First of all, I am currently in an apartment in Addis Ababa which I am sharing with a nice, Indian lass. She is out and I now have a cat hiding under my bed. The two things are unrelated. But, I have fed this cat before (I am convinced it is a neighbour's cat) and I let it in again and now it is hanging out under my bed. She's come out for tuna. And gone back under the bed again. I have a suspicion this may go on for a few hours yet until she actually settles or drives me bananas until I catch her and let her out.
Things have been very intense for the last few weeks. Without a shadow of a doubt, I have done some sheer hard graft - more than I have done in a long time. Focused work. Work with tight deliverables where, crucially, you are not getting distracted with duties that are not part of your job role. In all the best of ways, I am getting what I wished for. For a long time. Yet, on the other, I continue to be deeply saddened when it comes to the management of NGOs. On the whole, I find the people who are attracted to NGO work to be the very best of people. Building rapport and trust with NGO people is not difficult, and we tend to feel 'at ease' around each other almost immediately. Yet, the needless bureaucracy and all of its associated problems in NGOs are huge barriers and can have detrimental effects on working relationships. Which needs to be managed well to counter-act its detrimental effects. But, again, I find people management (including human resources and within teams management) within NGOs to be sorely lacking.
I would like to re-iterate that I think the VSO Ethiopia team are truly excellent in a number of ways. Yet, when mis-management occurs and the effects of this are not dealt with, this can poison what should be positive working environments. This is not exclusive to NGOs. Academia is also rife with this. But, IMHO, academia tends to attract more 'difficult' people who tend not to have as much experiencing working collaboratively in teams. Managing academics can be like herding cats. People who work in NGOs have that experience and usually work very well with people on the ground. So, what's going wrong with management?
From my experience, people who tend to be in management positions have gotten there through their length of service at an organisation. Management = promotion. It also tends to be the 'stalwarts' who go up through the ranks. I don't mean any disrespect by that term, but they are generally regarded as a 'safe pair of hands' by someone higher up. But, that doesn't mean they have the sufficient leadership and management training to do a managerial job.
This, and my previous experience in Ecuador, has been making me think about my own reluctance to take on leadership and managerial roles previously throughout my career. I've always looked at leadership and management as too much responsibility. That I didn't want that level of responsibility and, tbh, the types of people who go through the leadership and managerial routes tend not to be role models for me. However, when I am pushed to undertake leadership and managerial roles, I tend to do quite well. It's tough - especially calling people out on their behaviour. And the risk of 'not being liked' through hurting people's feelings. But, I do feel that it is something I'm going to have to seriously consider training in as most of the roles I am now being offered involve increasing amounts of both leadership and management.
We are all given spaces to develop certain attributes within ourselves. Maybe instead of criticising the leadership and management skills in others I should cultivate my own? The lack of these skills cultivated properly can have dire consequences - can rip apart normally quite healthy ecosystems by allowing rot to get in and never confronting it so it poisons everything else. Practising what you preach. I am definitely going to look into how I can do this. Some research is needed though - I'm sure there are 'normal' managerial paradigms that would not suit me. But, there will be some cutting edge ones. Yes, it is time to do research. But, I'm in no hurry. The events around me are conspiring to give me the appropriate start-up knowledge for now.
Friday, 14 February 2020
Monday, 3 February 2020
Lightning CAN strike twice...
Well, I've now been in Ethiopia for around two and a half weeks. So, I've now been in the continent of Africa for two and a half weeks - a continent I always said I would love to take six months out of my life to explore if I ever had the chance. I don't know where that figure ever came from. I just surmised that you would need at least six months to say you even partially know Africa. So, I'm here for definite for three months. And I technically have just over three months after that where I have nothing concrete planned. I now suspect that what I have always wistfully wished for may actually be coming true... But, I'm just going to stay open to the events around me. Thankfully my presence has not yet caused social and political unrest (despite some apparent bets that predicted it would given my recent history with Nicaragua and Ecuador). So, I'm hopeful that I may have a lot more time yet to explore this amazing part of the world.
So, lightning can indeed strike twice. There is something about my time here in Ethiopia that echoes how I felt in Nicaragua over 11 years ago. It may be because I am exploring a new continent with a social, cultural, economic and political history very different from anything I've ever experienced before (just like Nicaragua all those years ago). But, I have those feels. You know what I am talking about... where something is actually touching your soul and you know that it is in control of you, rather than you being in control of it. Ecuador was a much needed transition... but Africa is where the real learning, transformation and healing is going to happen. I feel it in my bones. And it's just the start. In approximately one week's time I will be entering my first ever refugee camp. In a conflict area (on the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia) and passing through a number of conflict areas to get there. I am excited. I will have little time to process anything because my role here is so full-on... I will be training, mentoring, data collecting, analysing, networking and travelling across four refugee camps in less than five weeks. I will be leading a small group of local volunteers across this journey, most of whom themselves have never seen the inside of a refugee camp and will be passing through conflict areas where they might actually be in some danger due to their own ethnic and religious background. I have no idea what is in front of me. I only know it feels right...
