If ever there were a safe place to rant about the Development Studies work that we do, this would be it. We aren't in the fields. No one could possibly be reading, or looking or caring. WE are deep in the depths of writing up our findings, creating a thesis, sitting within the walls of the ancient Bodlien, or within the modern steel and glass of the Social Science library. Or maybe we have closed ourselves off within the walls of our comfortable Oxford flats with hot tea and cake.

You know, I live in north Oxford, between Jericho (where the lead singer from Radiohead lives) and Summertown, where there is no discussion of rent. People bought their homes long ago. I count the number of Mercedes benzes I witness parked curbside. Lotuses pass me daily. I witness ferraris and mazeratis (sp?) and lambourginis (sp?) almost daily. People are so rich they don't have to be ostentatious, they are confident enough to be subdued. You think I'm joking, but I have a daily log of how many I see parked vs. driving, and whether they are clean or dirty, that is how wealthy this place, where I study impoverished people, where I write about inequality creating poverty traps, where I discuss ad nauseum the merits of the right theory applied to developing countries, where I try to make sense of this world we live in, where so many have so little and those that have everything complain that they don't have enough.

So what does it matter? Why do we do it? What motivates any of us to do this work? I don't know about any of you, but the God's honest truth, why I do this, why I get up in the morning, the reason I am ok with sitting in the damn ugly library, the reason I am 5000 miles from all the people that love me the most, the reason I am not holding my brother's hand when he is ill, or why I am not with my mother or Grandmother as they traverse difficult new terrain is because I want to make this world a better place. I WANT TO CHANGE THIS WORLD FOR THE BETTER!!!!

It is grand and massive and ridiculous to imagine, but it is the dream that I imagine everyday. I want this world to be better for people when I die than when I arrived. I want the work that I do to actually make a difference, and the best way I can think to do that is to work with poor people to get some autonomy, to determine their destiny, to alter the course of history and to bear witness to shifting paradigms of development. (In normal speak that means I intend to work with people to support them in becoming un-poor) Things are getting in the way of that. And I suppose they are only there to remind us/me that the only things in our lives that come to us that are really really important come through struggle. They come with pain and sadness. They don't arrive easily, if they did, how would we recognize they were truly important to us.

But in this final push to creating our little academic work, complete with theory and methodology and analysis etcetera, remember WHY...remember the why in it all. Remind each other that the reasons we do this are as diverse as each of us, but we all have a reason and mine is to change the world for poor people.

More Funnies from the Field

So after fleeing from extortionists (yeah that's another post for another day), two dog bites within a week, and 45C/110F heat in the desert I was g-chat extolling to our comrade-in-arms, Ms. Zoe James, the virtues of field research in character building.

She replied, among other more introspective and insightful thoughts: 'Wanna hear something funny?'

To which I replied, 'FUUUUUCK yeah I do!'

This g-chat story followed, in the words of our beloved Ms. James:

so the monsoon came yesterday

lots

9:55 PM i got caught in it a couple of times but one particularly funnily

it was the evening, i'd popped out to get some water

it starts pissing it down,like buckets from the sky

i take cover in a sari shop where i sit for a half hour

i need to get home for dinner, so i brave it when it stops a little

only the road is a river

i lose a flip flop

9:56 PM i get soaked to the bone

and the red stripe in my white scarf runs

so i am walking down a dirt road

in one flip flop

with red dye all over me

9:57 PM with all the locals taking cover in stores and saying 'what is madam doing'?

'is madam ok?'

and all i can do is laugh hysterically

so they think i'm a lunatic

i found my flip flop at the end of the road

picked it out of a drain

put it on

and walked home

laughing the whole wayeveryone here now thinks i'm actually crazy
me: oh and why did you feel compelled to walk through the monsoon, why didn't you wait?

