Two worlds

I came to Bangladesh expecting to be thrust in the world of development, to live with squat toilets and dirty streets, and through it all, come to understand more about this field of global health and developing country work. And I have, a lot. But it seems I've come to spend the most time lately with people who come from, of all things, finance in New York and Ivy League families.

It's interesting to straddle these two worlds-- I remember very distinctly the other night, driving home from dinner in the monsoon, suave techno pulsing from the speakers and a conversation about American politics. "You live in Moghbazar?" was his initial reaction. Most Bangladeshis are slightly appalled I live in this neighborhood, at the hospital, where cholera patients sweat and moan in non-air conditioned wards and the nearest tailor specializes in making burkas. I live and work at DCH, but socially, rush into the arms of the expat clubs and a circle of Bangladeshi friends who have, for the most part, studied and worked (often in finance in New York) in the States. Now, I'm in the field in Pabna, where I work in the villages with field staff who have trouble with fifth grade math. I am staying with a lovely, lovely family and spending electricity-less evenings playing with kids and looking at wedding photos.

I appreciate very much both worlds, and I think a large part of that had to do with growing up for a few years in China. Street food, spitting, and smelly restrooms just don't have the same effect on me they would otherwise. That said, there's no doubt which of these worlds I would rather spend the bulk of my time. It's not hard to realize that working in development is more romantic on paper than it is in real life. Only in coming here, though, did I realize just how many people spend years and years of their lives toiling away on the bottom rungs of NGOs, doing work not too different from what I'm doing. Even when I think about some of my mentors, who run these organizations, I see they deal with the same frustrations of field staff who lie and fudge data, trying to provide clean water to people who refuse to believe their arsenic-contaminated tubewell can kill them, trying to streamline the most basic tasks so they will be accomplished in the field. These challenges require ingenuity to overcome, but ultimately, are these the kinds of problems I want to deal with every day? Don't I want to work with something on a higher level, surround myself with efficient, intelligent people and the comfort and beauty of an American city?

Then there is policy-- but how many people actually get to make the policy? And how many years will I spend working for next to nothing before I get to that opportunity? I think it all works out if you enjoy your work. And now, I do-- it was wonderful to see the field staff learn and take ownership of the water quality tests, and to know that I'm making a bit of a contribution to chlorination in Bangladesh. When I'm thirty-five, though, I want to be doing something much more. I have no doubt that global health is what I want to study during my Harvard career, and it is something that will probably interest me for the rest of my life. In terms of a career, though, I'll have to do a lot more exploring and searching. I hate to think that my passion here is not real enough or I can't "tough it out" but the truth is that the theoretical and the practical considerations of a day-to-day job are very different things.

The perfect career, the perfect balance, is hard to find if it even exists. I wish I were just really passionate about something more straightforward...say, finance in New York.