Optimism against All Odds
Warning: Politically Incorrect Rant Ahead
I think every international in development has at one time or another encountered a local staff, for which he or she is responsible to manage or train, who appear to bear no resemblance to qualified employees that ought to be earning, oh, say, 10 times the salary of government officials with the same titles. I mean, you repeat very simple instructions such as, “now I want you to repeat the five stages of the project, which are written up here on the board, so you just read them”, and someone starts with, “Hello, my name is Ahmed and I work for…”
This, of course, is not the norm, but it is common enough to create a psychological block to total acceptance of the local culture.
You go through many stages of despair.
Are You Stupid or Something?
First, you wonder whether or not you are not communicating- but inevitably, there is one bright man or woman who takes up the task with incredible ease, in such a way that you realize “please write the names of all of the group on a piece of paper” is not a difficult task, and that you have said it clearly, and the translation was correct. This would be encouraging were it not that this is one person in 20.
You then have an alternative. Are the staff stupid, or are they just brushing you off because you don’t count for anything? Most people take the most charitable view.
For those who believe that stupidity is something to feel sorry for and not despise, they believe that the staff might “need a little extra help thinking it through”. My temperament is such that I believe it is better to be criminally lazy than to be stupid. I have a certain intellectual respect for intelligent people making the system work for them.
However, it’s not that simple.
People who are tempted to believe that the group is just stupid- that they just cannot manage- are then also forced to consider the following:
-Why were such stupid people hired in the first place, when all available evidence suggests that at least a few intelligent people do work in this country?
-What implications does this have on my optimistic belief that the country is moving forward? Surely a schoolteacher is not smarter than this employee I am training, because then the schoolteacher would be working for us, with a very high salary. These are all former schoolteachers, and they are supposed to be the most talented. What does this say about the education of the children?
-Why are they stupid? Is it the iodine deficiency, or perhaps malnutrition at an early stage in life? Is it the lack of training? Surely it cannot be genetic? Those of us working in Asia are lucky, because we are not tempted by the last option, since the excellent performance of Asians in the West has shown that with good nutrition and hard work, Asians are at a minimum on par with the natives of Western European countries in all the tasks we perform there. And yet… in Afghanistan… you often think, “Surely these people have the same genes as Khayyam, Rumi, or Khalilzad for that matter?”
Some of us avoid these questions by attributing the offenders with a moral, rather than intellectual, deficiency: “They are not stupid, they are just willfully refusing to participate in this seminar / in their job / in this conversation. They are playing a game with me, trying to tire me out so that they will not have to perform the ensuing tasks. Or perhaps because they view me as a cohort of the occupying NATO and coalition forces, and they see this frustrates me, they are just enjoying it.”
This justification has its benefits. It’s not racist or condescending to assume that the people with whom you are working view you as a foreign occupier. You might disagree but it’s a thin line we’re walking, so who could blame them for a little sabotage? In some ways it’s even admirable.
On the other hand, it’s extremely difficult to live in a society believing that the vast majority of the members of said society hold something against you, either as an individual or as a member of a group. You cannot relate to people normally that way. And they do nice things very often, such as inviting you to dinner and calling you their sister, or confiding in you, or giving you a Christmas present. This is confusing and painful for the person trying to maintain a jaded, pessimistic attitude.
The Charitable View
Having considered both of these options, either consciously or subconsciously, you might then lay that problem aside and (with a cool head, far from the frustrating training room) try to reframe the issue in a more positive light. You think to yourself, “It’s their narrative, storytelling culture that doesn’t deal well with analytic logic”, or “It’s the form of their dialogue- it’s bad style to get directly to the point, so they are trying to help me by creating diversions in which we have to discuss many other things before answering my simple questions” or “It’s too difficult to ask them to shift from concrete, everyday problem solving issues to theoretical points like this, no matter how simple, because the everyday problems are unresolved and they need to get past that first.”
All of this, of course, is true, to some extent.
The Harsh Reality
But it doesn’t explain why, when you go back to the same group to review just a couple of weeks later, they don’t remember anything they got at the last lesson. And moreover, it appears that they are performing their tasks without thinking about anything at all. They haven’t applied what they learned at the last session- they do not know what you are talking about when you ask them why. A cluster of open faces look pleadingly into the eyes of the local manager: “Answer for us, she’s not pleased but we aren’t going to resolve this by doing what she asked.”
