Nogut pik i bagarapim ples matamat

today is independence day in PNG, and i got to go to my first sing sing!!!

sing sing is when people dance and sing and drum and it’s excellent. first we had to sit through speeches, and all the students marching off the field in formation… but then the dancers came out. and really, there’s not much i can add to the photos, besides pointing out as i should have many times before in this blog, but don’t think i have, people here can be soooo kind. everytime i went up to a crowd around a dance, they would usher me to the front so that i could take see better. so i’d crouch down on the ground, next to the kids, pretty much with my butt in the mud (and oh how much mud there was), and snap shots of the dancers and drummers, while the children chose to stare at me instead. i’m not sure how i could be more interesting than the dancers, but life is funny that way.

enough talk, here are my favorite pics.

i struggle a lot sometimes with these blogs… trying to figure out the best way to talk about what is going on, give an accurate picture, represent somehow the reality of where we work. i want to be honest and say what i know of the people we are serving, but still avoid the pitfalls and traps of speaking ‘for’ people. so really, all i can do is say what i see.

but even then, there are some things i will never talk about explicitly in this blog. the survivors that come to the clinic have stories that are not mine to tell, and would never be appropriate for this forum. but i could give you glimpses perhaps from what i read in the papers, stories that are printed every day of young women assaulted by people they know, or women attacked as they walk home in the night, in the day… really it doesn’t appear to matter when they are walking…

and there will never be photos of our beneficiaries. i will show pictures of the clinic when empty, and from that, you will have to imagine a monday, when every bench is occupied by women and their family, women and their friends, women and those who support them/ depend on them.

i want to tell you all a story about people working so hard to fight back against the injustice of violence. i’ve met so many people who, whether survivors or allies, are committed to ending sexual and domestic violence in png. i could introduce you to high level politicians, to women i meet on the street, to volunteers i talk to in meetings… and i want you to hear that story while i explain the reality of violence here, the scope of it.

and i can tell you our little story, as msf. our story of medical support. of a small act in the midst of this struggle. while it rages on, we say very simply, we are here, you deserve medical treatment, you deserve your health, it is not negated by someone else’s violence.

that is what i can tell you.

i think there are two things to point out before this post makes sense.

the first is that i spent a lot of my undergrad reading, debating and flat out arguing about the role of ‘western’ women in the struggles of women abroad. a lot of words like privilege, oppression, colonialism, and values would get thrown around. this didn’t just happen in the classroom but also in community groups i was working with, and political debates with friends.

the second is that, what i always appreciate about msf, is that we look at suffering and medical needs first. then our actions are based on addressing medical needs, and when warranted, speaking out about the situations that cause those needs. it’s not about coming in and thinking we know all the answers, but providing services to people who aren’t receiving them. and the simple act of providing medical care to someone who has been denied, is an act of solidarity in itself. my old boss said once ‘we may not be able to do much, but just being there, saying ‘i think you are worth it’ can be a huge act of solidarity all on its own’.

when i decided to come to png, i wondered what a lot of people would think about this program. amazing to say, but i know people who will look at this program and see it as ‘interference’ and ‘importing western beliefs about gender’. gender based violence is normal there, they’d tell me. it’s a violent culture so why go in with your namby-pamby western ‘feminist’ beliefs and mess about.

and i knew this was wrong before i came… but it became that much more obvious the moment i got to the centre and started talking to my colleagues who are from png. it usually started with, yes, there’s a lot of violence, this is reality, this is normal. but then it also became ‘i can’t believe the case i heard about today, i can’t believe someone would actually do this, it is horrible. it is wrong. this is not what i believe in. when she told me her story, it broke my heart.’ (to paraphrase).

just because something is normalised, or frequent or common, does not mean that people want or accept it. just because the newspaper has an article every day about a rape that occurred in Lae, does not mean that survivors come in and say ‘yup, give me medical treatment but i’m cool with this and don’t mind it happened’. just because many women and girls (and young boys) grow up with the constant threat of violence, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t affect them on a psychological level. just because our staff have also grown up in these situations, doesn’t mean their stomach won’t drop when they listen to a woman’s story.

normalised violence does not equal desired violence. not having the tools to medically treat rape does not mean people think it is acceptable to acquire an sti after an assault. this is not about importing western values or humanitarian colonialism, it’s about sharing the skills, knowledge and resources of an emergency medical organisation. it’s doing what we can.

