Fully State of The Art: Part deux...

I tried, briefly, over breakfast to think up a catchy, smarty-pants title for this post – preferably something linked an obscure line in an obscure song by an obscure band, which would then be both humorous on multiple levels and also ruefully ironic. In the end, though, I came around to believe that “Fully State of the Art” pretty much says what I need it to. I’ve added the “Part deux”, firstly, to separate this post from what I guess would be “Part un”, and secondly, because “deux” is French, and French is one of the languages of the UN…………..

And as it happens, I’m still in Timor-Leste where the UN is, if not actually in control of very much, at least very visible.

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One reality of aid work is that after a few years one’s personal network can get to be very extensive. The whole six-degrees-of-separation thing totally applies. It’s a bit like belonging to an extensive religious denomination in that wherever you go you either run into someone you know, or you meet someone who knows someone that you also know. There are very few places where I can go now and truly do not know anyone. The aid-work world is a very small one.

But on the other hand, I’m repeatedly bemused by local people in various countries who, on discovering that I am American, will ask something like, “Oh – so, do you know my friend _____ in Minneapolis?” Uh….. no…. Change that earlier statement: Besides Minneapolis, there are very few places where I can go now and truly do not know anyone.

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I cannot stand poseurs.

I apologize in advance for what will almost certainly sound horribly judgmental and probably also ad hominem to some. But I can’t help myself. I’m sure that every industry, every line of work has it’s poseurs or equivalent. But the ones you encounter in the humanitarian aid industry are the ones that I find particularly annoying.

I’m not talking about an uber-strict, legalistic application of the definition of poseur. I can accept and live with a certain amount of “creative license” in the retelling of one’s own life and work. We all, I think, tend to smooth down the rough edges of our own histories, depending on the setting and the audience to whom we’re speaking. As well, for as obsessed as we sometimes are with documentation, the culture of aid work is essentially one of oral tradition and story-telling. We have our own aid-work equivalents of urban legends (condoms on broomsticks in Bangladesh, or the “Haitian Pig Fiasco” are two great examples. (See here and here), which, true to form in an oral tradition culture, get better and better with each retelling.

I’m okay with rounding important numbers within what seem to me to be obvious reasonable limits: If you’ve survived four years and ten months in Afghanistan, for example, you won’t hear me dissin’ you for claming a full five years. If you were too tired to engage in a furious bargaining match, and as a result paid an outrageous 2,350 Sri Lankan rupees for some gaudy souvenir to send home, no one will think less of you for saying you paid 2,300. Or just 2,000…

What I am talking about is the kind of shameless self-misrepsentation that I see going on all the time among aid workers of all ilks, usually at expat gatherings, usually in conversations with whomever the new faces are, often before the first round of drinks has fully taken effect. I’m talking about people who say that they “work in the education sector”, when in fact, their job is teaching English; Or who say that they “provide technical and managerial oversight to a portfolio of field programs”, when in fact the person is a Desk Officer; Or those who just try to front as some sort of global nomad when this is actually their first international job.


Another thing, I can’t stand just as much as I can’t stand poseurs, are those relief and development workers who take themselves too (freakin’) seriously.

Don’t misunderstand: I take the work very seriously. It is serious work, and it is important work. Our actions (sometimes even actions that we think are strictly in our personal lives), decisions, and recommendations very often have direct and material consequences in the lives of “our” beneficiaries. And that kind of responsibility must be taken on only after considered, honest, and sober reflection (obviously an opinion).

But good grief, my aid worker brothers and sisters: some of you need to lighten up already! Exhibit a small amount of humility, even just once in a while. Maybe it’s all in semantic nuances, particular words used in place of other words at key junctures. Saying that you’re here developing a nation-wide HIV surveillance system, rather than that you’re here trying (your hardest, against what some days feel like insurmountable odds) to develop a nation-wide HIV surveillance system. Or maybe it’s giving into the temptation to dress up what can otherwise feel mundane (this work is, at it’s core, often exceedingly simple) in fancy, technical jargon. Saying, for example, “I’m here ensuring durable linkages between marginalized stakeholders and the ongoing ‘peace-process’…”, when what you really mean is, it’s your job to pester provincial and district officials to include a numerically small ethnic minority group in province "X" in a coming election.

I’m not saying that we should be endlessly self-deprecating. I don’t mean that we need to always advertise our failures or downplay the real importance of our work. Nor am I saying that this is all a big joke. I am saying we (all) need to be conscious of and also acknowledge the ironies and paradoxes inherent, not just in what we’re assigned to do, but also in the fact that we have been assigned to do it. I don’t know if the white woman in the ANZ bank in Dili the other day (mentioned in the previous post) explaining to her friend that her job was to “facilitate dialogue between the private sector and the government…” was aware of how arrogant and simultaneously – well – idiotic she sounded. I mean, for starters, like, what the hell does that even mean? What, exactly, does someone do on her first day on the job of “facilitating dialogue” in Timor-Leste? By itself, that statement sounds somewhere between - I'll say it again - arrogant (if the Timorese can't talk to each other, some white person can just come on in and facilitate them) and just plane lame.