And then the cycle of despair and justification begins again. You look for some sense of reason in the administrator’s failure to give his staff a lunch break. You very carefully consider all the possible justifications for not turning on the generator this morning, when it is after all the custom and it is after all in the terms of reference of the staff member, and when it is something that the person responsible has been reprimanded for forgetting. You politely engage in an absurd dialogue with a trained engineer about what 15,000 and 24,000 makes (i.e. not 60,000).
Then someone does something brilliantly, which makes all of your previous theories moot, and you are left to just stuff all of your offended feelings deep down below your stomach, where perhaps they will be expunged with your bi-monthly episode of dysentery. To think is to ask for a confused wrinkle in between the eyes, or tears of frustration while standing in front of a group of people you are supposed to be training. It’s death to your health and your professional persona.
Maybe It’s Just Me
I know that some people might think that this is just human nature. They might think that it’s not only poor countries’ inhabitants that behave this way towards their managers. It’s all people.
The fact is, this just is not true. I worked in Tajikistan and despite having to deal with some truly stupid people there, the average was not worse than in the west. The same with Russia. My colleagues, aside from Slavic superstition, appeared smarter than me, on average. I remember working with many stupid people in America, but never did I encounter a group making about 100 times the national average who were not able to add, or who simply could not fill in a list of names (whereas these are common mistakes here).
True, I never managed a McDonalds, but remember, the salaries paid to our employees here are equivalent to those of Microsoft higher mangers in the west. Not astronomical, but definitely much, much more than you can make legally anywhere in the country. We are supposed to be hiring the best and the brightest. Even if they are not- even if our human resources management is very poor- you’d expect them to be at least average, since they are all literate and only 30% of the population is literate (maximum).
Your Turn
Any theories on this? Readers in Africa- do you face this? What’s the deal? Help me maintain my optimism.
- Optimism, Afghanistan, Aid and Development | Time: 10.0.00 (UTC+8)
Man, do I love this post!!! I don’t work in Int’l Dev, of course, but I work mostly with people from Developing countries. I have a slew of theories and a stereotypes ( The concept of time is different in Latin America, but must be completely absent in Africa; Communists are the highest educated; don’t argue with cubans) I’ll have a class of 30 people from various places: Ethiopia and Eritrea, Somalia, Iran, Cuba, Mexico, El Salvador, etc and must face the same blank stares, failure to apply or absord a point, and a general sense that we have not been meeting twice a week for the past 2 months . I’ve encountered some brilliant people, and the only answer I have is education. The brilliant ones are literate, graduated high school (or equivalent), and, more importantly, have learned how to learn (as in apply the knowledge). Sometimes I see flashes of intelligence that went ungroomed (ESPECIALLY IN THE AFRICANS). I know my situation is not yours, and my theory probably doesn’t apply, but maybe, there is something about the quality of their basic education, the pedagogy used. IF you knew how they were accustomed to learning (?), you could direct them away from that to more analytical thinking…baby steps to learning how to learn and be sucessful in your method and organization.
Easier said than done. I feel your pain. I don’t think it’s you.
Good luck.
Comment by Shannon — 21.01.2006 @ 18.0.03
Hello, I would like to forward my blog to you. I blog mainly about issues related to human and social development in the Caribbean zone. You might find a few of interests. http://povandsocialdev.blogspot.com
Cheers — – Emma
Comment by Emma Asomba — 22.01.2006 @ 06.0.37
First reactions, and not wanting to get all Capitalist on yo’ ass, but I reckon it’s a matter of incentives. What’s the point in working hard and showing imagination and initiative when you can get away without it? Unless you have strong and coherent management from expats and local senior staff, there’s no incentive in the aid business. This is particularly the case when local staff are protected by more senior local staff against the intruder, or facing expats who can’t understand or deal with the culture-gap and who face serious authority-deficits. And the fact that such peiople exist are one of the problems with the lack of accountability in the proposal/implementation/maybe-M&E broken wheel that we’re all trying to roll along on. One thing I do know is that when a purge happened in our old base, work-rate and enthusiasm increased incredibly. Since we will rarely if ever be loved, perhaps it is better to be feared.
Comment by Whisky — 22.01.2006 @ 09.0.35
So Whisky takes the moral deficit view- they could do it, but they just aren’t trying, even though they have been explained that this is tantamount to stealing Afghanistan’s development money.
