Public Breastfeeding Norms: A comparison between the U.S. and Ethiopia.

Developing nations should be both critical and authentic in their development approaches, for simply adopting the norms of more developed nations could come at the expense of their own progressive norms. A regard in which Ethiopia, one of the poorest nations in the world, is eons ahead of the United States, one of the richest nations in the world, is public breastfeeding. Women in Ethiopia enjoy the liberty of public breastfeeding without judgment while women in the United States still shy away in ambivalent shame. Despite trends that show that the more educated a population is the more developed and equitable its society, in this regard the U.S. falls short, for shaming women for breastfeeding their children in public is hardly equitable. This misguided practice is not only unfair to the women targeted but also to their children who might miss out on nutrition that is vital to their growth and development.

How can a nation funding programs in the developing world to promote gender equity shame its women for breastfeeding their children in public? Perhaps the answer to this question can be found by unpacking the over-sexualization of breasts coupled with the desire to subdue female sexuality in the United States. The United States is obsessed with breasts - they are everywhere. Breasts are particularly ubiquitous in popular culture – music videos, album covers, movies, art, etc. They are so sexualized that women with larger breasts are generally perceived as “sexier” than women with smaller breasts and people tend to have a hard time dissociating breasts with sex even when the relationship is between mother and child. However, while breasts are ubiquitously portrayed in pop culture it is solely for hetero-male enjoyment and the women who display them are generally regarded as “obscene,” “promiscuous,” or “slutty.” Therefore, by that logic, “decent” women do not show their breasts in public not even for the sake of their children. Those who do are met with uncomfortable gazes and remarks that shame them for performing one of the most natural acts that exist between a mother and her child.

In Ethiopia, one of the most religious and conservative countries in the world, breasts are not particularly sexualized and women can often be seen in public without a bra and with their nipples protruding through their shirts. While such an image might turn on heterosexual men in the United States, men in Ethiopia don’t seem to give those women a second glance. This is because breasts are perceived as primarily for feeding children and then as sexual organs. This means that a woman in Ethiopia can pull out her breast in any public place to feed her child without any hesitation or judgment and those who surround her don’t experience any discomfort.

The fact that a woman in Ethiopia has the freedom to breastfeed her child anywhere while a woman in the United States would have to think it through and perhaps find a private area raises many questions about the nature of development and our objectives. Is development linear? If not, then is it really possible to measure the consummate advancement of a country without considering such norms? Is it possible for a country to prosper economically and simultaneously flounder in specific social areas? While many questions are left unanswered one thing is true, that the freedoms afforded women are vastly different from society to society, and that at least in this regard, Ethiopia has one up on us.

What Kim K. and PCVs Have in Common.

I’ve never been sympathetic of celebrities, not even the ones I like - I’ll admit it. I’ve always perceived them as attention-needy, overpaid, vapid-brutes with an insatiable desire to be liked by everyone. If you know me then you probably know that I have no patience for people who desperately want to be liked by others – so annoying! Of all celebrities I find celebrities like Kim Kardashian (who doesn’t love to hate her?) who are famous for, well, being famous, most irritating. As if that wasn’t bad enough, we have to hear her complain about how hard her life is - “too much paparazzi! Not enough love! Wahh!” Put a lid on it rich girl. You’re rich, you’re popular  - we get it!

It wasn’t until I moved to Shone, Ethiopia that I finally began to feel Kim’s pain – what a shocker! Since I moved to Shone approximately 7 weeks ago I’ve been followed, harassed, grabbed, yelled for, and greeted by complete strangers. I’ve been forced to skip people at the local bank, have had many meals paid for, and never pay at the Internet cafe. At first it was kind of flattering that everyone thought I was such a big deal for doing, well, nothing. But as the weeks passed I began to miss my anonymity. I wanted to walk in peace and be left to my own thoughts. I wanted to walk and think about Daniel, get a coffee at a cafe, read a book and write him a letter – but I couldn’t. Everywhere I went I was met with questions about who I am, where I am from and why I am here. I couldn’t get a second to breathe and just be, like we human beings are meant to.

