Tomorrow I'm going to Madrid to learn Spanish for two weeks. It's a bit of a test run for us, a short period away from home - then back to catch up with my family, then holidays in Sardinia, then back for boring training, then the real live away-from-home experience, moving to Teguc. I cried this evening when I was packing, when my ipod played Here by Pavement. The one that starts, "I was dressed for success". Simp's song.
I still haven't quite worked out what I want to do with this blog. I've always held that I read blogs to keep up with faraway people. Like this one. And this one. So this is partly so that people know what I'm doing and where I am. But blogs are necessarily riven with self-censorship - I can't tell you which good friends are driving me crazy, or the failings of the particular NGO I work for... things that would end up in a journal if it wasn't published. What in god's name is the point of a public diary? Shazzle is of the opinion that it's about describing your life as you'd like it to be - thus reinforcing that imaginary life... but I'm not good at not wearing my heart on my sleeve.
Simp, meanwhile, feels that a blog is a functional, sharing thing. Somewhere to point out things that passed under the radar. Like boing boing or the huffington post. Simp's blog does that - shares snippets on his beliefs and experience in Dublin and the wider interweb.
I'd like to make a combination. I want to think about development, and poverty, and ex-patism. I did before in Central America, and I kept a journal which is by far my only literary achievement to date. I'd like to make this the online version.
So it won't be tech-savvy, and it may not be as honest or as informative as you might like at times. But I'll work it out.
In the interim, pues, hasta la proxima...
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Monday, August 21, 2006
Honduras
The point is, I'm moving to Honduras, and I want to do some explaining about that. I also want to do some thinking about it, but I'm not sure if I'll have time.
Back in 2001, before the end of the end of history, I spent 6 months in Central America, 4 of which were volunteering in an orphanage in Guatemala. I kept a journal back then - a paper one, like - and I couldn't possibly describe all the things I thought about working in that orphanage in one blog post, when 6 months worth of scrupously hand-written entries didn't begin to cover it. So I'll do it no justice at all by saying that I loved it, but it wasn't development. And at some point in that 6 month trip, I must have decided I wanted to become a development worker.
I don't think I am one just yet. What I am, at present, is an intern in an international NGO. The NGO will remain nameless, because that's the convention, but I'm pleased to say it's one I respect most of the time, and to the best of my understanding, it's no more dysfunctional than any other organisation in this field. I've worked on the Southern Africa desk in that NGO for the last 12 months, and in October, I'll move to "the field", and work on the Central American programme.
I'm not a nurse or a nutritionist, and I'm not an engineer. I don't have the sorts of skills needed to build things or make things work better, more efficiently, or with bits of twig. In fact I think I'm probably just a technocrat. So my job is based on giving money to small local organisations ('grassrooted', we say), and trying to ensure that they spend it like they said they would and that in doing so the things that they said would happen as a result, happen.
I happen to believe that this is a wise way of working, though I admit that's not much of an explanation. The idea behind this very common sort of development work is that we Northerners have little to add to Southern societies (that they don't already have) other than solidarity. And money. There are enough Honduran people to run community projects in Honduras, enough Honduran nurses and engineers - if they don't all flee to the States because they can't make a living wage at home. We're trying to - what? - enable those individuals and groups to thrive.
The notion is known, in a warm and fuzzy way, as partnership. I hope that I'm suitably cynical about partnership and the overuse of the term (I am, after all, an Irish lefty with suspicions about that very notion here); but let it be said that I believe in its veracity too. And this year will give me a chance to test it enormously. My organisation is well-known in Teguc. It has influence over government, donors and civil society. Sitting here in Dublin 8, I believe I'm going out to work for the good guys and fight the good fight. At least I hope I am. I'll let you know.
Enough! I'll be living in Tegucigalpa, working in an office, visiting community groups and watching what the government is doing. I'll be researching and writing and thinking and meeting new people and having the craic. Not, I hope, catching Dengue fever as my predecessor did.
I left Casa Guatemala in 2001 determined to return to that context, but working for an organisation I could respect. I think this is my chance.
Back in 2001, before the end of the end of history, I spent 6 months in Central America, 4 of which were volunteering in an orphanage in Guatemala. I kept a journal back then - a paper one, like - and I couldn't possibly describe all the things I thought about working in that orphanage in one blog post, when 6 months worth of scrupously hand-written entries didn't begin to cover it. So I'll do it no justice at all by saying that I loved it, but it wasn't development. And at some point in that 6 month trip, I must have decided I wanted to become a development worker.
I don't think I am one just yet. What I am, at present, is an intern in an international NGO. The NGO will remain nameless, because that's the convention, but I'm pleased to say it's one I respect most of the time, and to the best of my understanding, it's no more dysfunctional than any other organisation in this field. I've worked on the Southern Africa desk in that NGO for the last 12 months, and in October, I'll move to "the field", and work on the Central American programme.