To some extent, this is true. However, you have seen me get upset. Surely the staff would do anything to avoid that?
You are right about the incentives. Today I started designing a baseline examination to test all of our staff, so that we could prove whether or not they were learning anything.
Fear- I don’t want to be feared or loved, I want to work with people who share common goals and respect my contribution as I respect theirs. Is that too much to ask?
Comment by Administrator — 22.01.2006 @ 12.0.08
Respect is useful if it’s from someone you respect. I’m not sure expats, commonly, fall into that category. And I’m not sure if it is a moral deficit thing - that depends on when staff members consider the project to be useful, and that is a very hard question to answer for almost every project in this country. Why should you work, if you see the expats with the fat salaries wasting money on a project you are sure will fail? The money’s going to be burned without lasting reward, why not get yourself some heat from it rather than some expat? I’d do the same. Now, if there’s a real opportunity to get stuck in, “have ownership” of a project by designing projects that DO work, then if you cannae be bothered you’re morally in the red. But otherwise, time we redesigned our aid.
Comment by Whisky — 22.01.2006 @ 12.0.32
Heh. Coupla things.
1. Me thinketh your experience of Afghan staff is very different to mine. Our organisation has 300 local staff and four Afghans. Afghans run the place… and quite well too. We are here just to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. Seriously. Sometimes I feel like they are merely humouring me.
2. Having said that, I am having very interesting management experiences here. Like being used as a human dictionary… “Excuse me [Vasco] jan, how do you spell cauliflower?”… ten minutes later… “How do you spell turnip?”… ten minutes later… “How do you spell pumpkin?”. Me: What on earth are you doing? And don’t you have a dictionary?
Comment by Vasco Pyjama — 22.01.2006 @ 13.0.54
Dammit, I meant four internationals.
And oh yeah, Whisky… You have not responded to my suggestion of dinner. I’m cut. Truly. I was even going to suggest that you bring AFC over, since it’s like ’round the corner from me.
Comment by Vasco Pyjama — 22.01.2006 @ 13.0.56
Vasco: We do have too many expatriates where I work- it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think they cannot work, and they do not have to work, then they do not. I use my local staff as a dictionary. “In chist? Wa in? In chist? Navishta bekuned.” They are very good at naming objects.
Brendan: I should like to think I’m not so unrespectable. Moreover, our staff are responsible for helping communities identify the project (not only in that very famous programme that I’m working on, but in all of our programmes). So while we may have some projects that I believe are sub-optimal, our staff should have a very hard time justifying complacency on those grounds. Yes, those problems exist, but it shouldn’t be an issue for programmes that are relatively well planned and which have visible, positive impacts.
Shannon: For some reason, your comment was in moderation. Sorry ’bout that. It’s interesting that you face these stereotypes with immigrants. All of our staff are supposed to have at least a grade 12 education (at least programme staff), but the teaching methodology here does leave something to be desired. One wonders whether the brilliant ones have just been mentored by brilliant parents, or whether or not they’d be Nobel millionaires by now if they’d lived in a rich country.
Em: Thanks for stopping by! I’m only linking to two kinds of blogs here. One kind is of those blogs written by aid workers who are presently in the field. The other is of blogs that I really, really love and read very regularly, such as Shannon’s blog. We’ll be keeping an eye on yours to see how it works out. Cheers.
Comment by Administrator — 23.01.2006 @ 03.0.44
I don’t think you unrespectable in the least. If you can do community-designed projects which work, then great. My own experience was not positive, but that was due to my own failings and that of the organisation within which I was working. For now I am happy in my ivory tower, from where I see a plethora of top-down projects that seemed intentionally and almost maliciously to ignore the lessons learned time and again in favour of achieving a development-contrary political agenda or hair-brained scheme dreamed up in a Western Capital. Sure, there appear to be a very few bottom-up ones which seemed to be working well. Good luck to you Elizabeth in running one. [I realise that I have been standing belching out judgements on projects that I could not hope to run and thus have no authority whatsoever, but hey, I am an academic.]
Comment by Whisky — 23.01.2006 @ 13.0.34
Your organization does manage to laud- to some extent- one of the programmes on which I am working, though not unconditionally. Our programmes are not perfect, but it’s not because they are top-down- rather the other way around cannot be said to be without its own failings.
