This week has found me dressed in kevlar body armour and the famous blue peacekeeper helmet, driving a 4×4 through a minefield, leading a team through checkpoints manned by drunken soldiers, and being ambushed by a rebel militia group. It was all a simulation, of course, but most definitely the most dramatic of my otherwise fairly sedate South Sudan exploits nevertheless.
To contextualise, I have been on the UN SSAFE (Safe and Secure Approaches to Field Environments) training, an exercise whereby some Real Men conspire to somehow make land mines and kidnappings a surprisingly dull topic of study. Three days of acronyms, procedures, powerpoint presentations and the constant refrain of “use your common sense”. Worthwhile, of course, but – 4X4 driving aside – much less exciting than it initially sounds.
Even if the largely classroom-based format left something to be desired, the instructors themselves were most interesting individuals indeed. The gentleman who headed up proceedings was a former Royal Marine called Shiner. Shiner called me Mr Hat and said I reminded him of Joe Strummer. I liked Shiner. His second in command was a stocky Croatian with an exhaustive knowledge of minefields, and some suitably horrific stories to boot. His “when I was a bad guy” intro to one particular piece of counsel had the unsettling ring of truth to it. Anyway, he was now in United Nations and to atone for his sins he had us to practice his pedagogy upon.
There are a few things that have stuck with me. Firstly, don’t trust the movies. If someone throws a grenade at you do not attempt to throw it back: it will not work. Similarly, if you step on a land mine you’ve had it. There is no chance to slide a knife under your shoe to enable you to safely step off the trigger plate, or other such Bourne-style shenanigans. Once you’ve tripped the fuse the first you’ll know about it is when you are ten feet in the air waving goodbye to your leg. Indiscriminate and awful weapons, the most depressing fact of all is that three of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council are non-signatories to the anti-land mine Ottawa Treaty. We live in a terrible world.
It is interesting also to observe, however, how that which is self-evidently the best option – or at the very least the least dumb thing to do – in a classroom quickly becomes anything but obvious when put into practice. Of the 20 or so others on the course there were very few I would like to find myself in a genuine security incident with. Indeed, if I were to encounter a potentially violent scenario, in several instances I would probably feel safer with the aggressors than my fellow trainees. Common sense, it transpires, is thin on the ground under pressure.
But even amidst the contingency planning and worst case scenarios it eventually emerged that the most effective method of ensuring your safety is really quite simple, conceptually at least. Here in the humanitarian world we have an especial term for it – acceptance – but in essence the idea boils down to two very common, but infrequently practiced, values: respect and humility.
The idea is that in order to be safe in the area in which you are working you need to have the community on your side, which is best achieved through gaining the trust of those you are living amongst and serving. You will have to balance the very real needs of the communities against their inevitable demands for things beyond the scope or remit of your project, and the hard-nosed realities of budgets and donor priorities, and this will involve saying no. Promising the world when designing a project might feel good at the time, and it may even have been well intentioned, but to promise something and then not deliver can seriously damage your standing. Much better, and much more difficult, to maintain your integrity and be honest throughout.
Acceptance, then, is a long-term strategy that is easy to conceptualise, difficult to implement, and easy to lose. It may sound straightforward, but I expect that in practice it will prove anything but. Common sense, I have heard, is thin on the ground under pressure…
Life in Juba occasionally feels like an experiment in communal living, a monasticism with new and interesting methods of self-flagellation, and significantly less silence. There have been a number of occurrences of late which have given me pause to reflect upon how reliant we are on the kindness and sensitivity of those around us. When you live in such close proximity to people a certain amount tension is inevitable, and with the continuous movement of people team dynamics are constantly shifting. It is a fragile balance, easily damaged and difficult to repair. It is at times like these that I am deeply grateful for the existence of Björk.
However, the community most on my mind of late has been the one which I am going to be living amongst come September. I am increasingly aware how little I actually know about Yuai, my soon to be home. I have read reports and proposals aplenty and can tell you all about the PHCUs (Primary Health Care Units), nutrition needs and WASH (WAter, Sanitation and Hygiene) projects that we run. I have read books on the history of South Sudan, about its colonial past, and the extended civil war and factionalism which lead to its separation from the north. But the reality is that I know very little about the Lo Nuer, the Dinka and the Murle, the main tribes in my locality in Jonglei – the state in which Yuai is located – as communities or as people.
If there is one thing I do know about Yuai, however, it is that it is an extremely isolated place. If you Google the name of our previous base in Jonglei the first result is not a news site, or even an agency report, but my friend and predecessor’s blog from two years ago. This is not somewhere with international media attention, or indeed international anything.
I have recently noticed that when I tell an experienced field worker, especially one nursing a beer, where I am going to be based their instinct is to chuckle knowingly and remark that if you can survive Jonglei you can survive anywhere. One Jonglei old hand posed the most challenging question I have fielded so far: ‘What are your motivations?’