I'm not a nurse or a nutritionist, and I'm not an engineer. I don't have the sorts of skills needed to build things or make things work better, more efficiently, or with bits of twig. In fact I think I'm probably just a technocrat. So my job is based on giving money to small local organisations ('grassrooted', we say), and trying to ensure that they spend it like they said they would and that in doing so the things that they said would happen as a result, happen.
I happen to believe that this is a wise way of working, though I admit that's not much of an explanation. The idea behind this very common sort of development work is that we Northerners have little to add to Southern societies (that they don't already have) other than solidarity. And money. There are enough Honduran people to run community projects in Honduras, enough Honduran nurses and engineers - if they don't all flee to the States because they can't make a living wage at home. We're trying to - what? - enable those individuals and groups to thrive.
The notion is known, in a warm and fuzzy way, as partnership. I hope that I'm suitably cynical about partnership and the overuse of the term (I am, after all, an Irish lefty with suspicions about that very notion here); but let it be said that I believe in its veracity too. And this year will give me a chance to test it enormously. My organisation is well-known in Teguc. It has influence over government, donors and civil society. Sitting here in Dublin 8, I believe I'm going out to work for the good guys and fight the good fight. At least I hope I am. I'll let you know.
Enough! I'll be living in Tegucigalpa, working in an office, visiting community groups and watching what the government is doing. I'll be researching and writing and thinking and meeting new people and having the craic. Not, I hope, catching Dengue fever as my predecessor did.
I left Casa Guatemala in 2001 determined to return to that context, but working for an organisation I could respect. I think this is my chance.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Ahead of the Curve
We are so damn ahead of the curve that there's been a shooting on our road. Not quite our road, but as good as. The sequence of events (for us) went like this:
1. On return from a curious and lovely Sino-Irish wedding in Drumcondra last night at around 1AM, we spot an unusual number of screeching sirening police cars. Simp, ever the conspiracy theorist, speculates that it's a feature of McDowell's night of the long knives, a round-up of all the criminals to prove the worth of the gardai, in spite of the findings of the Morris Tribunal.
2. This morning: Simp's mother's friend collects us (remember neither of us drives), so that we can indulge in that most middle class of activities: a trip to Greystones to choose a multi-fuel burning stove for our home. Pulling away from the group of streets where we live, we notice that two of them are sealed off with traffic cones and ticker tape, and supervised by Gardai. Wearing forensic space suits.
3. The one o'clock news. Fatal shooting on Cameron St. At 1 Am. My family's not going to like this one bit.
I don't know how the sequence of events went for the 22 year old who's dead now, or the guy who shot him. Sometimes, there are parallel worlds barely overlapping around here.
At the end of September, I travel to the UK for 3 days security training, to prepare me for Honduras. How secure is Simp in Dublin 8??
(Monday morning news report It's pretty hairy out there)
1. On return from a curious and lovely Sino-Irish wedding in Drumcondra last night at around 1AM, we spot an unusual number of screeching sirening police cars. Simp, ever the conspiracy theorist, speculates that it's a feature of McDowell's night of the long knives, a round-up of all the criminals to prove the worth of the gardai, in spite of the findings of the Morris Tribunal.
2. This morning: Simp's mother's friend collects us (remember neither of us drives), so that we can indulge in that most middle class of activities: a trip to Greystones to choose a multi-fuel burning stove for our home. Pulling away from the group of streets where we live, we notice that two of them are sealed off with traffic cones and ticker tape, and supervised by Gardai. Wearing forensic space suits.
3. The one o'clock news. Fatal shooting on Cameron St. At 1 Am. My family's not going to like this one bit.
I don't know how the sequence of events went for the 22 year old who's dead now, or the guy who shot him. Sometimes, there are parallel worlds barely overlapping around here.
At the end of September, I travel to the UK for 3 days security training, to prepare me for Honduras. How secure is Simp in Dublin 8??
(Monday morning news report It's pretty hairy out there)
Friday, August 11, 2006
Not Easy Being Green
Welcome here. I've just arrived myself, and it's all looking a little bit bare. Needs furniture, photos, some personal items, that sort of thing. Much like my new house, in fact. If I was a proper blogger, that would be a link. Give me a little while.....