Comment by Administrator — 23.01.2006 @ 13.0.35
Wow, that post took balls. Having just attended a food security meeting today, where I actually squeezed my friends thigh really hard under the table to save me from telling some guy I thought he’d just said the most downright stupid comment that one could ever bring up in such a forum…to say I see your point is a bit of an understatement (luckily several local staff also thought this guy was off-base). However, I’ve thought a lot about this point, because I refused to believe that it’s about stupidity (except maybe in this guys case) and have come to the follow conclusions (which have really helped me in my management skills here in Africa). May these lessons help you.
1- It’s not so much about stupidity as lack of analysis. Never ever make “if…then” statements in your head. For instance “if I am told my job is to start the generator, then I will do it every day.” Wrong. Remind this person multiple times per week that this is there job. If gas runs out of the car, don’t assume that “therefore, my logistics person will fill it up.” Not necessarily. Especially hard is when the implementing situation has been altered, i.e. you send someone to change money, the banks closed because it’s lunch. Can you expect them to try again after lunch? No. This is the logical next step that will never be taken without you specifically asking for it. And whatever you do, do not try to be subtle. My friend told me about how she kept moving furniture back to its usual spot (the common phenomenon of the housekeeper-knows-better-than-you about how your house should be arranged). She actually asked me, “do you think she will get the hint?” No. Not unless you glue the furniture down, at which point your housekeeper will make the conclusion that you have somehow accidentally glued down the furniture in the wrong spot, at which point she will do her best to unglue it and move things back to their correct location.
2- Multitasking is out of the question. It really stresses people out. So if you ask someone to consider more than one task at time, you are just setting yourself up for disappointment.
3- Work ethic, smerk ethic. When they are looking at you like you just grew a third arm when you ask them to write down their names in their group, what they are really saying is, “why is this person asking us to do things? we came, right? what else is there? why is her mouth still even moving? what’s going on?” People see the important thing is to get into a job, not necessarily to work.
As far as Shannon’s ideas, the capitalist theory – interesting point. In general, I’ve seen more initiative when it comes to stealing from NGOs, but people still aren’t always bright about it. I think they would be more smart about their methods if they actually considered that their actions were immoral. This last point in crucial – NGOs are free money. We are here to help. People here in my small town in the Congo (we got it bad here) are constantly surprised that I do not give them everything (or anything) they ask for. If I am holding anything in my hands, I am asked for it. Why? Because we are supposed to be here to give, to help, etc. That is our role and no matter how hard we might try to fight it’s of little importance. And if we have jobs, we are expected to give them in the same way as we are expected give everything else – for free, with nothing in return.
Comment by Sahara Sarah — 25.01.2006 @ 15.0.07
Interesting post and thread. As an armchair sociologist who has never worked in a developing country context but occasionally supervises people in a developed country context (US), I have encountered similar behaviour, though perhaps to a lesser degree from time to time. In fact today I had the experience of interacting with someone with a graduate degree from a highly reputable university who had been instructed 2 or 3 times on how to undertake a simple task, was asked if he understood, said yes, and then went and did something completely different, something in fact which had been previously explained to him was not the correct thing to do. I have also seen this phenomenon among certain (though by no means many or most) government workers in clerical jobs whose jobs are effectively secure until retirement because of the difficulty that would be involved in firing them. It is simply understood in the office that these workers are paid but do no work that offends or challenges them. If double-sided pages to be copied come back with only one side copied, whose fault is that? Shouldn’t the supervisor have explicitly noted that both sides were to be copied and isn’t it an imposition to ask the document to be recopied?
In my own experience, I tend to believe the failure is rooted in lack of motivation (stemming from actual or perceived job security and/or lack of interest in the job or task at hand) and in a feeling of entitlement. In the case of the person I interacted with today, I toyed with the possibility that dimwittedness or a learning disability might be involved, but it seems more likely that he is very uninterested in the task that was assigned to him. A fat salary–one outside the bounds of reasonable compensation when viewed through the lens of one’s peers or past experience–such as a few of you describe, could certainly contribute to a sense of entitlement or economic security, and therefore to these patterns of behavior. And of course, the work ethic, which may be cultural or familial, can mitigate against these circumstances or exacerbate them.
Comment by Eric — 26.01.2006 @ 05.0.23
Sarah- so basically, you are saying, lower my expectations, because they do not have the capacity (moral, intellectual, or both) to complete very simple tasks which people around the world routinely complete. Fine. But then why are they getting these (relatively) huge salaries?
