Yesterday, I had a realization about Accra. The parts of the city that you see on the surface are loud and chaotic and aggressive and congested and exhausting. But if you plunge in deeper, layer by layer the mask breaks down until at the end you just find real people, just real people living their lives and eating sleeping loving living making music and playing and working and watching TV.
Annemieke and I went to the Arts Center yesterday, which is a fearsome bazaar of tourist trappings – paintings, sculptures, jewelry, cloth, clothes, purses, instruments… As soon as we walked near it a man came up to his to steer us into his stall, and for the five minutes or so, everyone that we passed kept calling after us – “Looking is free!” “Oburoni, come!” “White sister, come and look at my shop!” We kept walking deeper and deeper back into the market, until what had been a roof covered neatly organized conglomerate of aisle upon parallel aisle of goods slowly gave way to an open air, tree-scattered sporadic winding patchwork of stalls.
After stopping to bargain for some miniature brass sculptures and laughing when Annemieke innocently asked the store owner to ‘dash’ us a ‘jiggy jiggy’ (‘dash’ meaning throw one in for free, ‘jiggy jiggy’ referring to the series of mini sculptures he had of couples in every position imaginable), we went further still. The stalls started to thin out and a pathway opened up into the sun. On our right were stalls similar to the ones we’d seen earlier, but on the left was the concrete skeleton of a building. The concrete slabs formed small three-walled cubicles, and you could see that people were actually living in them, making it livable by drapping a curtain across the middle and laying down blankets on the floor. This was starting to feel nothing like the polished and glitzy entrance to the arts center.
We stopped to check out a rasta cottage with hanging plants and a cd collection, and probably the prerequisite weed behind the counter. Moving on, we realized that the market had given way to a village – there were homes, cooking fires, craftsmen working, kids playing… and the backdrop to all of it was the ocean! We had stumbled upon a beautiful seaside village that led right up to the bluff where the sandy beach began. There was a little kid pulling a suitcase along behind him, and nestled inside of it was an even little kid squealing and enjoying the ride! There was a whole line of little kids, each waiting for his or her turn to get pulled around and everyone was so excited about their rough and tumble ride across the dusty and bumpy ground. There was a shack right on the bluff’s edge that someone had carefully decorated with masks and mirror shards and painted over and lined with stones and all kinds of colorful odd decorating flares. It was really cool to see – especially because you could tell it wasn’t made to be seen, at least not by us. Here, so far in and far from the busy city streets and the showy facades, all of the beauty that we stumbled upon was real, was there for the sake of itself and the people who live there.
We were on our way back to the main street when we ran into a man who looked a lot like one of our friends, Arouna (a really talented musician from Burkina Faso). It turns out that this man, Ablo, actually was a really good friend of Arouna’s, and invited us back to his home. It was a little one room shack in a nearby gulley, and on his porch a man named Baba was working on making a xylophone. After chatting in my broken French for a while, Ablo, who plays the kora, and his friends played a few songs for us… while they were playing I looked around to take in exactly where we were – there was a flock of goats nearby, a few little boys running around barefoot, the ocean, the outline of the seaside village, a cooking fire nearby… the music fit the place so perfectly and the whole experience was one of those perfect moments when you feel your heart overflowing and life tingles through your whole body… if you’ve ever felt like this then you’ll know what I mean.
We had journeyed through layer after layer of the city and ended up here, listening to music in front of a friend’s home. It only took a five minute walk to get back to the main street – unbelievable considering how far removed we felt from the chaos that is normally how I think of Accra. But meeting Ablo and his friends felt like finding an anchor, something solid and simple to hold on to amidst the great shifting anonymity of the city.
I will never forget that afternoon.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
To Anyone Who Supported Photovoice, to NGOs, to Donors
Thoughts on Photovoice
When someone asks me how the photovoice project went, I automatically say something along the lines of, “Oh, it was great, it worked out really well, the kids were awesome…” etc etc.
And none of it is a lie… but it doesn’t give a good picture of what actually happened or how I feel about it either.
