Development Blues

Development is so frustrating. I am sitting here watching a news bit on the food crisis in Africa and a hospital in Lesotho that is dedicated to administering HIV/AIDS meds to children. My tasks here in Tanzania are administrative and assist in the structural dynamics of development. While I know I am contributing to something important and sustainable, I can’t help but wish to be doing something more tangible. If I had gone to University for something like Nursing (as I had planned…) I could administer needles and check blood pressure and work in a hospital for 8 hours a day giving out meds. At the end of three months I would know I helped hundreds of thousands of people in their fight against disease.
The struggle between these dynamics of development is a constant struggle for me and many other Development students I know. Of course we understand the need for “frontline” and administrative work there is just this nagging desire to be doing.

Maybe I’m too compulsive or impatient or maybe I just like the reward of tangible results. Sometimes it just feels like I’m wasting my time on faux development, when I could be doing something that feels more real. Is this just an emotional response? Am I thinking with my heart instead of with my head when I get like this? Probably. I really don’t want to go back to school but I need to be involved in something that is not wholly contingent on computer or internet access. I’m hoping this will change when I get a career job.

I think I also get really frustrated by the blatant injustices in human society. Is it so difficult and absurd to have equality or curb greed??
An advocate on the news said, “Unless people are getting a plate of food they can’t focus on education or skills development.” It’s wrong that something as basic as food is a barrier to development.

“There is no deficit in human resources only a deficit in human will.” Martin Luther King Jr.