excuse the random soapbox, and hello again

“It used to be about doing something, not being someone.”

This was a quote I lifted from the movie “The Iron Lady,” from Meryl-Streep-as-Margaret-Thatcher’s mouth. I bought a pirated copy of the movie off the street for a buck the other day, because we had never seen it, despite living in Thatcher-land last year. (Oh the Brits would hate me for calling it that!) In any case, I really really liked this quote (movie = meh), said in the context of women’s “roles”… whether it was invented by the screenwriter or said from old Maggie herself.

You see, when you live in a developing nation with very-much-touch-and-go internet connection, the times I actually do happen online and connect with the rest of the world, I’m so grateful for instagram and blogs and all the rest that remind me of what everyone out there is DOing… but I also see so many people who seem to have become sucked into this malicious appearance-based world of projecting who you are, via the clothes you wear and size of your body and food you eat and cuteness of your kids, and that so much that is posted up there is only about crafting a self-image, not about doing anything productive. What are we all doing? I mean, really doing with our time?

Not that I’ve done much of anything the last two weeks in Addis except pop immodium like candy. (argh digestive tract! Get with the program!) There are some days when all the best laid plans fall through: where my paperwork for various projects are stuck in seemingly-never-ending ethical review processes, where doctors I’ve been working with are momentarily outside the country, when every single interview and meeting I schedule is postponed or cancelled last minute. Blah! So I feel I’ve done a whole lot of nothing the last weeks, just continuing to try and learn Amharic, plus plodding through endless archives and reports… if I stacked everything I’ve read for this PhD in the last 18 months, page to page, I swear it would reach the top of the Empire State Building by now. At least.

My eyes are tired.

Also I’ve been using the time to prepare for my next consultancy gig: I never wrote about Zambia, did I? It was fab. I loved it - I loved the work, loved the team I was working with (THET, an organization that trains key medical specialists in low-resource settings - I designed a monitoring and evaluation strategy for them to use to improve programming over the next 5 years)… and now onto Nigeria to work on a project identifying barriers to government health service delivery for mothers and children. If anyone has been seeing the news of late, we’re now on a count of nearly 20 foreigners killed or kidnapped in northern Nigeria in the last month alone. Half of those were health workers. So… original plans to do work in health clinics of the northern state of Jigawa have been cancelled, and I’ll stick to the main central/southern cities of Abuja and Lagos. A pity, because I know the north of Nigeria is very similar to areas I worked in in Niger back in 2008 - it would have been nice to “go back” in a way, but alas. Another time…

Anyway. Think about that invented(?) Margaret Thatcher quote the next time the world gets you down. In the end it really doesn’t matter at all what organic kale you ate that day, or new patterend frock you wore, or that you’ve lost or gained whatever many pounds. (Fyi, in Ethiopia it’s a GOOD thing to be ‘overweight’ and considered a compliment. Food is a blessing, truly, wherever we live.) Surely we can all get beyond these superficial markers, no? I know we all do a lot more with our days than we can show on the outside. I still wish we focussed on that more, and looked up more to people for what they’re doing than what they’re taking pictures of.

Soapbox done!

I’ll try and post something from Nigeria - to let you know at least my kidnapped-status. j/k :)

Beijos, as ever,

Jooj.

ps this was not said as a guilt-trip, and believe me I really am not doing that much - I took the quote as an inspiration to change myself more than anything!