There’s a certain amount of self-deception intrinsic in my job. I know that the culture gaps and language differences between myself and my colleagues means that only a certain percentage of what I think is being said and done by them is real.
In Papua New Guinea, my project tried to promote discussions of topics and behaviours that went against the grain of what is typical, acceptable, and comfortable for any Papua New Guinean: what happens in marriages in PNG. To do this, I had to hire people to work on this program, promote the message of marital harmony, and preferably not behave in a way that contradicts the messages we are trying to promote.
It wasn’t obvious, for example, that getting plastered during a work function with donors present was not ok. But that was the easy stuff to spot. Our sessions were conducted in Pidgin. I understood most of what was being said but what worried me was that I didn’t understand how phrasing things one way or another could change the nuance of what was said. I worried, for example, that when one of my trainers would say that anal sex is dangerous, that it would be interpreted as a condemnation of homosexuality. The best I could do was intone time and again that anal sex was not something only men did and to make sure my team made it clear that it was not using a condom that made anal sex dangerous – not homosexuality.
I knew that there was a risk that some of what my team said in the field was not what I would have wanted them to say, or worse – they could be saying the opposite of what I would want them to say. Part of me worried. Part of me chose to believe that my team members understood our radical message – that hitting your partner was not ok, that forced sex is rape, that women are entitled to just as much happiness as men.
My friend who now is responsible for all the programs in PNG told me a few weeks ago about a drama unfolding at the office that involves a member of my former team. Ben was a police officer for 26 years and his wife is also in the police force. Every now and then he would mention a story from his time as an officer that made my skin crawl – not because of how disturbing the stories were, but because the unemotional delivery gave me no indication that the storyteller perceived the stories as awful, too.
Long story short, someone was anonymously accusing Ben of having an affair/his wife showed up at the office with a posse of her colleagues/the woman Ben was accused of having an affair with was accosted by another posse at the airport and all hell broke loose. Ben was sent to a satellite office on his native island for his safety and that of all involved. A few weeks later, Ben didn’t show up to work and stopped answering his phone. Turns out he decided to stop working for us. His work phone and computer were apparently destroyed and in an altercation with his wife, her eye was damaged to the point of needed surgery.
I am not surprised to hear this. I am, though, so, so saddened by it.
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