My Thoughts on International Development (originally posted on facebook 2/28/2014)

This field mission has been intense. On the road the past 7 days, with no less than 5 meetings a day in each location, and hours on bumpy roads. Right now I am in Podor, in the Fouta. Last night the electricity went out and we had to walk down this country desert road in the dark to find a restaurant, I had my battery-less flashlight (perfect birthday gift) and saw something moving in the sand. It was a lime green scorpion. Crazy looking thing. Oumou, the only woman in our entourage, took her shoe and killed it good, screaming, it must die. 

Later as we were walking back to the hotel, still in pitch dark, I was looking up at the stars and thinking how crazy my life is, and wondering how I ended up in this desert backwater on the Mauritanian border with three imams. Oumou asked me what I was thinking about and I told her, I used to live in New York. Of course she said, and? All I meant was that life takes crazy turns, I no more set out to live in New York than I planned to be walking down a desert road killing scorpions, but there I was. 

She said it must have been impossible for me to imagine there were people living in a place like Podor. Which of course is true, but not entirely impossible, but then she said something I found to be quite profound, a woman who has devoted her life to helping the marginalized in her country to improve their lives. She told me, it is just as impossible for them to imagine how New Yorkers live, even if they wanted to live that way themselves, they do not know how. But she said it is important to know that no matter how people live they remain determined and hopeful that a better life is possible. 

As I walked down that crumbling road in the dark looking at the stars and wondering if the electricity would return and why it had gone out in the first place, my mind wandered back to New York and the stark contrast of a city replete with lights and not a single star in the sky and I wondered what is the end game here? Is the goal of development to create New Yorks and Londons and Tokyos throughout the developing world? I like to imagine a day within my lifetime of a Dakar with glittering skyscrapers, underground transportation, smooth roads connecting cities and sleepy suburbs. Or is the goal to recognize the determination and the hope inherent in all people and provide access to knowledge and opportunities for them to latch on to? 

This question is an existential one for me as I have committed my life to this work, and I still have a lot to learn. But I will likely be back in a place like New York, DC or London making decisions that will affect the lives of people who cannot imagine a place like New York, DC, or London, but I hope that when I am called to make those decisions I remember walking down a crumbling desert road in the dark looking up at all those stars.