The reality is...
Nya Gwa has written a piece on the reality of life here in South Sudan. Trying to explain the complexities of life to those who are reading our blogs, or listening to us tell our stories on Skype, can seem like an uphill task. I can see this already, despite still being a newbie to the country.
I believe a large part of this inability to explain things comes from our own inability to categorise the every day events in our lives. This makes it difficult to explain things to ourselves, let alone others. If I cannot understand something, how on earth can I be expected to explain it? I think the root of the reality issue that Nya Gwa refers to is our inability to match the things we see and hear to our own experiences in the past. Little is familiar here. You know how you can stumble out of the bar at 1 am and still somehow find your way home at night without thinking about it? That is because you are so familiar with your route you dont have to be in a condition allows thinking at all. You just find your way back like a homing pigeon. Try that here and you will end up stumbling into some hut somewhere, surprising the occupants into doing something horrible to you. Ever wondered where the time goes on your morning commute, or how you somehow got to the end of the day and cannot really remember what you did at work that day? This is because your mind is on automatic. It is a bit more difficult for your mind to go into automatic when mangos keep falling on the roof of your tent-house, or goats hold up the traffic.
My brain is constantly engaging with new sights and experiences. This is because the reality here is not the one I know. It has similarities. Cars. Buses. Roads. Schools. Children playing. People greeting each other in the street... Wait. Not that last one. I am from London. We are unfriendly bastards. Londoners talk to no-one in the street... Trees, Grass, roadside billboards and so on. It is the changes, both large and small, that make THIS reality strange. It is like my reality, but more so. Lets call it Augmented Reality.
Like its computer based counterpart, my Augmented Reality is like the normal one, but with extra information flooding into your brain. The web based Augmented Reality provides supplementary information, perhaps by smoothly inserting itself into your eyeline as Google's new glasses plan to do.
My augmented reality is a little different. It does not do anything smoothly. It has the power to slap me out of my reverie and bring me back to earth with a "what the fuuuuuuck?" I drive past that roadside billboard, and spot a guy changing the poster by climbing hand over hand up the structure with no rope or ladder in sight. Augmented Reality distracts me from conducting a focus group in a community with leprosy sufferers, as a small child stands happily among the adults and pees through her knickers onto the sand while her mother grins encouragingly and reaches for her with fingerless hands. Normal and natural activities in their own right, just a little beyond the normal because of the place, time and circumstances.
I can tell you more. Sitting in front of a semicircle of adults, who are reclining on tree stumps or mats in the open air, waiting for my translator to finish the question I have just asked, I stop listening for a moment as I see an older boy playing catching games. He is resting some small black balls on the back of his hand, and then flipping it over and catching them neatly, then throwing them in the air to catch them with the back of his hand again. Normal game, but done in a way that is a little beyond my normal. The kid is just having fun, and is doing it with whatever is lying around. In this case, there is a lot of goat poo lying around.
I was talking to colleagues today about the conversations we have with people back home, and those that we have with the people who work with us. There is a common thought among expats that we just cannot talk to people about our experiences unless they have been out in the field themselves. I am not sure I agree with this statement yet. I think it is possible to explain.
It might, however, take time to do so. People might ask me "so how is south sudan?" Good God. How the hell can I sum up the experiences in a succinct fashion? These things are not really for coffee table discussion. I guess I need to write more, as this forum seems to be one of the few places I can communicate effectively. I can tell a story, set the background, explain the characters and provide my thoughts. The question is whether I can take the time. I hope I can. The flipside to that question is: Will others will take the time to listen?
Nya Gwa has written a piece on the reality of life here in South Sudan. Trying to explain the complexities of life to those who are reading our blogs, or listening to us tell our stories on Skype, can seem like an uphill task. I can see this already, despite still being a newbie to the country.
I believe a large part of this inability to explain things comes from our own inability to categorise the every day events in our lives. This makes it difficult to explain things to ourselves, let alone others. If I cannot understand something, how on earth can I be expected to explain it? I think the root of the reality issue that Nya Gwa refers to is our inability to match the things we see and hear to our own experiences in the past. Little is familiar here. You know how you can stumble out of the bar at 1 am and still somehow find your way home at night without thinking about it? That is because you are so familiar with your route you dont have to be in a condition allows thinking at all. You just find your way back like a homing pigeon. Try that here and you will end up stumbling into some hut somewhere, surprising the occupants into doing something horrible to you. Ever wondered where the time goes on your morning commute, or how you somehow got to the end of the day and cannot really remember what you did at work that day? This is because your mind is on automatic. It is a bit more difficult for your mind to go into automatic when mangos keep falling on the roof of your tent-house, or goats hold up the traffic.
My brain is constantly engaging with new sights and experiences. This is because the reality here is not the one I know. It has similarities. Cars. Buses. Roads. Schools. Children playing. People greeting each other in the street... Wait. Not that last one. I am from London. We are unfriendly bastards. Londoners talk to no-one in the street... Trees, Grass, roadside billboards and so on. It is the changes, both large and small, that make THIS reality strange. It is like my reality, but more so. Lets call it Augmented Reality.
Like its computer based counterpart, my Augmented Reality is like the normal one, but with extra information flooding into your brain. The web based Augmented Reality provides supplementary information, perhaps by smoothly inserting itself into your eyeline as Google's new glasses plan to do.
My augmented reality is a little different. It does not do anything smoothly. It has the power to slap me out of my reverie and bring me back to earth with a "what the fuuuuuuck?" I drive past that roadside billboard, and spot a guy changing the poster by climbing hand over hand up the structure with no rope or ladder in sight. Augmented Reality distracts me from conducting a focus group in a community with leprosy sufferers, as a small child stands happily among the adults and pees through her knickers onto the sand while her mother grins encouragingly and reaches for her with fingerless hands. Normal and natural activities in their own right, just a little beyond the normal because of the place, time and circumstances.
I can tell you more. Sitting in front of a semicircle of adults, who are reclining on tree stumps or mats in the open air, waiting for my translator to finish the question I have just asked, I stop listening for a moment as I see an older boy playing catching games. He is resting some small black balls on the back of his hand, and then flipping it over and catching them neatly, then throwing them in the air to catch them with the back of his hand again. Normal game, but done in a way that is a little beyond my normal. The kid is just having fun, and is doing it with whatever is lying around. In this case, there is a lot of goat poo lying around.
I was talking to colleagues today about the conversations we have with people back home, and those that we have with the people who work with us. There is a common thought among expats that we just cannot talk to people about our experiences unless they have been out in the field themselves. I am not sure I agree with this statement yet. I think it is possible to explain.
It might, however, take time to do so. People might ask me "so how is south sudan?" Good God. How the hell can I sum up the experiences in a succinct fashion? These things are not really for coffee table discussion. I guess I need to write more, as this forum seems to be one of the few places I can communicate effectively. I can tell a story, set the background, explain the characters and provide my thoughts. The question is whether I can take the time. I hope I can. The flipside to that question is: Will others will take the time to listen?