Now I have been asked that question, or a variation thereof, plenty of times, and considered it independently many more, but this time the question was put in a concrete context. The seasoned aid workers I have talked to, their stories – or the ones that seem to mean something at least – are not about well managed projects, balanced budgets or sociological observations. The stories that mean something are those that tell of feeling welcome, about trust, warmth and connection. And this particular aid worker, who has worked in Darfur and on the Kenya – Somali border, outlined why Jonglei was the most difficult context he had worked in. He touched upon the many impediments to working that I am well aware of, from the rains that turn it into a sodden and impassable swamp for five months of the year, to the sheer scale of the place. But he also talked about the more personal elements – the inherent suspicion bred of decades of civil war and intertribal violence; the absence of a hospitality culture and concomitant reticence of the communities to allow you to participate in their lives; the tendency towards entitlement and aid dependency that meant that engagement, initiative and buy in to the projects were frustratingly difficult to achieve; that he had never once been invited into a family’s home for a meal. And it was the second group of frustrations that made Jonglei so difficult and dispiriting. His advice was that I need to be sure of my motivations, and clear on what I want to achieve, or else I would invariably get frustrated and demotivated by it all.
Now his experience may not be representative, but the larger point still stands: in a context such as this the pat “I’m here to help” answer just doesn’t cut it. Which isn’t to say that it doesn’t contain some truth – idealism definitely motivates many people to get into this line of work, but it’s not enough to sustain you. Bleeding hearts don’t last. And if we are honest with ourselves, neither is it entirely true.
The most difficult response I received when I told people that I was moving to South Sudan was when people expressed the sentiment that I was doing something brave, heroic or sacrificial, which wasn’t uncommon. This was difficult firstly because of the stirrings of pride that accompanied the praise, as the ego was burnished a little too brightly. And it was also difficult because I disagree, for reasons that are difficult to express succinctly. What I am doing is not heroic, it is not a sacrifice, and it is not even particularly unusual – there is a veritable glut of us out here.
By presenting or seeing yourself in such a way – as heroic and benevolent, with wholly altruistic intentions – you are painting yourself in a position of power: you are someone here to right the wrongs that the South Sudanese cannot, you are here to solve a problem. In doing so you strip those around you of their agency and autonomy, not to mention their dignity. Uncomfortable colonial overtones abound. We are not saviours, and we will not be welcomed as such. Nor should we expect to be. In fact, where I am going it sounds as though I may not be welcome, at least at first. But there should be joy in what we do, regardless of whether or not we experience an emotional affirmation in recognition of our efforts.
“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and found that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” – Rabindranath Tagore
In his elegant and challenging piece for the Atlantic, Teju Cole points out: “…there is much more to doing good work than ‘making a difference.’ There is the principle of first do no harm. There is the idea that those who are being helped ought to be consulted over the matters that concern them.” The ‘here to help’ chestnut makes it all about us, about our need for validation and fulfillment, and it defines our purpose by what we are able to achieve. And when we are faced with our inability to effect change, as we inevitably will be, such thinking sets one up to become bitter and cynical as we are confronted with the seeming futility of our efforts.
“If you believe you’re going to… change the world, you’re going to end up either a pessimist or a cynic. But if you understand your limited power and define yourself by your ability to resist injustice, rather than by what you accomplish, then I think reality is much easier to bear.” – Chris Hedges
To return to the point about being honest about our motivations, and the problem with the ‘sacrificial saviour’ narrative. There are of course things which I have given up to be here, important things, comfortable things, safe and secure things. There will be things I will miss – weddings, birthdays, late nights chewing the fat with old friends, and myriad similar moments, and these are things I value and do not set aside lightly. But the distinction needs to be made – this life is not in and of itself a sacrifice.
I have chosen to be in South Sudan, and I want to be here. I find it exciting to be somewhere new again, to be back on the continent where my interest in justice, development and the wider world was kindled. I like living somewhere where the everyday has an edge, and less bubble wrap to soften the edges than it does in Ireland and the UK. I enjoy observing the chaotic bustle and colour of the streets and marketplaces, the three people per motorbike approach, the feeling of a city bursting at the seams. I love the smell before a storm, and how the rain here has a weight and heft where back home it is most often grey, dank and half-hearted. I love the interesting people you meet: people who have done things of value and whose character and authority speaks of their knowledge and experience; adrenaline junkies who’re addicted to the buzz of chasing the latest disaster; people who have seen too much and succumbed to the cynicism that I spoke of above – the range is fascinating. I love my job, I love that I’m learning all the time, and I definitely enjoy the intermittent feeling that I am actually quite good at what I do.
All of which makes the frustrations and disappointments that much easier to bear, and makes it all the more gratifying when you know you have contributed to something worthwhile. For our projects, the good ones anyway – the ones where the internal and external circumstances align sufficiently with good planning and available funds – they do do good. They make a difference. But it is incremental, it is slow, and it is difficult to quantify or to measure. It is difficult to determine causality, and even more difficult to watch your efforts and hard-won improvements be wiped out by events outside of your control.
Being honest about the range of your motivations can also keep attitudes in check. If you think you are somehow doing people a favour by deigning to work and live in their country the implication is that they owe you something, whether a debt of gratitude or some form of preferential treatment. And such attitudes will inevitably spill over into your behaviour. Whereas if I am honest about the fact that I am benefitting from being here, and that it is a privilege and not a sacrifice, then I will treat others accordingly, with respect and a willingness to actually listen to the needs of the communities we are serving, rather than imposing my ideas of what is best upon a context about which I can ultimately only ever know very little.
In other words, the cultivation of humility is essential to doing good well. It speaks of trust and integrity, and like anywhere in the world trust has to be earned. Now it may just be that in this particular place there are more impediments to relationship than in most. But such is the privilege of being here.
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Photographs courtesy of Ali Wood and Lucy Young, my friends and predecessors in Jonglei
Seasons of Migration 