It’s really hard for me to be honest about this. I just got home from dinner with two of my closest friends and it was even hard to admit to them that I have my doubts, reservations, and regrets about this project.
We were talking about NGOs and corruption and failed projects, and I had been thinking about how hard (next to impossible) it is for people and organizations to admit that they are sometimes wrong, that they tried something and it didn’t work, that they could’ve done things differently. If it’s this hard for me to admit being less than perfect and I’m only accountable to my family, friends, and myself – I understand why NGOs and others who are accountable to international aid organizations and demanding donors aren’t likely to admit their faults. But I wish they would… it would help improve development so much. I know now that it takes so much bravery to do this, and so much faith that people won’t just walk away but will appreciate that by admitting our shortcomings we can improve on them, instead of pretending they’re not there.
So here are my mistakes:
1. I didn’t take enough time to understand the context that I was trying to work in. I wish that I had just hung out at the school or in the community with an open mind, and waited until I understood the dynamic and undercurrents of the place I was putting myself in more deeply. As it was, I still don’t completely understand how classes work at the school we partnered with, because our presence changed things and I had no way of measuring how big or disruptive that change was.
2. I didn’t follow through as much as I could have, especially with record keeping. I would have liked to write about how each lesson went, what topics we covered, and how I felt after each meeting with the kids. It also would have been useful to get feedback from the kids and teachers about how the program went as a form of evaluation.
A lot of other factors made this a tough project to work on: the infrastructure of the school we worked in was pretty basic, so we had to trade off distracting noise and sweltering heat; the equipment that we used had some problems, which led to a lot of time lags and destroyed some of the photographs; and a lot of developing problems came up and made our rate of return around 70% (a third of the photos the kids took were ruined and never printed, which was frustrating for everyone.) Also, the level of English spoken by the kids varied and made it difficult to teach lessons. And the general schoolyard culture was more loud and undisciplined than it has been at other schools or in other countries that I’ve worked in.
I often asked myself whether it would’ve been better if I had just come to the school and offered all of my skills as needed – maybe tutored instead, or supervised the little kids during breaks, or (is this my most valuable contribution?) donated money. I think that in general it is much better to immerse oneself in a context and find out what is needed instead of giving what you want to give. But at the same time – I am passionate about photography and I love teaching it. It was hard to set this program up, and if it wasn’t something I really cared about, I wouldn’t have had the drive to do it and the determination to work through the hard days. I would like to think of myself as someone who could be passionate enough about wanting to help in any capacity that it would have been enough to know that I was helping. But then I remember that without photography, I never would have even contacted this school, let alone braved the sweaty commute and sensory overload that is Nima to visit it once a week.
I’ve sometimes thought that if I really want to make a difference I should just sacrifice what I want and focus on serving others and fulfilling their needs. Then I snap out of this twisted martyrdom dream and realize that there is no way that I could sacrifice myself and what makes me happy and be able to sustain it for any significant amount of time. I believe that people both are at their best when they are happy and doing things that they love. So I can’t criticize myself for wanting to work on a photography project, because it’s what makes me happy and is something I’m willing to put my all into.
Here’s another mistake:
3. Since I wasn’t ready to respond to what this school needed, I wish that I had been ready to find a different school or venue that would have been in a better position to need what I had to offer. A school with slightly better infrastructure, with stronger English skills, a school that was already looking for an art program. I would have had to develop standards for selecting such a school, and it would have taken more time to find the right place. But the project would have had that much more potential to succeed. It would’ve been a hard process – kind of like weeding out the small seedlings at the beginning to give the others a better chance of growing strong. If development organizations were more selective about what specific interventions they undertook and what specific criteria had to be met before they began, I’m sure more projects would be successful and limited resources would be used more effectively. Instead, just like me, it seems that a lot of organizations are excited to do anything anywhere without taking the time to understand if it is the best project for the specific context.
