2009年8月4日火曜日

graffiti philosophy of humanitarian aid


Being humanitarian sounds just good but it is not sacred thing. It should go through many dilemmas and being good is not a simple policy to follow. Being good for whom? If there are skinny women who claimed to need food, it is natural as human being that would like to offer the help especially if you have resource to do so, but humanitarian does not mean to help whoever needs help. It is well known saying that we should not give fish, we should teach how to fish as the principle of aid – which means aid should be something sustainable and durable for the community even after we left. So, being good does not mean being kind and do what they want us to do. Sometimes (more often) we should make difficult decision to cut off the group of population who is in need.

There are so many things easy to say, but difficult to do. Being fair and being good. At this moment, we are not doing blanket free food distribution because the assessment shows that middle/lower Juba (that is where we are operating) does not require the blanket feeding. However, once you step into the remote villages, it is true that you can see lots of people who seem to need food. Currently we are only targeting malnutrition 5 years under and pregnant/lactating mothers but to make villagers understand that we are only helping to people in this category is the big issue. There are lots more people who do not have enough also outside of this category. It is logically understandable but practically all the people are living more or less similar poor condition. If your neighbor received the food, and you don’t, you will be pissed off. They do not care criteria or condition.

I am not doing it for my sake, and I can sometimes feel overwhelmed to see how big the world laid in front of me and how little I can do. Now that I gave up the idea of “I will change the world!” type of heroic idealism. I will do what I can do and I should do but I feel pain not to help the people in front of me. There is no clear line of people who is needy and who is not. There are million of people staying in gray zone who live in bad condition. I am better off but I have only two hands.

It is not simple matter of giving thing left to right. There was an interesting article I read few years back (which I forgot the detail but it) saying that if French people decided not to eat the ice-cream (maybe wine I am not sure), or American avoid the left-over for their meal, the food shortage for kids in the whole world will be solved. It is figure calculated in paper and we all know that it does not happen that way. (anyway French never give up wine) It is not amount of food we are lacking but matter of social structure. What we are doing here is, to be honest, does not change Somalia. It is temporary measure, in other word, first aid. Our food can make them survive a bit longer and probably may improve nutrition status of children while they are facing drought. However, unless their social structure and cultural habit enable to make them be productive, situation remains same. They have been in the war for around 20 years and they hardly got chance to improve their infrastructure or food security. If I use the above mentioned metaphor of giving fish or teaching how to fish, they had their river dried up and they do not eat fish. They have land but it is barren. People are not motivated to work and just wait Allah to prepare the food from somewhere. Humanitarian is not a magician.

It is not destiny or fate, they cast the opportunity for past decades and we are all lost here. Somalia is by all means special country having beautiful people with tough spirit. I really love them. Once they found their way out, the potentials are there. However, one thing I can say is it is not humanitarian workers (or AMISOM) who come from outside to make this black labyrinth cleared. I really do not see how Somali can solve this 20 years accumulated hatred and depression in the society but with great expectation, I am looking forward to keeping eyes on it.


2009年8月2日日曜日

Life without fat


I was in the field yesterday, I am in the field today,I will be in the field tomorrow. My life here is very simple, no complication.

Off road drive for one day makes people tired more than imagined. Even I who only am sitting in the (relatively) comfortable back seat, jumping back and down could have been that tired, not to mention how exhausting it can be for our security guards in the back of pickup and got direct sun or drivers who have to be fully awake throughout the day in this tricky road. We normally come back to the base around 19:00, but I could see those guards and drivers quickly ate and jump into mattress outsides. We eat, take shower and chat for around two hours, and then our days are over. I write my diary in the end of the day, and do little house keeping stuff and already feel very much like going to bed at 22:00. Life without proper lighting leads us to be loyal to sun. I start my day at 6:00 (guards and drivers start around even 4:00) and my day close at 21:30 to 22:00. It is super healthy life cycle, isn’t it.

We have generator here, but it does not provide good lighting for reading or anything productive. It is just bright enough to see where I am standing and going and anyway, if all the people around are in dead sleep, I do not feel comfortable to make even a phone call.

As I don’t bring much here and fat of life is cut off drastically. I don’t have dryer so I should wash my hair early enough to let sun dry it. I wear the cloth which washed next day, and at least I try to be clean all the time but nothing very fancy. I used up all the toilet paper, so I just should bring bucket of water to toilet.
If there is nothing, I just have to be determined. It is not very smart to be frustrated to long for something which isn’t there. Our lives can be much simpler and believe me, it is nice. I recognize my life is getting so much fat around and it is not always essential. I only ate pasta, bread and goat meat and green peppers (and rice one time). Only what we could drink is too-much-sugar milk tea (which is nice after long trip without lunch) and water. We have breakfast, then work throughout without lunch, then have supper around 19:00.
I can be grateful to be how healthy I am here, and best part is to wait for another two weeks to be in Nairobi and grab big pint of icy cold beer! It is pure privilege only given for the people whose nearest bar is 4 hours flight.

2009年8月1日土曜日

Reality tells


Food distribution and screening can never been done without problem. Actually we should deal with great mess. It is not easy to explain this heat and noise. You may imagine that beneficiaries are people who are malnutrition and week, but majorities are full of energy to acquire what they want and need. It may not be the most appropriate metaphor but it reminds me of women’s battle at bargain in the first day. Everybody fight to get what they need.

Well, I understood where their energy comes from. Many of them may rely on the food for their family living. We used MUAC, which is simple method of measuring arm – less than 12.5cm for kids and less than 21 cm for pregnant and lactation women – but I saw big fat mama shout at my staff saying that she needs food. We measured twice in order to ensure the figure, but some women under this malnutrition category put on veil and stands on the quque (actually there is no queue) again or malnutrition kid is “recycled”. If they are caught, they do even hit our staff or even threat saying “I will kill you. My staff experienced to get water or stoned in the screening site, and we should sometimes suspend the screening as the tension raised. There are always big guys with stick and guns “to control” the crowd, but mothers are normally stronger than them.

“Life is tough” they say so, and it is true for some who did not eat anything for couple of days, but some can sell our food to buy the curtain for their house window. Practically it is not possible for us to check each individual and find who really needs support, we will rely on counterpart and authority who are on ground and know the situation better. We are not doing general food distribution for everybody at this moment in south central Somalia. We used to conduct GFD for IDP in Kismayo but it stopped due to security concern. This Supplementary Feeding Programme only targets malnutrition kids under 5 and pregnant/lactating mothers. They asked, “my neighbor received food, why not us?” well, we should not make them rely on the aid, and we should really make strict standard and aid should target certain population who really needs it. I keep shouting that this distribution is for malnutrition people not all, but it is not easily understood as their life standard is almost same. They may take it for granted and can get angry if they do not come under the category.

Honestly I feel very sorry if I met little old lady who told me that she does not have family and food to eat but it really is local authority or counterpart who can capture the needy population and we will cover the rest. I would like to cover all the needy but the difference of needy and not really needy is very vague. I now know that beneficiary is not always weak people. They are ones with dignity, pride and energy. It is very important for me to keep being in the field and see what is going on. Beneficiary is not just figures in excel sheet to report. They are human being whom we are working with .