Today I partially moved into an apartment that I will be sharing with another volunteer for the time I remain in Addis Ababa (likely another week) and then my last month here (likely late March to mid-April although I suspect I might actually be here until late April - there is a lot to do). It's a lovely apartment (basic, of course, but actually quite lovely when you restrict your parameters to that) and I'm looking forward to a different way of life here. Where I actually have to use the Amharic I have learned basically, and force myself to socialise with people who don't speak English well. I'm also extremely looking forward to cooking here. Oh my God... the FOOD here. I am a spice fanatic. A vindaloo is a load of crap... most Indians you speak to will tell you this dish is an abomination of what spicy food is supposed to be. The TASTE of the spices here... the berbere (Ethiopian chilli) and how the Ethiopians combine it with garlic, ginger, tumeric and cardamon... it's something else entirely. I'm in love... the injera (a pancake-y tortilla that is their staple carbohydrate), the wot (spicy sauce), the fuul (the best source of protein here without having to be a carnivore)... I could just go on and on. And then there is the coffee and the wine. I knew about the coffee (who doesn't?!?), but I did not expect the wine (thankfully, VSO's no drinking policy actually just means when I am working and representing VSO... so, I have been drinking... oh yes... moderately... but the beer and the wine is VERY GOOD). In all honesty, I am quite fascinated by Ethiopia. And the Ethiopian people I meet.
I am quite a tactile person. I hug. I kiss. I get right in your face and show you what I'm feeling and how I am feeling it. I feel very comfortable being myself here and don't feel I have to reign it in, like how I have felt for a long time in England. That it is too much. That I am too much. That I should somehow be passively aware of how my own energy may be impacting on someone else's self-esteem when, let's face it, it's their responsibility to sort out their self-esteem issues and my energy is actually helping to highlight that to them. **Sigh** This is what I loved about Nicaragua. It's that the rules don't really apply to me. That somehow I slip under the radar of normality because I am in a box labelled 'white, educated foreigner' which gives me a lot of room to move. It doesn't matter if I never end up in a different box. I can stay in that one and it is fine. I don't have that box in the UK. It's all a process of becoming... maybe I could be a mother; maybe I could be a wife; maybe I could be a professor; maybe I could be a best selling author. There's always another box; another process of becoming. But, here, I'm happy in that foreign, nomadic box where I hurt no one and no one hurts me (at least, on the surface). Maybe that's my lesson. Maybe I should take that box back to the UK (and how I feel inside it) and shut out all that noise around me. It's a hermit's life... but it's also not...
I'm learning about interdependency here. We all have co-dependent tendencies, even when you appear to be as 'independent' as I am. I swing. Oh Christ, I swing. Ask my exes. The resolution is always somewhere in the middle (but where you still have all the feels). As much as my Nicaraguan friends might shoot me for this, Nicaragua underscored that my 'independent' nature hid a part of myself that I was scared of... terrified of in fact. That I needed recognition. That I needed validation. That I needed to be loved. But, externally. Because I couldn't see what could be loved about myself internally. Those bloody Latin American men (and I'm thinking of one in particular) got that out of me. And I will forever be thankful for it. That I shouted, I screamed, I cracked and cried; and felt as if I might die... and then somewhere through all that I started to pay attention to myself and what I actually needed. That the most important relationship I would ever have would be with myself. That I could never really love another without really loving and validating myself first...
Ethiopia has its issues, but it isn't quite in the same league as Nicaragua when it comes to co-dependent relationships. There are a lot of extra-marital affairs here (I've been propositioned a few times already!), but the nature of it is different. I haven't fully put my finger on it yet... but I sense more interdependency here. Where people really support each other and it doesn't always mean you have to sacrifice the most essential parts of yourself to have that support network. I am here to heal. I have no idea what that will look like at the other side. But, my ideas about relationships are changing. And about independence. All I know is that it is where I need to be for now,..
