Why?

Something that's been really bothering me lately is the reason why I'm here. For over fifty years, Northern people have come to the South with the intention of direct, positive change (large or small), but the bigger impact always seems on making the Northerner a better person/learning. That seems greedy to me and I'm part of this culture. EWB wants to foster better leaders in engineering, in Canada, in development, wherever.. but is this just another resource being plundered from Africa? We're abusing the South's hospitality by taking our experiences home and making the North a better place.

I guess this is connected to how powerless I sometimes feel, here in Zambia. The institutional and government/international constraints are enourmous. There are just so many things that make this country a broken system, including past aid and current aid. Everyone may have their own opinion of how to fix Africa, but I sometimes feel like all our efforts and learning based on those efforts still are not leading us to that end goal.

I know that I can have a really small positive impact on the people I interact with, and who I work for/with. What does that accomplish? Is that all I'm capable of here? My IDE district is relatively successful, and I don't really know how to improve the field staff. They have their own challenges that I can help with, but blah! I'm a little lost. But just stuck in a rut that I'll work myself out.