Finally, I just have to get this out there: while NGO staff, and even some governmental donor staff are fully capable of being poseurs and/or taking themselves too seriously, in my own experience (maybe I represent a sampling error), UN personnel are, sadly, the most consistent offenders. There. It’s been said. Obviously I'm not talking about every single person ever to wear a UN badge. I'm not even talking about most. Just noting an observed trend...

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Last night one of my American expat colleagues threw a party at her house, here in Dili. She’s quite fashion-conscious and something of a socialite personality, and I think the small-ish, often scruffy, and very transient expat scene here is hard on her. Dili seems like more of a baggy pants and spaghetti strap top kind of place than a sexy mini-dress with perfect makeup and hair kind of place. (For men, it's sandals, khaki pants, and a wrinkled shirt – preferably untucked – with the top two or three buttons open.) Anyway, my friend had spent most of the day preparing everything, organizing the right chips into the right bowls, setting out candles in just the right places around the yard, and putting together the beginning of a playlist of kind of house-y music on her iPod. Her boyfriend and some of his friends DJ at different clubs around town, and helped her out with a soundsystem. This was a B.Y.O.B. party.

By about midnight there were close to 30 people milling about her yard, most of whom were at least on their second round. The table in the middle of the gazebo was covered with partially consumed bottles of New Zealand wine, Smirnoff vodka, and “Wild Turkey”, and some of the guests were really starting to down the drinks. The DJ (friend of the boyfriend) was starting to sound good, and cranking the volume. Conversation was lively, and although I’ve certainly been to wilder parties, it was a very fun evening.

That line from "Cowboy" by Kid Rock about getting "thrown in the mix and tossed out of bars..." came to mind. There were the usual suspects that you’d expect to see in such a crowd in such a place: The aging “consultant” making moves on another guest who looked young enough to be his daughter; the expat who has been away from home a little too long and so wants to sit and talkyourearoffallnightlongwhilebarelystoppingtoinhaleanotherbreathletalonggiveyouachancetosaysomething; a few neo-hippie types…

And then I started meeting the special guests:

First up was the early 30-something, working for (ta-DAH!) the UN. But of course not in some lowly position where there were actual, tangible outcomes to be achieved within concrete timeframes. Instead, she worked for a project with a completely unimaginative acronym for a name and – from what I could tell – no obviously apparent mandate. It wasn’t like, say, UNICEF which is supposed to be all about looking after babies, or UNHCR which focuses on refugees. She told me her title: she was a something-liaison-to-or-about-something. I tried to soften her up a bit by making a small joke about aid-work faff and how you never actually know from the title what anyone actually does. She didn’t take the opportunity to chuckle ruefully, make a mildly self-deprecating comment, or even roll her eyes and admit in a whisper that it despite the fancy title it was truly a dull and thankless job in a place where they chill red wine and serve beer warm.

So, secure in the knowledge that I would probably never see her again, I pressed on with my favorite question to ask in such circumstances: So, on your first day on the job of being a liaison-to-or-about-something, what do you actually do when you sit down at your desk? Her response was five solid minutes of pure technobabble, delivered in total earnestness, sans even the subtlest glimmer of irony. I must have talked to her for 35 minutes, almost exclusively about work - mostly her work - and still I have no clear idea what she actually does.

Then there was the tall, buxom, Australian 19-year-old. She turned towards me, extended her hand, and said, “Ahnd you aaaah?” (translation to American English: “what is your name?”) I said my name, asked hers, and then asked where she was from. In a voice heavy with drama and thick with red wine (or was it the other way around?), she launched into a 10-minute monologue about how she really couldn’t say where she was from ‘cuz, you know, she was really from everywhere. A citizen of earth. This quickly devolved into further exposition on how her next stop would be Alexandria. (Ahlexaaaahhhhhnnnnndria) The reason? She couldn’t say, really, just, you know, a spiritual pull; in her whole long life she’d never before been so pulled to a particular place… As she talked, my mind wandered to the book I’m reading on this trip: McCarthy’s Pub. It’s a good read. Particularly the line about getting information from “indiscreet drunken Australians.” Here, darling – let me top up your glass…

In a way, though, the highlight of the evening was meeting a couple of Egyptian UN policemen, out of uniform and attending as guests. One introduced himself as “Azzab” (or something like that). Seems he used be called “Mohammed”, but had gone to some trouble to change his name to Azzab because, well, it would be more palatable to Western people. I’d have thought he would have been okay as "Mohammed" in a crowd of aid workers and UN staff. But fair enough. It’s his call to make.

But his friend – a man who’d never ever ever considered changing his name – introduced himself as (totally not making this up) :“Hymen.”

Beyond a simple “shout out” to my colleague, Emma, who encouraged me to include “Hymen” in this post (thanks, Emma!), I think I can just about leave it there…

* * * * *

I think that I’ll be good for some time, now. I’ll be able to attend occasional parties in the field with real aid workers and poseurs alike with patience and forgiving grace. They can talk in acronyms, try to make dumb jobs sound cool, turn 6 years into "just under a decade", spin plain transience into "freelance consulting", or whatever... But when anyone with a UN namebadge or business card gets a little too cocky or condescending with me, I’ll have a private chuckle at the expense of an unfortunately-named Egyptian policeman on the UN security force in Timor-Leste. A man called “Hymen.”

Maybe they know each other?