show that you, too, are intelligent
Smugly ask, "Is it really development?"

Or say, "That's fine in practice, but don't you see:
It doesn't work out in theory!"
A few may find this incomprehensible,
But most will admire you as deep and sensible.

Development set homes are extremely chic,
Full of carvings, curios, and draped with batik.
Eye-level photographs subtly assure
That your host is at home with the great and the poor.

Enough of these verses - on with the mission!
Our task is as broad as the human condition!
Just pray god the biblical promise is true:
The poor ye shall always have with you.

Ross Coggins
"Adult Education and Development" September 1976

That sounds about right

It is my newfound use of this phrase that inspired someone I work with to inform me that I'd officially been working in South Sudan for too long. It's a phrase that conveys agreement, while at the same time expressing a disinterest in any sort of precision relating to what you're talking about because whatever it is is the norm to such an extent that it isn't questioned. For instance "My flight hasn't started boarding and we were supposed to leave an hour ago" "That sounds about right", or "We're out of tea and there are ants in the sugar" "That sounds about right" etc, etc.

So the question then becomes whether the phrase is an expression of complacency on one hand, or an understanding that nothing can be expected to work perfectly here, so that close enough is often your best choice. I'm not sure to be honest. There's a great song that begins with "One of my friends taught me the most glorious lesson, that in this life there is no need to ever be complacent." If complacency is "smug and uncritical satisfaction with one's self or one's achievements" then perhaps the sentiment I've described is the opposite of complacency. It is the recognition that no matter how hard or long you work, there is so much to be done here that it feels like you're wading through waist-deep mud no matter what approach you take. For instance, Unicef distributes drug kits to organizations that support Primary Health Care Centers and Primary Health Care Units. These drug kits contain all the basic medications needed to diagnose and treat basic diseases, and without them the health centers are essentially impotent. So after months of organizations informing Unicef that stocks were getting low, the kits were finally delivered. All at once. All in Juba. So now you have literally thousands of tons of drugs sitting in NGO compounds because the drugs are, in fact, mostly needed in the field, not in Juba. But the roads are terrible and hiring a charter to fly your tons of drugs out to your site (if your site has a landable airstrip) is incredibly expensive. The UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) has kindly donated 80 hours of flight time a month to INGOs for shipping supplies. But they won't take anything of this weight or bulk. So Unicef distributed life saving medication in such a way that no one is using them and the medication is sitting on shelves slowly moving towards its expiration date? Sounds about right.

There are many more humorous examples of how this phrase is applicable to daily life here. For instance, " This beer is warm" "Ahh sounds about right", or "There's a goat giving birth outside our front door", "Yup, sounds about right". If nothing else, it just goes to show you how much you can get used to, some of that is positive - like not being phased by everyone you meet saying "morning" regardless of the time of day. On the other hand a friend of a friend told me a story the other day about being asked to name three pivotal events of the past week, one of which was having an AK-47 held uncomfortably close to his temple at a traffic stop. Rather than being frightened or vowing to get out of Juba, he began asking his friends how many lbs/inch of pressure it takes to fire an AK-47, so that the next time it happened he would better be able to gauge how close the finger on the trigger was to firing the gun. That's not normal. But normalizing things that would ordinarily offend, scare or repulse you is part of life. Rats darting out from underneath giant piles of trash is normal in New York City, goats tiptoeing among piles of burning trash is normal in Juba.

Many people have asked me what it's like here, they want to know details about everything from the day to day to the extraordinary. And even after two and a half months I still stand by my original assertion that it's not all the different from many other places I've been. Manhattan it's not, but then again nor is it a place that would be beyond the imagination of anyone. So either I am particularly adaptable, or the world is smaller than we've all been led to believe.