Zoe: well

9:59 PM it didn't look like it was going to stop (it didn't)

me: well, you are not giving them a lot to work with for a contrary view

Zoe: and i didn't want to get in a rickshaw coz the buses were all going too quickly

and there was obvi going to be an accident

by the end of my walk i couldn't even see there was w\so much water running down my face

10:00 PM me: insane
Ahhh, if we could all just look fools, ford the monsoon road rivers, and find that lost flip flop at the end of the road. put it back on and walk home for supper.
Keep truckin' my friends. Just keep on truckin'

Southern discomfort

As an Australian, I've always been suspicious of Canadians. I suppose it's because they live in a kind of "bizarro Australia" where everything seems familar but, on closer inspection, is always in fact a little bit better (Charlie Sheen to Australia's Emilio Estevez if you will). These feelings of filial inadequacy surface when you least expect them. Reading the newspaper. Listening to O Canada. Watching Degrassi Junior High. Most recently, I was reminded of them in the top bunk of a dorm bed in Canberra. It was there that I came to the sobering realisation that not only do Canadians treat their Indigenous people better and speak two languages (neither particularly well says the sulky voice inside my head), but they can also hold their booze. A lot of booze. The story goes something like this. In Room 205 of the Canberra City YHA I met a young Canadian down on his luck. His fiance had recently called off their engagement and so he took the money that he had been saving for their wedding and travelled to Australia to get away from it all for a bit. Having realised earlier that day that interviewing politicians and policy-makers was unlikely to give me the warm and fuzzy feeling that some of my development studies class mates were likely to experience, I decided to make the Canadian my new project. I took him to the bar and I bought him beer. In exchange, he bought me beer. Not wanting to let a Canadian win, I bought him another beer. He bought me more beer. Someone else bought us beer. We bought that person beer. And so it went. Eight pints and not enough potato wedges later I stumbled up to my dorm room and went to bed where I managed to sleep through the act of vomitting on myself (and possibly, as collateral damage, the guy in the bunk below). Not wanting conscious Dan to miss out on the fun, my enfeebled damn Estevez-of-a-body repeated the act no less than five times the following morning, including once in the shower (a particular low point), with each time my gagging throat making a taunting Canadian "eh?"-like sound. I've been on the wagon for two weeks now and suspect that the recovery will take a little longer. Dara, Chris and Kerrie, hope you are all well. x

Pokerfaced in Accra

So, I am officially on day 3 in real live honest-to-god actual Ghana. I've been spending my time so far dealing with what most of you are dealing with - finding a place to sleep, figuring out how to change money on a Sunday, trying to understand the rules of haggling and tipping, and taking utterly terrifying taxi rides - and later this week I have my first Ministry of Health meeting which in theory will be the first step toward my running a bunch of focus groups next week in a village way off to the east. By myself. Which I still find hilarious.

When I was in JFK airport catching my connecting flight to Accra, I spoke on the phone to a friend who just (quite to her own surprise) found herself accepted to business school. She'll be starting in autumn. "I feel like the universe really called my bluff on this one," she said.

Indeed.

After getting some sleep on my flight, I woke up and watched the path of the plane on my little display screen until landing, and any encroaching sense of panic I had was mitigated by looking at that map and seeing how I was flying just over the heads of Kerrie and Ganle and stopping just short of Georgie and a bit south of Chloe, and this is not to get all misty-eyed or anything; it is more to point and laugh and say ha! you suckers are all in the same boat with me!

Best of luck and keep up the pokerface
Ryan

Moral/Immoral Support

Dear All:

Just a shout-out to all of ye, as we are busy preparing/leaving for fieldwork.

I just wanted to remind you and I of our lucky place as students of development studies, and wish you all safe and happy fieldwork visits. Even the difficult times will help us grow as students and help us be better able to create the changes we want to see.

Also, for anyone going to West Africa, I have two words for you: dollar sangria.

Just saying.

<3
Kerrie

Surfing the Couch

First post, woo!!

This is for those of us going to pretty unfamiliar places without "personal/friendly" contacts outside of ppl to contact for interviews etc. I was having trouble making accommodation reservations from outside of Niger, so I checked out this website http://www.couchsurfing.org/ that has people listed who are willing to let you stay at their place (in most cases not on a couch at all but in a spare room) sight unseen. I found three expat girls in Niamey on there and contacted them and have already heard back from one, who's offered to pick me up at the airport, show me around the first couple of days etc. I'm not sure I'll end up staying with her because I was able to get through to a hostel and am a little weirded out by staying at someone's house who I don't know to begin with, but if anyone else is a little nervous about rocking up someplace with zero "friendly tour guide" type contacts, you might check out the site.

Tis all!
Hugs!

Out Here in the Fields.

Based on Zoe's excellent suggestion, I've set up this group blog as a place we can all post thoughts/photos/etc. during our summer fieldwork. Sound good? You should all have posting permissions either now or very soon. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions...