Tales from a+broad

Hi Guys,

Hope all is well. Things here are going ok. Nothing special. Every week still brings new ways for me to embarrass myself such as:

Two weeks ago, I showed up for work dressed fairly casually in a jeans-like dress. Next thing I know, my former boss, who recently got promoted, is calling me to attend a meeting on the second floor. I walk in and find out it is an exchange of information between the
Lake Victoria Environmental Management Program (LVEMP)steering committee and the Thai national Mekong River Committee (yes Mekong River as in Mekong delta as in Vietnam War). Boy was I surprised since I worked on
LVEMP when I was in Uganda and also visited Kenya and Tanzania as part of the project. The Africans who came from all three of the countries surrounding Lake Victoria sat on one side of the room while the Thais,
which included myself, sat on the other. Every person in that room was high-level – there was the permanent-secretary for the Ministry of Environment of Uganda, as was his counterpart in Tanzania and Kenya
(you get the idea). Not to be outdone, the Thais also sent their most senior people. And there, among all these big-wigs, sat I. I quietly listened to the presentations given by both parties. This was really
interesting given that I know the real situation in the Lake Victoria basin and the situation in the Mekong so I could tell how much of it was truth and how much of it was lies. My knowledge even surpassed many in that room since I had also worked in Egypt and was very familiar with issues pertaining to the Nile basin as a whole (Lake Victoria is the source of the White Nile). The Africans stuck to the truth, the Thais did pretty much as well (in an Enron kind of way) until it came to the questions. The Africans asked some incredibly sharp questions to which the Thais could not answer. I.e., how did you actually engage the public? Once it was the Thais turn to ask questions, the room got deathly silent. Now most sane people who find themselves a bottom-dweller in a room
filled with people at the top of the food chain would have kept quiet, unfortunately I do not fall into that category. I dared asked a pertinent question, which happened to throw the whole meeting slightly off track
for a moment. The Chair of the meeting did not get my point at all and was furious with me. (The Africans got it though). Now is the time for me to mention that the Chair turned out to be the person who has the 3rd
highest position within the federal Ministry of the Environment. He made it obvious to all the people there that he was supremely angry with me. In Thai society, this doesn’t occur very often since saving face is very important. Therefore, Thais will rarely criticize anyone so openly. Did I mention that my new boss was there and sitting right next to me? I
definitely made an impression on her, but not necessarily the one I wanted to make.

Now getting back to what I was wearing. Everyone else in the room was dressed extremely formally and there I was in my dumpy jeans-like dress. The dress was one of the few items of clothing that I had found in Thailand that fit me, actually it was even a little big on me. Recently,
someone in another department shed some light on why the dress was so big and the pockets seemed almost at the back – it was a maternity dress. Well, needless to say I haven’t been invited to any meetings since, but
hope is in the air. Last week the Prime Minister was kind enough to shuffle the Cabinet so we got a new Environmental Minister and, I am assuming, new deputy permanent secretary as well. I have already had a
close call though. One day after the appointment, I happen to come round the corner at work, and almost banged right into the new Minister who was posing for the TV cameras. I walked away as quickly as I could and went to stand waiting for the elevator.

Unfortunately, the Minister who normally always has an entourage surrounding him came and waited about a metre away from me for another elevator. So there I was, sweat dripping from my brow, clothes already all rumpled, face half covered by a mask, and a huge pack on my back. Now Thai society is all about protocol and at that moment I was in a panic asking myself what am I supposed to do? what am I supposed to do? do I raise my coffee mug in a gesture of greeting ? do I wai ? help! At this point, inspiration struck and I went and hid behind a Thai lady who for once was larger than me. Finally, after what seemed an eternity but was
really probably only 5 seconds, both the Minister’s entourage and the elevator arrived.

Now, you’re probably wondering what my work involves (I wonder that a lot too). Oftentimes, it involves attending a planning meeting where we discuss how polluted the river is and what steps need to be taken
to clean it up, and then I attend another planning meeting where we discuss how polluted the river is and what steps need to be taken, and then I attend another planning meeting… You get the picture. Well, not long ago, there appeared to be what I considered a possible departure from the status quo. I was invited to a meeting (on a Saturday), where experts from the United States and the Philippines would be talking. My
colleague and I showed up in the morning and were directed to a floating restaurant where the rest of the attendees and speakers were sitting. I was looking forward to it because the Americans and the Filippino where top experts in the field of watershed management. Once everyone had arrived, I discovered to my horror that we would not be staying tied to the shore. A tug boat pulled up in front of the restaurant, and began pulling us away from the dock – the only avenue of escape! This shows how cunning government officials can be. They knew that everyone had been to all those other meetings and knew how dirty the water was so of course now one would dare jump overboard. To be fair though, the speeches by the
Americans met my expectations and they all stayed within their time limits. All the experts were done by lunch. I was absolutely thrilled that it wouldn’t be a long day after all when the Thais got up to talk and talk and talk. After six and a half hours of speech after speech after speech, pollution or no pollution, I was ready to jump over board. Luckily, it never came to that. The never ending drag (by tugboat) came to an end. But not before the Chair of the meeting asked me to stand up and summarize the morning’s presentations in Thai (the official translator for the Americans ignored my pleas for help). I still can’t speak Thai at all much less translate English presentations so I
stood up and said the only thing I could: “Chesapeake Bay, USA; Lake Laguna, Philippines; and the ThaChin River, Thailand all share the same problem – dirty water.”

So now that you have all heard about how volunteering abroad can be a great booster for your self-esteem, I am sure you’re all dying to sign up with a development agency.

From a woman whose pride got lost by Air Canada on the way over and has yet to be located.