So, like any “celebrity” I looked for sanity amongst other “celebrities.” I got together with other PCVs and decompressed in a beautiful house while consuming delicious food. I laughed, played and laughed some more letting down my hair in a way I hadn’t been able to for months. It was all good and fine until I saw someone peeking in from the next house “oh my God they can see us” I thought, and I was terrified. I felt like a celebrity caught without make-up in her backyard by a paparazzo. It was frightening and all too telling for it revealed just how hard this integrating process is. Will they ever see me as one of them? Will I ever feel like one of them? Or will I have to endure local celebrity status for the entire duration of my service? I still don’t have the answers, but Kim I feel for you girl, I really do.

International Development: The What and the Why.

International Development: The What and the Why.

What is international development? If only I had an answer. The definition eludes me yet it is what I have decided to pursue… a career in something so hard to explain my dad chalks it up to “I don’t know what she’s doing; she’s crazy and she keeps going to Africa but we support her.” And maybe I am, but what’s wrong with a little crazy, or a lot of crazy for that matter if it manifests as a will to invest in people?

That’s the way I think about international development, as a long-term process of investing in people. Throughout history international development has been defined in myriad ways. Definitions have ranged anywhere from “a process of modernization in which society becomes industrialized and urbanized,“ to “how nations, governments and individuals organize themselves, use resources, improve their wellbeing and increase their range of choices.” (AVI; UNDP, 2000)

Up until the mid to late 1980’s international development was economy-centric. It was believed that if a country had a high enough Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross National Product (GNP) then it was “developed” and its people generally enjoyed a dignified way of life that allowed them to meet more than just their basic needs. It wasn’t until 1990 when Amartya Sen and Mahbub ul Haq introduced us to the human development index that we began to dissociate GDP and GNP with the way that people were actually living. Sen and Haq made us aware of the reality of more than 1.2 billion people in the world by showing us that a country’s economic standing doesn’t tell us anything about its distribution of wealth, its access to education and the quality of its health care. 

The contributions of Sen and Haq, amongst others, helped the field evolve but it didn’t stop its critics. Critics of international development say it creates dependency i.e. dependency theory, that it’s a new form of colonialism i.e. neocolonialism and that it does more harm than good, e.g. http://matadornetwork.com/change/7-worst-international-aid-ideas/ - if only it were that simple.

The truth is, I believe, that most people involved in international development are well intended but ill informed, Aaron Ausland put it best:

The world is littered with community development projects gone wrong. More often than not the source of failure was an overemphasis on output and underemphasis on process. Take, for example, the ubiquitous latrine project. When project success is measured by output, most latrine projects are successful. After all, most such projects do, indeed, get latrines built. But if you go back in a few years and look for the outcomes that these latrines were supposed to generate – fewer diseases, cleaner water, ect. – there seem to be far more failures. In fact, most latrines that I’ve  seen in the developing world aren’t even used, at least not as latrines!

Part of the problem is that planners don’t map out logic models that take people and their incentives into account. Logic models are maps of interventions. They are intended to show a complete, coherent causal chain from inputs through activities to outputs, and then to short-, medium-and long-term outcomes. But often there are unexamined, yet critical, assumptions made about how people are going to behave-assumptions that create weak or broken links in the chain. For example, just because you estimate that 300 families need latrines doesn’t mean that 300 families will use them in the ways you intend them if you build them. You have to ask, “What would motivate this behavior?” (Ausland, 2005)

At the heart of what makes this work so challenging is that it is largely based on predicting and influencing human behavior, and if you’re human you know that merely knowing that something is good for you doesn’t necessarily make you do it.

Despite the uncertainty that characterizes the field I chose to become a development professional because I could feel the hunger of others, the pebbles under their bare feet and the shame brought on by their inability to read or write their own names. I chose it because I was a child with a dream who didn’t realize how fortunate she was that she had the “privilege” of dreaming. Have you ever considered that some children never dream? That some living conditions are so bleak that there is no room to even imagine a different existence? I believe dreaming is a human right, for if nothing else, one should be able to dream and get lost in the possibilities and the potential of one’s own life. So I am here essentially trying to help people cultivate their ability to dream – that’s how I choose to define it. 

Becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer

As I sit here amidst the candlelight, alone in a large dark compound, the protestant church blasting its music right outside, all I can think about is that I haven’t showered in almost two days. I haven’t showered since yesterday morning and for someone who normally showers twice a day this is as close to unbearable as it gets. Some people join the Peace Corps because they want a “legitimate” excuse not to shower, but I promise you I am not one of them. Yet the more time passes, the more I get used to life in Ethiopia - it is the human way. We, humans, adapt, period. We may have cognition and vivid memories of our pasts, but we have an incredible ability to adapt, to get over things, to grow.

So every time it gets close to unbearable I say to myself “Jay you’re growing, you’re growing.” I just hope all this growing doesn’t mean I’ll turn into another shower hating hippie with zero respect for other people’s nostrils – but one can only hope. I wanted to become a Peace Corps Volunteer for many reasons, some that I have forgotten and some that are no longer important. Over the years it became #1 on my exhaustive list of “Things I want to be when I grow up,” which has unabashedly included all of the following: composer, singer, Rihanna, business woman, journalist, news anchor, first female president of the Dominican Republic, lawyer, diplomat, professor, writer, Nobel Prize laureate, richest woman in the world and so on and so forth. Yet despite the large span of ubiquitously ego-satisfying titles I hoped to bear there remained one kernel of truth – I wanted to make a difference.

The desire to make a difference sparked before my age hit the double digits. Highly influenced by my grandfather Antonio Del Rosario, a man of God and service, and by my parents who made painstakingly bending their backs for others their religion, I wanted to be of service but I wasn’t sure how. Then in 2005 I got the opportunity to go to Mali for two weeks to assist in the building of an elementary school in a small village. I mixed cement for hours under the blazing West African sun, made cement blocks with my hands, and dug the foundation with a shovel I barely knew how to use. I worked so hard I broke down both physically and emotionally several times. It was one of the most trying experiences of my life and quite paradoxically also one of the most fulfilling; somehow I knew that experience would shape the rest of my life.

I enjoyed my time in Mali so much that I promised myself I would return to Sub-Saharan Africa someday to “help.” I was thinking about development but I had yet to be introduced to it as a concept. I kept my promise and studied abroad in Cameroon my junior year of college. I spent most of my time in Cameroon traveling and doing research. I studied Islam, education, gender inequality and development. I fell even deeper in love with my idea of Africa because Cameroon proved to be the perfect place to perpetuate all of my erroneous and highly romanticized notions of the continent as a whole. While there I met Peace Corps Volunteers and asked them tons of questions about what it was like to serve for 2 years. All of the feedback was positive, which is probably part of the reason 4 of the friends I went to Cameroon with and I are currently Peace Corps Volunteers serving Africa.

Although the journey to becoming a PCV took some time, I don’t think I have ever been more prepared for it. Not that I am particularly prepared, but I’m far more prepared than I ever have been. Interestingly enough, Ethiopia has proven to be nothing that I expected and so far has been the toughest country to both tackle and understand. Ethiopia was never colonized and it is apparent because it has kept so much of itself untouched by Western influence. Ethiopia has its own calendar, which has 13 months and is now in the year 2006. There are 12 hours in the Ethiopian day so figuring out the time is an obstacle course alone. Ethiopians eat with their hands and raw meat is a delicacy. One of the main dishes, “Kitfo,” is a raw meat dish served with a spicy red or green sauce. I am eager to try it but I am afraid my GI system isn’t quite ready for it. In short, as one of my friends explained, for the westerner “Ethiopia is more different than different.” Its authenticity is something that I appreciate in theory but has become hard to love in practice because it makes navigating it so much more difficult. When I came to the realization that after 3 months I hadn’t even begun to understand this historically rich, politically complex and extremely culturally diverse nation, all I could do was take a deep breath and remember… “Jay you’re growing, you’re growing.”