Whenever something safety or security related happens, my organization's staff are required to fill out a standard incident reporting form. I got home yesterday, exhausted from two days of a ministry of health planning meeting (more on that later) and found an incident report in my inbox from one of our nutrition teams in Somaliland. Since these are rarely a good sign, I was slighly apprehensive as I opened, only to find...this:
Apparently our nutrition team was in a very small village, packing up after a day of mobile outreach. All of a sudden, a woman whose young twins were enrolled in our nutrition program for children with severe malnutrition walked up and hit one of our nutrition team members in the head twice with an iron bar. The team member was taken to the regional hospital and treated, and was well enough to go to the police station to give a statement that evening.
Her being injured isn't particularly funny, but the reason is: apparently, the woman who hit our team member did so because the team member had bitten her when they were small children together in the village and she "could not get time to revenge for all this time and that was her golden opportunity to take action" (straight from the report). Really? REALLY? It has to have been at least 10 years ago. Unbelievable.
I will say that, in my experience, the Somali culture (huge generalization, but a not inaccurate one nonetheless) really takes grudge holding to a whole new level, and it makes working here very challenging. People remember what you or your organization have done for years after it's done and hold you accountable. It's one of the reasons inter-clan violence is so common--every slight is remembered and retaliated against. To me, it's frustrating, partly because I don't totally understand the dynamics and it all seems very petty to me, and partly because it prevents a lot from being done or moving forward, as we saw when our vehicle was hijacked as retaliation a few months ago. Everything you do and plan has to take into account really complex clan relationships. You have to balance what clan you've rented a vehicle from with other things you need if you are traveling to multiple clan areas. You have to put the perfect clan balance on nutrition teams, based on where they are serving. It takes a tremendous amount of time and effort, with significant consequences for doing it wrong, and, as an outsider, it is extremely nerve-wracking for me to try to balance a desire to provide widespread, comprehensive, high quality programs with these realities.
I'll never really be able to grasp it, but I am making progress in acknowledging it exists and learning that everything will be 500 times more complex than I had anticipated, and allowing for that in planning. That's a start, right?
At least I understand these guys:
Eat, nap, love. Animals are the best.
Apparently our nutrition team was in a very small village, packing up after a day of mobile outreach. All of a sudden, a woman whose young twins were enrolled in our nutrition program for children with severe malnutrition walked up and hit one of our nutrition team members in the head twice with an iron bar. The team member was taken to the regional hospital and treated, and was well enough to go to the police station to give a statement that evening.
Her being injured isn't particularly funny, but the reason is: apparently, the woman who hit our team member did so because the team member had bitten her when they were small children together in the village and she "could not get time to revenge for all this time and that was her golden opportunity to take action" (straight from the report). Really? REALLY? It has to have been at least 10 years ago. Unbelievable.
I will say that, in my experience, the Somali culture (huge generalization, but a not inaccurate one nonetheless) really takes grudge holding to a whole new level, and it makes working here very challenging. People remember what you or your organization have done for years after it's done and hold you accountable. It's one of the reasons inter-clan violence is so common--every slight is remembered and retaliated against. To me, it's frustrating, partly because I don't totally understand the dynamics and it all seems very petty to me, and partly because it prevents a lot from being done or moving forward, as we saw when our vehicle was hijacked as retaliation a few months ago. Everything you do and plan has to take into account really complex clan relationships. You have to balance what clan you've rented a vehicle from with other things you need if you are traveling to multiple clan areas. You have to put the perfect clan balance on nutrition teams, based on where they are serving. It takes a tremendous amount of time and effort, with significant consequences for doing it wrong, and, as an outsider, it is extremely nerve-wracking for me to try to balance a desire to provide widespread, comprehensive, high quality programs with these realities.
I'll never really be able to grasp it, but I am making progress in acknowledging it exists and learning that everything will be 500 times more complex than I had anticipated, and allowing for that in planning. That's a start, right?
At least I understand these guys:
Eat, nap, love. Animals are the best.
No comments:
Post a Comment