That is the question. The question I receive every time I talk to someone I haven’t seen since before I went to Malawi early in 2014. The question to which people seem to know the answer better than me, even before I answer.
It's not that I don’t appreciate the question, actually. But it’s not an easy question to answer. It feels like my year in Malawi gave me more experiences than I have had during the rest of my life in sum. Some of them were of course good, and others were not so good. But, in order to not talk for hours on end each time I get that question, I normally simplify the answer to “Well, it was a very good experience for me, and I am very happy that I did it.”
Then, to my big surprise in the beginning, my friend in the commonest version of this conversation gives me the contrary: “Well, it wasn’t really that nice, was it?” – like if I would lie about it to conceal the fact that Malawi is a shitty country and that it was a mistake of me to go there for a year – “I have read your blog, Trygve, and you did complain a lot, didn’t you? It wasn’t so nice all the time, was it, really?”.
It seems that my friends who read my blog tend to remember all the worst posts, while I have a selective memory which favours the good memories. That might be, but after a quantitative study of the 34 Malawi-related posts in my blog, 41% are mostly positive, 32% are mostly neutral and 26% are mostly negative. So I don’t think it was so bad, in the end. My theory is that the negative posts fit more in with the expectation people have of going to work a year in a serious job in one of the world’s most poor and under-developed countries. Or maybe it’s just shocking for Norwegians to read about things that go really wrong.
The other surprise I got when some friends tried convincing me that I went to Malawi due to an inspiration to help poor people and give of myself. That would be a very noble inspiration, but it’s not how I remember it. Actually, I claimed to my friends, I saw the job in Malawi as an opportunity to do something different and interesting, and to get to know a new culture and a new country. It was of course positive that I got to work with poor people’s access to solar energy, but I don’t think my only motivation for applying for the job ever was that I wanted to help the people in need. My friends refused to accept my complaint, and persisted that I had gone there because I was a great person that wanted to help the vulnerable and the poor. I’m happy to observe that my friends have such a nice conception of me, but I still don’t recognise myself in that role, even after considering it for a good while.
It's not that I don’t appreciate the question, actually. But it’s not an easy question to answer. It feels like my year in Malawi gave me more experiences than I have had during the rest of my life in sum. Some of them were of course good, and others were not so good. But, in order to not talk for hours on end each time I get that question, I normally simplify the answer to “Well, it was a very good experience for me, and I am very happy that I did it.”
Then, to my big surprise in the beginning, my friend in the commonest version of this conversation gives me the contrary: “Well, it wasn’t really that nice, was it?” – like if I would lie about it to conceal the fact that Malawi is a shitty country and that it was a mistake of me to go there for a year – “I have read your blog, Trygve, and you did complain a lot, didn’t you? It wasn’t so nice all the time, was it, really?”.
It seems that my friends who read my blog tend to remember all the worst posts, while I have a selective memory which favours the good memories. That might be, but after a quantitative study of the 34 Malawi-related posts in my blog, 41% are mostly positive, 32% are mostly neutral and 26% are mostly negative. So I don’t think it was so bad, in the end. My theory is that the negative posts fit more in with the expectation people have of going to work a year in a serious job in one of the world’s most poor and under-developed countries. Or maybe it’s just shocking for Norwegians to read about things that go really wrong.
The other surprise I got when some friends tried convincing me that I went to Malawi due to an inspiration to help poor people and give of myself. That would be a very noble inspiration, but it’s not how I remember it. Actually, I claimed to my friends, I saw the job in Malawi as an opportunity to do something different and interesting, and to get to know a new culture and a new country. It was of course positive that I got to work with poor people’s access to solar energy, but I don’t think my only motivation for applying for the job ever was that I wanted to help the people in need. My friends refused to accept my complaint, and persisted that I had gone there because I was a great person that wanted to help the vulnerable and the poor. I’m happy to observe that my friends have such a nice conception of me, but I still don’t recognise myself in that role, even after considering it for a good while.
No comments:
Post a Comment