Eric- It’s interesting that you also encounter similar annoyances in your work with graduate students. How depressing. My question therefore applies to the whole world: why are people so lazy and stupid?
What depresses me most is that our staff do not have tasks. They have entire projects to manage. They are responsible for such things as “improving governance in villages X, Y, and Z in order to prevent conflict in Afghanistan.” Okay, maybe that’s boring for them, but for crying out loud, somebody’s got to do it. They are not being asked to make double-sided copies. They are being asked to learn how to change society, and we are paying them a lot for it. Their punishment if they fail? Outbreaks of widespread conflict across the country, destruction of their homes, loss of livelihood, interruption of their children’s education- and they are acutely aware of this. The programme is being run by people from their own country. All the literature is in the local language. They have been trained several times on the goal of the programme… and yet…
I do think it’s pessimistic to assume that the only thing we can offer our staff is a threat. It’s the overall management that is at fault, which is of course exacerbated by poor moral and intellectual qualities of some of the people we hire (though certainly not all). Stay tuned for my next post: Neo-Colonial Claptrap and Stupid Expats.
Comment by Administrator — 26.01.2006 @ 10.0.57
By the way- thanks for submitting from the Sahara, Sarah. I agree overall but I’m just a bit depressed about it.
Comment by Administrator — 26.01.2006 @ 11.0.29
Okay, I am going to piss off a lot of you here, I am sure. But before I do that, let me explain why I have an interest here. I am Congolese, from the DRC, and also a UN-brat (my Mum works for WHO, at the international level, with all the consequent moving around the planet).
I was going to go on a tirade, but that would not be fair to you all, because I know that you have only the best intentions in your work.
I will just tell you a story. Before Mum worked for WHO, she was the Director of the Expanded Programme on Immunization in DRC, which at that time, meant she was also overseeing the Malaria programme, the Measles programme, and the Combatting Child Communicable Diseases programme. So she was a big shot in the Health Department, overseeing her services all over the country. That meant she was also in charge of the training of all her nationwide staff, which was made possible by the technical assistance and funds of the likes of USAID, WHO, UNICEF… you name it. The USAID in particular liked the idea of having Americans there, to “make sure” their tax dollars were used well (and with the corruption we have in the DRC they were not totally lunatic
). Now there was a very nice man, who was the USAID guy at the EPI headquarters in Kinshasa, Dr Jean Roy, a former Peace Corps, who was for a while in charge of training the staff in the use of computers (We are talking WANG comps, in the 80’s). And he was growing extremely frustrated with the slow pace at which the Congolese people were learning the stuff. And one day, he just exploded, and my mum happened to be in the training room. He said: “this is just ridiculous!!! I can’t believe this!!! You know Helene (my mum), I could just bring in 5 or 6 peace corps, and all this would be done in a tenth of the time!!! It’s just too slow, and they don’t get it, and I can’t take it anymore!!! I mean are they just stupid???” Thank God for him, he was speaking in english, and most people in the room didn’t understand what he said. But my US educated physician Mum, to whom he was talking, understood quite clearly…
Later that day, she summoned him in her office and told him the following:
“Jean, I appreciate your work. But I have a question for you: THis whole operation, and this programme, and your job here… what is it for? more importantly who is it for?”
He said: “Well for Zaire (we were called Zaire then) of course! To make things better here.”
Then Mum said: ” I am happy you know that. Because if I hear another outburst like that, I am calling USAID, and having you replaced. Unless I am mistaken, you are here to assist the Zairian government, and the Zairian people, which in this programme means me. You are not the boss, and you had better not lose perspective of who it is you are working for. This whole thing has the aim of teaching Zairian people how to do things better, so that one day we won’t need you to come here anymore, and we’ll be able to do things on our own. So I don’t give a damn if it takes 10 times the time it would take 5 or 6 Peace Corps people, this is the people you have, these are the people you are here to train. And if it takes 10 years to train them, then 10 years it will be !!”
Now, uncle Jean later on proceeded to become one of my 4 godparents, and they are the best of friends with Mum. But essentially what she said still holds true. When you come to bring assistance to another people, with different logical systems, different values, different levels, types and modes of education, and various levels of proficiency in whatever you are employing them to do… that combined with varios networks of complexes and fears and bad experiences with people with white skin… you may expect that they will not all react well to your methods. It is not stupidity, just a cultural/economical/historical “dephasing”, that both parties have to work at tuning.