Ta-daaaa:
The idea of having a blog came initially from the fact of having a house. My blog was initially to be called Not Easy Being Green, and it was to address the challenges of living a vaguely right-on life in grimy Dublin 8. Challenges like finding FSC certified wood, and convincing a very good builder to use it. Finding interiors guides that are budget-conscious and earth-loving, but don't assume everyone's wild about hemp. The discovery of the flaws with dual flush toilets (less water = less clean... gluey builders' pee clinging to the basin flush after flush); the trouble with energy saver light bulbs (uuuug-leeee; don't work with dimmer switches); the challenges of finding non-fibre glass insulation in Dublin - or Ireland. The reality of an entire country without a single Ikea store. You can't begin to imagine. No, don't even pretend.
The final straw came once we'd moved in - and I still hadn't set up my blog - and we wanted to ditch our recycling in a local bring centre. I had been gathering a lot of material for recyling; more than the nice Oxegen people with their green bags were going to accept from the doorstep in a billion years. Simp, my beloved, liked to point out that my waste management policy was unsustainable, consisting as it did of not throwing anything away. Fair enough. So we who don't drive bullied our friend Sho, who does, into driving us and 8 black/ green sacks to the nearest open bring centre one Sunday hangover.
All the bins, large industrial metal skips, were stuffed full. The slots were sealed up with waste, so there was no forcing any more in. The man in the high viz jacket took one look at us.
"Ah, they're all full up," he stated obviously. "Youse can put them over here".
'Over here' was the skip-free corner of the yard, sectioned off in time-honoured fashion with plastic tape and traffic cones, and piled high with sacks spilling paper, tins, clothing, electronic goods, nappies, coffee grounds, eggshells, toilet rolls, drinks bottles, batteries... in short, pure and unadulterated rubbish. Unadulterated and, I emphasise, unsorted.
I asked what would happen to the stuff.
"Ah you know, it'll be recycled".
I asked how it would be sorted - I knew that the contents of our bags for example needed sorting.
"Oh it will be, yeah, definitely. Course it will."
Simp and Sho were edging away, thrilled to be rid of the stuff. Come on Chispa. Don't quarrel. This is a bring centre, and we have brought. The beach awaits!
I know, I know for a fact, that those 8 bages of disparate, but recyclable, items were destined for landfill. Calls to the council the next morning did nothing to undermine my certainty.
That's what my blog was meant to be about. Living ethically in my gorgeous house that me and Simp made and we love. Then I found out I'm moving to Honduras. So that's what it's about instead.
Ta-daaaa:
The idea of having a blog came initially from the fact of having a house. My blog was initially to be called Not Easy Being Green, and it was to address the challenges of living a vaguely right-on life in grimy Dublin 8. Challenges like finding FSC certified wood, and convincing a very good builder to use it. Finding interiors guides that are budget-conscious and earth-loving, but don't assume everyone's wild about hemp. The discovery of the flaws with dual flush toilets (less water = less clean... gluey builders' pee clinging to the basin flush after flush); the trouble with energy saver light bulbs (uuuug-leeee; don't work with dimmer switches); the challenges of finding non-fibre glass insulation in Dublin - or Ireland. The reality of an entire country without a single Ikea store. You can't begin to imagine. No, don't even pretend.
The final straw came once we'd moved in - and I still hadn't set up my blog - and we wanted to ditch our recycling in a local bring centre. I had been gathering a lot of material for recyling; more than the nice Oxegen people with their green bags were going to accept from the doorstep in a billion years. Simp, my beloved, liked to point out that my waste management policy was unsustainable, consisting as it did of not throwing anything away. Fair enough. So we who don't drive bullied our friend Sho, who does, into driving us and 8 black/ green sacks to the nearest open bring centre one Sunday hangover.
All the bins, large industrial metal skips, were stuffed full. The slots were sealed up with waste, so there was no forcing any more in. The man in the high viz jacket took one look at us.
"Ah, they're all full up," he stated obviously. "Youse can put them over here".
'Over here' was the skip-free corner of the yard, sectioned off in time-honoured fashion with plastic tape and traffic cones, and piled high with sacks spilling paper, tins, clothing, electronic goods, nappies, coffee grounds, eggshells, toilet rolls, drinks bottles, batteries... in short, pure and unadulterated rubbish. Unadulterated and, I emphasise, unsorted.
I asked what would happen to the stuff.
"Ah you know, it'll be recycled".
I asked how it would be sorted - I knew that the contents of our bags for example needed sorting.
"Oh it will be, yeah, definitely. Course it will."
Simp and Sho were edging away, thrilled to be rid of the stuff. Come on Chispa. Don't quarrel. This is a bring centre, and we have brought. The beach awaits!
I know, I know for a fact, that those 8 bages of disparate, but recyclable, items were destined for landfill. Calls to the council the next morning did nothing to undermine my certainty.
That's what my blog was meant to be about. Living ethically in my gorgeous house that me and Simp made and we love. Then I found out I'm moving to Honduras. So that's what it's about instead.
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