The Field

I am a development professional. I work in Ireland, advising people who work in poorer places. There's lots of jargon involved, and lots of euphemism, and one of my least favourite euphemisms is this one. "The field".
Among development professionals, "the field" is anywhere poor, and in receipt of well-intentioned aid money (like my agency's). A wise academic once crankily dismissed my use of the term, saying "fields are for cows" - but what better to say? If the agency I work for was active in community development in Ireland, then I would live in "the field", a relatively deprived neighbourhood with lots of NGOs and social workers milling about (though not nearly enough). But we don't work in Ireland, so "the field" is located inconveniently at the end of multiple long-haul flights. That's where I'm going next week. Sierra Leone in West Africa, to be exact, for one week.

Since they were born 17 distant months ago, I've left the twins overnight on two occasions - both blessed escapes for me and their father; in both cases thanks to the immense generosity of my sister. Now I'm leaving them for 8 nights. It's not very long, and I'd be lying if I said I was terribly anxious about it. Simon is fabulous: he's laid back and fun and completely on top of things with the boys, and a week is hardly a long time for him to be on his own with them. I'll miss them - but the time always passes incredibly quickly on field trips, and I'm looking forward to the adventure.

There it is. I'm a development professional. When I wasn't an anything professional, desperately trying to break into the NGO sector, I dreamed about having a job like mine, with regular international travel, casual familiarity with airports and slums across three continents. And when this job frustrates me, I do remind myself that I'm still living exactly the dream I once had.

I don't know if it's still my dream. I don't know if I want to be that breezy chick on the back of the pick-up whose husband is at home with the kids. I have a manager who used to live in Mozambique and travel frequently in Southern Africa. She told me about her two year old son strapping on his little backpack and marching out into the back garden, with a cheery: "bye bye mummy, I'm off to Angola!" When she told me that story, it made me sad (I was 6 months pregnant at the time, and to be fair I was easily saddened). The poor boy had such low expectations of the people nearest to him: normality for him was departures, separation, parents being available in shifts, never both at once. Once, I would have seen it as exactly the kind of glamorous life I wanted.

Now, I don't really know how I feel about that story.

This Sierra Leone visit is an experiment. To be effective in my work, I believe I need to travel way more than I ever have before. To be happy and content as a parent, I'm not sure whether I believe that's possible. Maybe it is. Maybe the boys will grow up with their backpacks on, confidently striding out to Africa, just like their mum. Or maybe they'll just miss me, in an unglamorous, uncomplicated way. Maybe I'm just being self-important and self-indulgent.

I will probably have thoughts about this on my return. With any luck, I'll make the time to blog about them.