So, lightning can indeed strike twice. There is something about my time here in Ethiopia that echoes how I felt in Nicaragua over 11 years ago. It may be because I am exploring a new continent with a social, cultural, economic and political history very different from anything I've ever experienced before (just like Nicaragua all those years ago). But, I have those feels. You know what I am talking about... where something is actually touching your soul and you know that it is in control of you, rather than you being in control of it. Ecuador was a much needed transition... but Africa is where the real learning, transformation and healing is going to happen. I feel it in my bones. And it's just the start. In approximately one week's time I will be entering my first ever refugee camp. In a conflict area (on the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia) and passing through a number of conflict areas to get there. I am excited. I will have little time to process anything because my role here is so full-on... I will be training, mentoring, data collecting, analysing, networking and travelling across four refugee camps in less than five weeks. I will be leading a small group of local volunteers across this journey, most of whom themselves have never seen the inside of a refugee camp and will be passing through conflict areas where they might actually be in some danger due to their own ethnic and religious background. I have no idea what is in front of me. I only know it feels right...
Today I partially moved into an apartment that I will be sharing with another volunteer for the time I remain in Addis Ababa (likely another week) and then my last month here (likely late March to mid-April although I suspect I might actually be here until late April - there is a lot to do). It's a lovely apartment (basic, of course, but actually quite lovely when you restrict your parameters to that) and I'm looking forward to a different way of life here. Where I actually have to use the Amharic I have learned basically, and force myself to socialise with people who don't speak English well. I'm also extremely looking forward to cooking here. Oh my God... the FOOD here. I am a spice fanatic. A vindaloo is a load of crap... most Indians you speak to will tell you this dish is an abomination of what spicy food is supposed to be. The TASTE of the spices here... the berbere (Ethiopian chilli) and how the Ethiopians combine it with garlic, ginger, tumeric and cardamon... it's something else entirely. I'm in love... the injera (a pancake-y tortilla that is their staple carbohydrate), the wot (spicy sauce), the fuul (the best source of protein here without having to be a carnivore)... I could just go on and on. And then there is the coffee and the wine. I knew about the coffee (who doesn't?!?), but I did not expect the wine (thankfully, VSO's no drinking policy actually just means when I am working and representing VSO... so, I have been drinking... oh yes... moderately... but the beer and the wine is VERY GOOD). In all honesty, I am quite fascinated by Ethiopia. And the Ethiopian people I meet.
I am quite a tactile person. I hug. I kiss. I get right in your face and show you what I'm feeling and how I am feeling it. I feel very comfortable being myself here and don't feel I have to reign it in, like how I have felt for a long time in England. That it is too much. That I am too much. That I should somehow be passively aware of how my own energy may be impacting on someone else's self-esteem when, let's face it, it's their responsibility to sort out their self-esteem issues and my energy is actually helping to highlight that to them. **Sigh** This is what I loved about Nicaragua. It's that the rules don't really apply to me. That somehow I slip under the radar of normality because I am in a box labelled 'white, educated foreigner' which gives me a lot of room to move. It doesn't matter if I never end up in a different box. I can stay in that one and it is fine. I don't have that box in the UK. It's all a process of becoming... maybe I could be a mother; maybe I could be a wife; maybe I could be a professor; maybe I could be a best selling author. There's always another box; another process of becoming. But, here, I'm happy in that foreign, nomadic box where I hurt no one and no one hurts me (at least, on the surface). Maybe that's my lesson. Maybe I should take that box back to the UK (and how I feel inside it) and shut out all that noise around me. It's a hermit's life... but it's also not...
I'm learning about interdependency here. We all have co-dependent tendencies, even when you appear to be as 'independent' as I am. I swing. Oh Christ, I swing. Ask my exes. The resolution is always somewhere in the middle (but where you still have all the feels). As much as my Nicaraguan friends might shoot me for this, Nicaragua underscored that my 'independent' nature hid a part of myself that I was scared of... terrified of in fact. That I needed recognition. That I needed validation. That I needed to be loved. But, externally. Because I couldn't see what could be loved about myself internally. Those bloody Latin American men (and I'm thinking of one in particular) got that out of me. And I will forever be thankful for it. That I shouted, I screamed, I cracked and cried; and felt as if I might die... and then somewhere through all that I started to pay attention to myself and what I actually needed. That the most important relationship I would ever have would be with myself. That I could never really love another without really loving and validating myself first...
Ethiopia has its issues, but it isn't quite in the same league as Nicaragua when it comes to co-dependent relationships. There are a lot of extra-marital affairs here (I've been propositioned a few times already!), but the nature of it is different. I haven't fully put my finger on it yet... but I sense more interdependency here. Where people really support each other and it doesn't always mean you have to sacrifice the most essential parts of yourself to have that support network. I am here to heal. I have no idea what that will look like at the other side. But, my ideas about relationships are changing. And about independence. All I know is that it is where I need to be for now,..
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