Hot midday sun is shining directly at us when we get out of the car. Our driver has taken us - me, my Costa Rican colleague and our Scottish consultant - to a rural farm in Nicaragua. We are visiting one of our beneficiaries, a man who got a biodigester through a joint program managed by my organization, another development organization and a dozen of local companies, assisted by a consulting firm, verified by a standard association and funded by a couple of governments. Rule number one about international development is that there are tons of stakeholders involved. Often my work is simply shooting around emails to make sure everyone involved knows what is going on what they are supposed to be doing.
The man shows us around his farm; the cows whose dung is used to produce biogas, the biodigester itself, and the stove and lamp which are fueled by biogas. His family no longer cooks with open fire, saving them time of collecting firewood and money of buying LPG, as well as preventing them from inhaling harmful air particles. The man proudly tells that now, after several empty years, his precious tree is again producing many fruits, thanks to using the digester leftover slurry as fertilizer. He tells that he could chop off the tree and sell it for good money, but instead he keeps it to show biodiversity to his children. I have a smile on my face. This is the first time I am on the field seeing how our biogas programs truly help poor people in developing countries. I feel that all the excel calculations, Skype conversations and process graphs I produce at the office have true meaning in the improved lives of faraway people.
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| Noni fruit (I guess) |
Then the man takes us to a building where he hands us delicious dark chocolate. He explains that he grows cocoa beans at a nearby field and with a few hand-used machines produces chocolate of them. Unfortunately he cannot afford to license his chocolate to distribute it to shops. We do not get to meet his wife or children, because they live in the nearest city due to the children's schooling. Instead his neighbors come over every evening to cook also their meals with the biogas stove. I am glad our work schedule allowed for this one day outside. Just like in any other job, my work trips are mostly about meeting rooms, hotels, conferences and restaurants. Those trips are intense, interesting, motivating and useful, but also very tiring. I ask my manager to go on them, and then I enjoy getting back home.
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| Chocolate production machine |
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| COP21 in Paris |
I really like my work. It is not about money (I get paid half less than in my previous job) but it is about important world issues, intellectual and social challenges, motivated colleagues and new innovations. The international development sector is inspirational and full of ambitious professionals, from whom a newbie like me learns something new content related each day. On the other hand, at pragmatic level I have knowledge to share. Project management, marketing, process development, budgeting and strategy work are similar at companies and NGOs. I believe that by utilizing my previous experience, quickly gaining sector expertise and efficiently networking, I can succeed if I want to. However, even more important than public recognition is the everyday joy my work brings me. For the first time ever, I like going to work in mornings. Even during a climbing trip in Spain I felt tempted to reply to work emails. That is quite something.
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| With colleagues at food truck festival |
