Serious People. Doing Serious Work. In Goma.

That's right. You guessed it. Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting serious people. Doing serious work. In Goma. You may have been tipped off by the title of this blog. As I was strolling home from my evening french class, I had the honour of hearing "Muzungo!" (white man) screamed at me in a suspiciously white-man voice. Friend or foe? Turned out to be the serious people. And by this, I mean some pompous young Americans. (Don't worry, I get the distinction, not all Americans are pompous. These ones just happened to be. And some Canadians are pompous. I just don't know any. Ahem). So back to the pompous Americans. The interaction goes a little something like this:
Pompous Americans (PAs): Yo Muzungo, are you our new Australian neighbour?
Me: No.
PAs: What are you doing here?
Me: Working for the UN. (Ok, I admit, I took the bait...)What are you doing here?
PA1: Live here, dad is missionary.
PA2: Volunteering for World Vision
PA3 (and this is where it gets particularly interesting, hold your breath): In transit.
Side note: In my wee mind, this answer piques my interests, as Kigali is an interesting place to find yourself "in transit". And so, I dared to ask the question: In transit from where?
PA3: From Kenya. On way to Goma.
Me: Are you working for the UN?
PA3: No.
Me: What organization are you going with?
PA3: None.
Me: Oh. So you're just going to kick it in Goma for a bit?
Another side note: these days, Goma is not exactly the vacation destination of choice. Something about a brutal conflict. And grenades. And rape.
PA3: No, my friends and I are going to bust out a relief mission.
Me: Splendid. Have you thought this through?
PA3: Every day (in a very grave and serious tone, as one would expect from a serious person).
Me: Ok. Exit.

This, my friends, is the variety of help that is better left at the door. I can imagine nothing more useful than to be in a conflict zone and have a team of incompetent yet arrogant kids swoop through the borders to save the poor Africans that can't save themselves. It is precisely this sort of interaction that makes me want to come home and get over my African aspirations, for fear that I too sucumb to the White Man's Burden. No mirrors or need for further comment, thanks. And though I commend Ms. Jolie for bringing important issues into mainstream media (read: People magazine), I also suspect she's to thank for the influx of rich youth with not a whole lot more to do then try to be captured in an air-blown shot saving the minions. Again. No mirrors please. I don't like feeling uncomfortable with my own hypocricy. It makes me feel...uncomfortable.

As an afterthought, and to be fair, it's the nature of development work. International Institutions want development tourists, bushy-tailed youngsters to get out there, leave their evian at the door, and demonstrate that they can hack it in a mud hut without hot showers and starbucks for a couple of weeks. Only then can you get the next internship or volunteer experience, which will then, theoretically, lead to further work, if you can still hack it. The trouble is that some believe that development=something=better-than-nothing. Um. I'm not convinced. Somebody draft me a memo for further examination. But marching in with a lot of money, dropping millions on a colonial palace in the plains/rainforests/hills/desert sands of enter-any-African-country-here amongst the poor-people-but-hey-we-can't-help-everyone-and-also-please-don't-mind-us-but-your-land-is-part-of-our-plan-so-shift-your-hut-a-touch-if-you-would-be-so-kind.
Good intentions count, don't they?
Clearly, I'm having a disillusioned day. I can sense my penchant for pithy monologue is about to crank up a notch. There may be more to come...