Despite everything I’ve just written, a part of me believes that the main goal of this photography project – to provide an opportunity to a group of students who wouldn’t have had it otherwise – was met perfectly by working in the school that we did. I guess I’ll never really know if we made any real difference or not… and if we did, I don’t think it will have been to turn these eight kids into professional photographers.
I think our presence, despite everything, might have meant something. Our willingness to invest in this school, in these kids, in this project that seems so extravagant – maybe on some small level we managed to communicate that they were worth it.
Or maybe we just came in and did what we wanted to do. I think the answer is probably some combination of both.
In either case, I always knew that I would probably get more out of this than any of the kids that we worked with. And looking back on it, I can already say that that’s true. I’ve learned a lot of lessons about development and NGOs and aid – on a tiny 8 student 1 school scale, but the lessons apply across all levels.
So to everyone who supported me with this – through donations or words of encouragement or buying those delicious unbaked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies –
please don’t think your support was wasted. If nothing else, you helped teach me important lessons that I hope to build on and spread.
And for the record, I do think the kids had fun and got to do something they never would have otherwise. Which is maybe all we could’ve hoped for anyway.
I feel like I’ve just broken every rule of the organization-donor contract – the implicit you help me help someone, I help you feel good about yourself promise. But it seems to me that, like with every good relationship, the organization-donor one would be better if we communicated honestly back and forth.
On that note – please let me know what your reactions and thoughts.
With peace,
PS. After writing this, I visited the school one last time. On my way out, one of the boys we worked with, Shaibu, came running after me with a pen. “Madam, Madam! May I please have your phone number?” It costs a lot to make calls to the US and I doubt that he’ll really call, but it made me realize that if nothing else, we made contact with these kids and through this project, formed relationships that otherwise wouldn’t have existed.
When someone asks me how the photovoice project went, I automatically say something along the lines of, “Oh, it was great, it worked out really well, the kids were awesome…” etc etc.
And none of it is a lie… but it doesn’t give a good picture of what actually happened or how I feel about it either.
It’s really hard for me to be honest about this. I just got home from dinner with two of my closest friends and it was even hard to admit to them that I have my doubts, reservations, and regrets about this project.
We were talking about NGOs and corruption and failed projects, and I had been thinking about how hard (next to impossible) it is for people and organizations to admit that they are sometimes wrong, that they tried something and it didn’t work, that they could’ve done things differently. If it’s this hard for me to admit being less than perfect and I’m only accountable to my family, friends, and myself – I understand why NGOs and others who are accountable to international aid organizations and demanding donors aren’t likely to admit their faults. But I wish they would… it would help improve development so much. I know now that it takes so much bravery to do this, and so much faith that people won’t just walk away but will appreciate that by admitting our shortcomings we can improve on them, instead of pretending they’re not there.
For those of you not familiar with this Photo project, here’s a brief summary: Carly (my amazing and beautiful partner in all of this) and I gave cameras to a group of students (we had a class of eight 10 years olds, half boys and half girls). We met with them once a week for an hour at their school, and went over basic photography skills, like angles, being aware of the background, and the rule of thirds. We gave them film almost every week along with an assignment “Photograph your community,” or “Take pictures that work together to tell a story,” etc. Then we developed their film, returned their pictures, and talked about them as a group. After 10 weeks, we had an exhibition of 20 of their favorite photos at their school. The entire school was there, a handful of parents came, and several of our friends from our programs showed up. This 10 week program probably cost us ~ $300.
So here are my mistakes:
1. I didn’t take enough time to understand the context that I was trying to work in. I wish that I had just hung out at the school or in the community with an open mind, and waited until I understood the dynamic and undercurrents of the place I was putting myself in more deeply. As it was, I still don’t completely understand how classes work at the school we partnered with, because our presence changed things and I had no way of measuring how big or disruptive that change was.
2. I didn’t follow through as much as I could have, especially with record keeping. I would have liked to write about how each lesson went, what topics we covered, and how I felt after each meeting with the kids. It also would have been useful to get feedback from the kids and teachers about how the program went as a form of evaluation.
