I'm looking for time to edit down the long post I've written for "what the NGO's and MIT got right, what the NGO's and MIT got wrong" piece. That's a problem for me, finding time to edit stuff.
The 14 months that have now passed since March-April trip to Ghana in 2015 have been in large part the editing or digesting of the experience there. I'm still re-editing things I wrote at the time, I'm still reviewing interviews we filmed. And new information keeps coming, even as the situation is evolving.
Wahab - our business partner in Ghana - has been back and forth four times to see his cousin Kamal, CEO of Chendiba Enterprises. And I continue to take calls every week from young men I met there. Kamaldeen has now finally graduated the engineering school program (he had been working at Chendiba Enterprises to help pay for his studies). And Awal, the "lead guy" of the wire burning men at Agbogbloshie, still calls several times a week. When Wahab's here, it's easier, because my pidgin English is really rusty. Wahab and I help ground each other's wires; my compassion for Awal keeps Wahab from spanking his ass for calling and shilling, and Wahab's grown up expectations of the men (and Awal is definitely a man, not a "child labor orphan") who will twist a guilty knife is welcome intervention in the role-play. I've had good and bad experiences intervening in Africa, and having time and partners from the area give needed perspective.
What I need to say about Jim Puckett, Kevin McElvaney, and the MIT team, PBS and @Earthfixmedia is important, but I do owe it to them to take the time to edit. They deserve the same compassion and patience we show Awal and the company at Agbogbloshie. And this extends of course to Dr. Jack Caravanos and PureEarth, and the StEP team, and everyone in the business of "saving Africa". I need to edit, and to demonstrate the dignity these researchers and journalists deserve.
It takes time. Primum non nocere. Don't rush to judgement. Listen to your human subjects. Basics.
The 14 months that have now passed since March-April trip to Ghana in 2015 have been in large part the editing or digesting of the experience there. I'm still re-editing things I wrote at the time, I'm still reviewing interviews we filmed. And new information keeps coming, even as the situation is evolving.Wahab - our business partner in Ghana - has been back and forth four times to see his cousin Kamal, CEO of Chendiba Enterprises. And I continue to take calls every week from young men I met there. Kamaldeen has now finally graduated the engineering school program (he had been working at Chendiba Enterprises to help pay for his studies). And Awal, the "lead guy" of the wire burning men at Agbogbloshie, still calls several times a week. When Wahab's here, it's easier, because my pidgin English is really rusty. Wahab and I help ground each other's wires; my compassion for Awal keeps Wahab from spanking his ass for calling and shilling, and Wahab's grown up expectations of the men (and Awal is definitely a man, not a "child labor orphan") who will twist a guilty knife is welcome intervention in the role-play. I've had good and bad experiences intervening in Africa, and having time and partners from the area give needed perspective.
What I need to say about Jim Puckett, Kevin McElvaney, and the MIT team, PBS and @Earthfixmedia is important, but I do owe it to them to take the time to edit. They deserve the same compassion and patience we show Awal and the company at Agbogbloshie. And this extends of course to Dr. Jack Caravanos and PureEarth, and the StEP team, and everyone in the business of "saving Africa". I need to edit, and to demonstrate the dignity these researchers and journalists deserve.
It takes time. Primum non nocere. Don't rush to judgement. Listen to your human subjects. Basics.
