Prayers

I am scared. Development work was easier when beneficiaries were just nameless, faceless numbers in an excel spreadsheet. I just came back from 4 days in the field, talking to farmers and travelling through the countryside. I've spoken to the farmers in the region several times before, but as we get closer to operationalising our initiative, these interactions start to take on new meaning.

The first farmer I spoke to lived high up in the mountains. I tugged at the sleeves of my flannel shirt, the cool weather I had not accounted for back in sunny Singapore raising goosebumps on my arm. He was a young man with a little boy, who came over several times during our conversation to peer curiously at my notebook. He was barely knee high, with round curious eyes and an infectious smile.

"How much cauliflower do you grow a year?'
"How long does it take to grow?"
"What inputs do you use?"

I asked his father, followed by many more questions. Each one was answered openly and freely, I neither sensed dishonesty nor suspicion, and the people I met displayed a genuine warmth that made me feel welcomed. As I moved from field to field asking questions that in another place, and another time might have been sensitive, I began to appreciate the people who tended these lands and who so generously share their experiences with me.

Development work feels different in the field, when I come face to face with the very people who are the reason why I do what I do, who will gain from my successes but also pay the price of my mistakes.

What I really wanted to ask was,

"Do you earn enough to live on?"
"If you earned more, what would you do?"
"What are your joys? What are your challenges?"

And underpining these questions that I didnt feel like i've earned the right to ask, the fundamental question I have on my mind - will what I am about to do, have the intended impact on the people who will be most affected?

Will it further their goals? Their dreams? Enable a better life?

And the scary part is, there is no way to truly know. There are a multitude of factors in an agribusiness, and no way to fully predict the many possible outcomes and externalities. I have a strategy, a best guess, built on the knowledge I've gathered and verified by the experts who have done this before.

I knew this going in, but when faced with the people whose lives we're about to affect, I feel a new type of pressure. I suddenly feel inadequate and unqualified and I pray the same prayer that I've prayed throughout my life - I hope that I leave this place better than it was before.

Musings from above the clouds

I stare out the window, the sun is just setting, casting the sky in a beautiful gradient - autumn colours on one end, winter on the other.

It is the beginning of November, with fall on one end and winter on the other.

I stare out, my need to capture this beauty satiated by the photo I have taken, and hampered by the inability to access a better angle (2 seats, and the occupying gentlemen, sit between me and the window), so all i have left to do is to enjoy and stare.

My mind starts to wonder, I think about my day. Was I the person I wanted to be today? I start thinking about the things I could have done better, the witty retort that only came to me now, the opportunity for kindness I had let slip away. Had I been determined enough? generous enough?

Is this a uniquely human condition, i wonder - the ability and inclination to see myself in third person and to pass judgment on my thoughts and actions? The sun never asks if it is bright enough, it simply is. The sky never asks if it is vast enough, it certainly is.

So who am I to judge myself and find me wanting? Then again, who am I not to?

through the looking glass

This is what being in development feels like to me. I stand on this side of reality, where lights shine bright, where there's hot water and more food than I can eat; and I stand in my comfortable hotel room (literally) looking out to the other world out there. The one where buildings have rusted roofs, and crumbling tiles and where people do the best they can given what they have.

Isn't it strange that two worlds can exist under the same blue sky?

conversations from the countryside

There is a quiet pride in the way they talk about their crops, a dignity that comes from feeding the country they love, tending the land they call home.

Work on the farm is hard, the hours are long, and income uncertain. Mother nature can be temperamental, and the weather whimsical. When your work involves being in constant conversation with nature, you don't always get to set the agenda. Yet, there is a joy in the simplicity of watching things grow and eating the food that you harvest from your own effort.

"Are you happy?"

"Yes, I am happy that I get to turn something i love into work that I can earn from."

Isn't that what we all strive for?

you are still the face I see when I listen to love songs.