A lot of other factors made this a tough project to work on: the infrastructure of the school we worked in was pretty basic, so we had to trade off distracting noise and sweltering heat; the equipment that we used had some problems, which led to a lot of time lags and destroyed some of the photographs; and a lot of developing problems came up and made our rate of return around 70% (a third of the photos the kids took were ruined and never printed, which was frustrating for everyone.) Also, the level of English spoken by the kids varied and made it difficult to teach lessons. And the general schoolyard culture was more loud and undisciplined than it has been at other schools or in other countries that I’ve worked in.
I often asked myself whether it would’ve been better if I had just come to the school and offered all of my skills as needed – maybe tutored instead, or supervised the little kids during breaks, or (is this my most valuable contribution?) donated money. I think that in general it is much better to immerse oneself in a context and find out what is needed instead of giving what you want to give. But at the same time – I am passionate about photography and I love teaching it. It was hard to set this program up, and if it wasn’t something I really cared about, I wouldn’t have had the drive to do it and the determination to work through the hard days. I would like to think of myself as someone who could be passionate enough about wanting to help in any capacity that it would have been enough to know that I was helping. But then I remember that without photography, I never would have even contacted this school, let alone braved the sweaty commute and sensory overload that is Nima to visit it once a week.
I’ve sometimes thought that if I really want to make a difference I should just sacrifice what I want and focus on serving others and fulfilling their needs. Then I snap out of this twisted martyrdom dream and realize that there is no way that I could sacrifice myself and what makes me happy and be able to sustain it for any significant amount of time. I believe that people both are at their best when they are happy and doing things that they love. So I can’t criticize myself for wanting to work on a photography project, because it’s what makes me happy and is something I’m willing to put my all into.
Here’s another mistake:
3. Since I wasn’t ready to respond to what this school needed, I wish that I had been ready to find a different school or venue that would have been in a better position to need what I had to offer. A school with slightly better infrastructure, with stronger English skills, a school that was already looking for an art program. I would have had to develop standards for selecting such a school, and it would have taken more time to find the right place. But the project would have had that much more potential to succeed. It would’ve been a hard process – kind of like weeding out the small seedlings at the beginning to give the others a better chance of growing strong. If development organizations were more selective about what specific interventions they undertook and what specific criteria had to be met before they began, I’m sure more projects would be successful and limited resources would be used more effectively. Instead, just like me, it seems that a lot of organizations are excited to do anything anywhere without taking the time to understand if it is the best project for the specific context.
Despite everything I’ve just written, a part of me believes that the main goal of this photography project – to provide an opportunity to a group of students who wouldn’t have had it otherwise – was met perfectly by working in the school that we did. I guess I’ll never really know if we made any real difference or not… and if we did, I don’t think it will have been to turn these eight kids into professional photographers.
I think our presence, despite everything, might have meant something. Our willingness to invest in this school, in these kids, in this project that seems so extravagant – maybe on some small level we managed to communicate that they were worth it.
Or maybe we just came in and did what we wanted to do. I think the answer is probably some combination of both.
In either case, I always knew that I would probably get more out of this than any of the kids that we worked with. And looking back on it, I can already say that that’s true. I’ve learned a lot of lessons about development and NGOs and aid – on a tiny 8 student 1 school scale, but the lessons apply across all levels.
So to everyone who supported me with this – through donations or words of encouragement or buying those delicious unbaked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies –
please don’t think your support was wasted. If nothing else, you helped teach me important lessons that I hope to build on and spread.
And for the record, I do think the kids had fun and got to do something they never would have otherwise. Which is maybe all we could’ve hoped for anyway.
I feel like I’ve just broken every rule of the organization-donor contract – the implicit you help me help someone, I help you feel good about yourself promise. But it seems to me that, like with every good relationship, the organization-donor one would be better if we communicated honestly back and forth.
On that note – please let me know what your reactions and thoughts.
With peace,
PS. After writing this, I visited the school one last time. On my way out, one of the boys we worked with, Shaibu, came running after me with a pen. “Madam, Madam! May I please have your phone number?” It costs a lot to make calls to the US and I doubt that he’ll really call, but it made me realize that if nothing else, we made contact with these kids and through this project, formed relationships that otherwise wouldn’t have existed.
My life in 24 hours
It' always such a crazy thought to me that life is going on all around the world, all the time, regardless of where I am.
My two best friends and I have been scattered across the world for the past 5 months -- Christina was in California, Andrew was in China, and I was in Ghana. Other close friends are all over the place too -- Hong Kong, Ecuador, Guatemala, Thailand, India, Chile, across the US...
Andrew, Christina and I did a photo project inspired by the craziness of this. We each took a photograph of what we were doing or where we were on the hour, for 24 hours. The three of us are separated by exactly 8 hours each, so Andrew started at 4 pm in Beijing, Christina at midnight, and I started at 8 am.
This is my 24 hours:
8 am: Just woke up, view from my balcony in Volta Hall.
9 am: Still kickin it in my room, another view.
10 am: Getting breakfast (an egg sandwich and ice coffee) at this outdoor cafe on campus. The woman who works here is amazing.
11 am: Still on campus, on the way to the tro tro station.
12 pm: At Accra Mall -- this is where we get photos printed for the Photo Project. There's also a food court a brand new movie theater where we saw the new 007 movie.
1 pm: In a shared taxi on the way to Adabraka, where I have an interview for my independent study project.
2 pm: In a health official's office -- somewhere behind me is the info that I need!
3 pm: In a tro tro headed back to campus.
4 pm: The view from Accra Mall, where I had to pick up the prints from earlier today for the photo exhibition that we're having tomorrow.
5 pm: Cooking with my Volta girls! Don't be deceived though, this is one of the few times that I cooked all semester. The girls are Priscilla (a first year model who I met through athletics training and go salsa dancing with,) Farida (one of her four roommates,) and Annie (from UCSC, she's staying for a year! We used to run together).
6 pm: Still cooking... I'm peeling a yam that I got as a gift from a friend of a friend. I made the mistake of carrying the yam through Commonwealth (kind of like a huge fraternity) and got so many catcalls! lol...
7 pm: Dinner! Cooking takes so long! How do people do it every day? Annie and I couldn't handle all of the pepper and sniffled through the whole meal.
8 pm: These two women sell food outside of our hall and are awesome. I think I bought juice and paw paw (papaya).
9 pm: One of my two roommies! This is Irene, and her boy Andy. I love these two!
10 pm: My other roomie Rebecca and I chilling out to an episode of Sex and the City in our room.
11 pm: Working on my independent research project (30 + pages, due tomorrow!) about health-based behavior change interventions.
12 am: I miss these two!!! Wonder what they're doing right now...
1 am: Still up and typing... these are the kittens that hang out in volta and prowl around at night. They're adorable.
2 am: Rocking out to music and chugging a pure water sachet. Not so pure, actually, because a government report came out saying only 5 % of sachet brands have no parasites. lol, great...
3 am: A supportive text from Anita -- thanks babe!
4 am: I was still awake but everything around me was black. This is a picture of my sleeping roommate but you can't tell.
5 am: It's getting lighter and I'm still typing, probably page 28 or so by now. This is a picture of Lucas, the porter who guards our block in Volta.
6 am: It is finished! I spot the sunrise on my way to find a printing office that's open this early. Still haven't slept.
7 am: Delirious from not sleeping but still on a high from finishing that paper, I'm on the phone with Andrew and on my way to the tro tro station.
8 am: This is Nima. We just got here and are starting to set up for the photography exhibition that Carly and I are holding to showcase our students photos at their school.
What a day! This is actually not very typical (I normally sleep, don't really cook, etc) and there's so much that these on the hour photos didn't capture. But still -- my life in 24 hours.