I hope I haven’t permanently damaged my “street cred” in this awesome community of good-doers. But I thought it was important for someone to say, to balance the comments here a little, and give some perspective.
Comment by TheMalau — 26.01.2006 @ 12.0.34
PS: I just realized that it did end up being a tirade after all!!
sorry.
Comment by TheMalau — 26.01.2006 @ 12.0.42
One last thing: What seems logical for someone who lives in a full-fledge democracy, with freedom of speech, movement, opinion, creed, thought, and the ability to develop oneself in a largely unrestrained environment, may not seem so logical to someone who has lived in a dictatorship, where the minds have been used to a state of oppression and control. Sarah was talking about people implementing things using some initiative, or subtle hints, or multi-tasking. Sarah is in my country, and I know first hand, that the spirit of initiative was vitually bred out of my generation (I am 24), and the one before mine, by the Mobutu regime, where we had to learn at school, Hitler youth style, that in Zaire all Zairians had to live and abide by the words, the thoughts , and the acts of the Leader. I mean it was a system aimed at maintainng an entire nations in oppression. Initiative is a philosophical disposition that takes time to reacquire, like many other things (i.e: work ethic, in a corrupt society, where formal work in the public sector (the largest employer) has often been just a nominal position to guarantee health care, and where the real money to survive comes from all the informal transactions/activities one is able to score wthout being caught, and often on office time). You are facing a clash of cultures, realities, and Histories. And you are on the battle front… Relentless and respectful repetition is something that worked for many, that combined with a great deal of effort in explaining in DETAILS, and in simple (not idiotic, but simple) terms, the inner-workings of what you see as an ideal working situation in the office, everyone’s role, and the extent of initiative you expect.
Comment by TheMalau — 26.01.2006 @ 12.0.41
TheMalau, thanks for your comment. It doesn’t piss me off because I do realize my job is to build the capacity of the people here.
However, we need to make a distinction between asking people to do something “logical” and to follow orders. I don’t expect initiative, logic, or charity, although these are qualities that many people here praise. No, I don’t even expect people to care. It’s my job to teach them logic and force them to care (about their salary at least).
I expect them to at the very least follow some basic orders. If you have been told, “It’s your job to come here at 6:00, so you come here at 6:00″ and then you ask them to repeat it (please keep in mind that I’ve gone to the trouble to learn the local language to a low intermediate level, and continue to learn, so I can be sure they understand since I can have a conversation with a total stranger) and they do, and they show up every day, and then one day they “forget”. Well, that’s a load of crap. They didn’t forget. They are lying. They have all their sick leave left (this policy has been explained a million times and we have given them the forms to take home and most of the staff use it) but they just tell you they forgot. Cause they can get away with it.
Because they do not give a shit.
Showing up on time is not something you learn in a democratic society. It’s something you learn in the army, in school (and the people about whom I am talking did go to school). Iraqis, Tajikistanis, Russians- they did not grow up rich. They did not grow up with civil society. They did not grow up taking initiative. But when you hold a workshop with them, they bring their own freaking pens, at least. They say “thank you” at the end.
I must emphasize that I’m not talking about everyone here. If it were everyone, I would just assume people are stupider, because that would make sense. On the contrary, it’s not everybody and that’s why, to my mind, there is no excuse and why it’s so frustrating. You know there is a better country out there, but that the arseholes are running it.
Perhaps you think I don’t respect the culture here. It’s my respect that makes me want to scream. I hold people to high standards and I find that many expats take the poor baby view. Most expats get poor babies in return. I tell the Afghans they are mujaheddin, defenders of the free world, holders of one of the most ancient cultures in the world, like Greece, and owners of the first rights-based religion.
The behavior of decent, well-raised, moral people changes at that point. The behavior of lazy cheaters does not.
Comment by Administrator — 26.01.2006 @ 13.0.04
I see your point, man. And believe me, it is not that I do not understand the frustration. But let us make sure you hold people to high standards, and not YOUR high standards.
