In Transit

As I write this, I'm sitting in the Amsterdam airport, feeling hazy, but still excited. It is 3am Toronto time, but here at 9am, everyone around me scrambles to write and post in these few hours of free time between the craziness of Pre-departure training and the reeling of culture shock and our inevitable exhausted collapse in Accra. The last week has been quite the experience: twelve hours a day of critical thinking, information retention, and thrilling but sometimes harsh truths. In the last few days, I have had to reconcile the notion of some of the friendliest people in a continent of friendly people using immolation as government punishment for petty theft. I have contended with the truth that I know nothing, and worse, habitually make assumptions that stand in the way of me learning. I have accepted the responsibility that every one of my actions has risks, negative consequences, and a need to be questioned. I have wrestled with the inevitability that I will have to make choices that runs the risk of damage in the short term, to maintain my ability to make positive change that is sustainable. I have wrestled with the inevitability that I will not only make mistakes, but that my responsibility to battle them from being repeated, misinterpreted, and internalized -must- be constant. This job is among the most difficult in the world, tackling one of the most difficult problems in the history of the human race. The climate is challenging, the terrain unforgiving, and the infrastructural supports so integral to Canadian society either fledgling, struggling, or absent. The culture is not only alien, but incredibly diverse, with more languages, traditions, ways of doing and reasons for doing than we could absorb in a lifetime, forget about four months. And yet, despite all of this, I have been forced to confront the difficult fact that incredible change as a result of my work is viable, possible. This opportunity provides me with a responsibility: to ensure, regardless of my professional project, my orders from above, or my shivering from culture shock, that I pioneer my own chances to make change. Our first and foremost indicator of success in past JF's has been the ability to own our placements. I am preparing to arrive, stabilize, and make this process mine.

Looking at the time-zone shifts and trying to anticipate the direction and severity of our jet lag, someone mentioned we lose time in Ghana that we will regain when we travel back to our families in August. I like that--we dedicate our days, nights and thoughts while we're here to the people at the bottom, but when we come back, those extra handful of precious hours are returned to us, to spend with those without whom we could not develop.

As a sidenote, I'd like to ask people to dedicate some of their thoughts, hopes, or research time to those in Myanmar/Burma. The damage the brutal military regime inflicted by closing borders, shooting students, monks, and minorities, barring the media from exposing them, and exploitative policy has been brought to a fever pitch by refusing aid organizations after the worst disaster in Asia since the tsunami. The effects of this meteorological and political storm will be felt around the world, especially because of the devastated rice producers affected in a time of soaring food prices, riots, and starvation. If you can help by time, resource or cash donation, or by talking: these are people with less of a voice than most, even among the most voiceless countries in the world.

Tomorrow at 8pm (or 4pm, in the Toronto area), I arrive in Accra, sleep, and board the twelve-hour pulic bus to Tamale for in-country training. Let the challenge begin!

-Ash