Here're the links to Andrew's photos:
http://s41.photobucket.com/albums/e287/goldenbeartri/Day%20in%20the%20Life/
and Christina's:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=CYoung7&target=ALBUM&id=5276203604224314865&authkey=9JcPP9inDTE& invite=CILuqf0F&feat=email
To Andrew and Christina --- Thanks for going along with this project!
and Mike -- Thanks for the inspiration :)
My two best friends and I have been scattered across the world for the past 5 months -- Christina was in California, Andrew was in China, and I was in Ghana. Other close friends are all over the place too -- Hong Kong, Ecuador, Guatemala, Thailand, India, Chile, across the US...
Andrew, Christina and I did a photo project inspired by the craziness of this. We each took a photograph of what we were doing or where we were on the hour, for 24 hours. The three of us are separated by exactly 8 hours each, so Andrew started at 4 pm in Beijing, Christina at midnight, and I started at 8 am.
This is my 24 hours:
8 am: Just woke up, view from my balcony in Volta Hall.
9 am: Still kickin it in my room, another view.
10 am: Getting breakfast (an egg sandwich and ice coffee) at this outdoor cafe on campus. The woman who works here is amazing.
11 am: Still on campus, on the way to the tro tro station.
12 pm: At Accra Mall -- this is where we get photos printed for the Photo Project. There's also a food court a brand new movie theater where we saw the new 007 movie.
1 pm: In a shared taxi on the way to Adabraka, where I have an interview for my independent study project.
2 pm: In a health official's office -- somewhere behind me is the info that I need!
3 pm: In a tro tro headed back to campus.
4 pm: The view from Accra Mall, where I had to pick up the prints from earlier today for the photo exhibition that we're having tomorrow.
5 pm: Cooking with my Volta girls! Don't be deceived though, this is one of the few times that I cooked all semester. The girls are Priscilla (a first year model who I met through athletics training and go salsa dancing with,) Farida (one of her four roommates,) and Annie (from UCSC, she's staying for a year! We used to run together).
6 pm: Still cooking... I'm peeling a yam that I got as a gift from a friend of a friend. I made the mistake of carrying the yam through Commonwealth (kind of like a huge fraternity) and got so many catcalls! lol...
7 pm: Dinner! Cooking takes so long! How do people do it every day? Annie and I couldn't handle all of the pepper and sniffled through the whole meal.
8 pm: These two women sell food outside of our hall and are awesome. I think I bought juice and paw paw (papaya).
9 pm: One of my two roommies! This is Irene, and her boy Andy. I love these two!
10 pm: My other roomie Rebecca and I chilling out to an episode of Sex and the City in our room.
11 pm: Working on my independent research project (30 + pages, due tomorrow!) about health-based behavior change interventions.
12 am: I miss these two!!! Wonder what they're doing right now...
1 am: Still up and typing... these are the kittens that hang out in volta and prowl around at night. They're adorable.
2 am: Rocking out to music and chugging a pure water sachet. Not so pure, actually, because a government report came out saying only 5 % of sachet brands have no parasites. lol, great...
3 am: A supportive text from Anita -- thanks babe!
4 am: I was still awake but everything around me was black. This is a picture of my sleeping roommate but you can't tell.
5 am: It's getting lighter and I'm still typing, probably page 28 or so by now. This is a picture of Lucas, the porter who guards our block in Volta.
6 am: It is finished! I spot the sunrise on my way to find a printing office that's open this early. Still haven't slept.
7 am: Delirious from not sleeping but still on a high from finishing that paper, I'm on the phone with Andrew and on my way to the tro tro station.
8 am: This is Nima. We just got here and are starting to set up for the photography exhibition that Carly and I are holding to showcase our students photos at their school.
What a day! This is actually not very typical (I normally sleep, don't really cook, etc) and there's so much that these on the hour photos didn't capture. But still -- my life in 24 hours.
Here're the links to Andrew's photos:
http://s41.photobucket.com/albums/e287/goldenbeartri/Day%20in%20the%20Life/
and Christina's:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=CYoung7&target=ALBUM&id=5276203604224314865&authkey=9JcPP9inDTE& invite=CILuqf0F&feat=email
To Andrew and Christina --- Thanks for going along with this project!
and Mike -- Thanks for the inspiration :)
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