i received an email over facebook from a soon to be expat. what’s your advice for a new guy he said? something akin to’waaa?’ was my initial reply. but, heh, with the arrival of our new mental health officer, it’s something that’s been on my mind anyway these days… so after getting over the shock of being asked for advice, i thought about the things i’ve heard from other people in the field – and the advice that made a big difference for me. i came up with my top three tips for a first timer:

1/ ‘be prepared for anything.’ before arriving in the project,
chances you received reports from the field.  this could include
the project proposal with objectives and strategies.  it could
be the handover document.  you may even get to read a blog or
some communications docs.  if you are like me, you’ll use these
documents to try to somehow peice together a picture of what you
are about to walk into, looking for clues to complete the images
in your head, and perhaps you will think you know what you’re
getting into.   and if you are really like me, you will still
end up gobsmacked when you arrive and are confronted with
everything, promptly forgeting all that you’ve read, and end up
still spending your first few days in a haze as you try to make
sense of the world again.  this is normal.

2/ ‘don’t make any big changes your first month in the field.’
really really take your time getting to know the program and
your own department.  if you listened at the door of the new
expat training, this is one thing you would hear repeated often
- and there’s good reason.

when you arrive in a project full of ideas and energy and
passion, it is so easy to pinpoint all the things you think are
wrong, or inefficient or not logical.  this is  a good thing, it
promotes improvements and progress in the project… but it’s
best not to push through right away.  it’s so useful to take
lots of notes, ask lots of questions, keep your energy high, and
allow some time to find out why things are they way they are.
there could be good reasons, or perhaps outdated reasons… but
usually there is a reason that is not immediately obvious. part
of working for msf is finding new ways of solving problems and
dealing with issues (ways that can best suit the context,
population, resources etc etc).  you’re not in kansas anymore
and if you don’t know the context, you may repeat old mistakes.
so listen, ask questions and give it time before plowing ahead
with your brave new program.  you’re going to have to be
creative and flexibe in your approach, and this time allows you
to be best prepared.  you don’t want to reinvent the wheel only
to find out your beautifully streamlined program can’t hold up
to the potholes and wadis.

3/ as hinted at, the last big advice is ‘be prepared to suspend
disbelief’.  there have been so many times i said to myself,
there is no logical way this can work… my canada brain was
like ‘what the hell are you trying to pull off?? this is not
gonna happen!!!’ but here’s the catch, it did work.  somehow, we
all make it work.  and it may even make sense eventually… as
long as you don’t think too hard about it.

translation is never easy – i took languages in university… but i realised it more when i started working for msf.

last year while in bangladesh, we had a fairly lengthy document that needed translation into bangla. it’s a tricky process, even for the translators we had on staff (they focus on verbal translation) because of a different alphabet, and it’s hard to even find a program to allow you to type it in the computer (even after you memorise the new key assignments). so i sent it off to the translating service and asked them to do it.

a few days after i sent the completed translation to the project i got a phone call from a very amused project coordinator.

‘did any of you read this?’ she asked.

obviously i hadn’t (not too good at reading bangla at this point – continues to this day).

‘no…. i just took the package and sent it to you guys… is there a problem?’

‘yeah, actually, not the body of the document, more the translation of our name’

in our docs, it’s always ‘medecins sans frontieres’ so i’m thinking the classic, medicine without borders" or "medicine without limits" or "doctors gone wild" or something wierd… but this was the best…

they’d translated us to ‘border dwellers without medicine’. best. translation. ever.

so yes, the translators changed it, slight modification, and a very amused project team.

then i got here… and tok pisin is a tricky language. there are words that have a number of meanings, and get used in all different contexts. every english word can be replaced by 4 or 5 pisin words, which in turn could all mean 4 or 5 english words each…

so for our tok pisin translation we got the equivilant of doctors without fences (pisin word closest to border really). the word for fences is ‘banis’ and is akin to ‘border’ or ‘boundary’. so conveys closest to the idea that we want. we are "doktors i nogat banis."

and then after finally deciding, everyone agreeing, signs made, stationary used, months into program, we find out that ‘banis’ is also used for some other terms. so in addition to doctors without borders, we are also calling ourselves:

doctors without condoms
and
doctors without vaccines.

ha! basically the word ‘banis’ is now being used to indicate a whole bunch of barriers, barriers that are really good!

sometimes you just have to stop trying to fit in, because it ain’t gonna work. from now on, we’ll be known by the french or english name… that’s it. although if i manage to translate "border dwellers without medicine" into pisin, i may try to convince the management team to adopt it as our in country title.

and on that note, anyone who can work out what the title of this blog is in english, then you win my praise and respect. and the people i already told aren’t allowed to answer.