To make my point. Right now, I live in the US. The definition (from my culture) of a friend, is someone who is always there for you, someone who becomes an extension of you, and you of them, like a sibling (the word for friend and brother is the same by the way, in lingala). And it just seemed totally insane for me, how very superficial many so-called friendships are here. Not all of course, I have very close friends. But the bond of friendship with others just seems so frail and superficial. Same thing with the strength and importance of large families. See I came here with my own prejudices, and expectations, of the great and mighty people of the USA. In the process I have learnt that I may have been mistaken, and that I had to adapt to my local reality. This meant telling grown College-educated people that Congo was not in Brasil, that Africa was not a country, that Kinshasa is a 7 million people metropolis (albeit run-down), and that I did not go to school on the back of a lion… in the year 2000!! It also meant to learn that it is just hopeless to ask many Americans I have met, to make an effort to accomodate foreign accents in english (you say PROfessor instead proFESsor, and they think you are speaking Chinese, and ask you to repeat 3 times). It just is that way, and I can only do so much to change things, so I work around it.
See what I mean? This may mean giving up on people being on time all the time, or giving them so much to do that they would HAVE to come early (that is what my Mum did) if they wanted to finish on time to go home to their kids/family. And I wouldn’t advise trying to compare them with others. Just from your examples, Russians and Tadjiks did not really have to face colonialism, desolation to the extent of Afghanistan. And Iraq, even under Saddam, maintained a high level of literacy, and people did work and function fairly “normally”, until 1991, so the situation is different. In fact every situation is different. I promise you that I can put you in an office in Indianapolis, with degree-holding people, and you would still want to pullout all your hair, one by one
.
Comment by TheMalau — 26.01.2006 @ 13.0.01
I have been following this post and its subsequent comments from the start. I have to admit, I was very upset at first and didn’t write anything in the fear that it would come out nasty and defensive. I know that you wrote the post from a good heart and without condescension. I also have had similar experiences with Afghans (and Bosnians, Albanians, Arabs and etc, when I worked with refugees in the U.S.). They wouldn’t follow simple orders and I would want to kick them.
I have worked with very energetic people in Afghanistan, but I have also worked with people who do not make work their priority. I found this to be the same case with refugee women. They were so used to working ‘around’ the system that it never occurred to them to succeed by the normal ways (getting to work/meetings on time, working hard, keeping me in the loop on their job searches) it was all flattery and getting work done on your own. I find that Afghans (men and women) do the same. They are super friendly but will outright lie when I want something done that they don’t want to do (not that they can’t do it, want is the operative word). I don’t have a language barrier with Afghans as I’m Afghan American and have grown up speaking Dari.
Another issue is that work is simply not a priority in Afghanistan. The work is valuable, but many Afghans are jaded, jealous of the expat salaries and also have much higher demands from their families. When I am asked what the difference is between the U.S. and Afghanistan, family demands are the first thing that comes to mind. In the U.S., I am able to get out of family obligations if I have to study or work. In Afghanistan, neither is a priority over family. Weddings and funerals are more important than work, no matter what that work is.
I have (finally) made some headway in holding people accountable, but it has taken quite excessive amounts of badgering and incentives to make that happen. I also think that it would be easier if I had the power to fire them (which I would do, to a whole lotta folks, in a second).
That said, I agree with TheMalau in that very important elements were bred out of Afghans in the last 2 decades. Frankly, the educational system does not inspire initiative, even now and probably not even before the wars. It will take time and patience.
Comment by Asiyah — 26.01.2006 @ 14.0.18
Asiyah, thanks for waiting a bit to reply, it made your point much clearer.
TheMalau, I see your point, but I would like to emphasize that I’m not holding people to my standards. Most expats don’t meet my standards. I cannot emphasize that the kind of capacity I’m talking about here has nothing to do with initiative or logic. In fact, many of the national staff here complain about the expats, that our standards are too low. Do you know why? Because Afghan people are actually brilliant, creative, initiative-taking, risk-taking, business-minded, logical people. Some Afghans apply these qualities when in the office, and others, only with their partners in business.
My question is not, “Why are people not meeting my expectations in terms of capacity?”
My question is, “Why are people of such high capacity, as demonstrated over a long period of time in many differing and challenging circumstances, performing so poorly?”
And that is a different question indeed. Quite frankly, I find your reaction- “Be patient, they are ‘poor babies’ who are not ‘developed’ in that capacity” quite off-putting(though you have defended it admirably).
I refuse to believe that Afghans are not capable of running their country. They are. They are just not doing it in front of us.
Comment by Administrator — 28.01.2006 @ 10.0.33