Three Cups of Tea Aren't Always Enough

If one were not paying close attention, Xining, the capital of Qinghai, would look as though it were inhabited by bands of Native Americans wearing cowboy hats.

Young 'cowboys' after playing with camera (they took some pretty good pictures of me too). Photo: Scot Frank.

Upon closer inspection, however, it would become apparent that these were various minorities wearing a wide range of traditional clothing, and that the image of 'Cowboys & Indians' was one projected onto locals due to our familiarity with Country Western movies.

Woman in traditional headdress. Photo: Scot Frank

Throughout our history in this region, there have been many such misperceptions, both on our part and that of the local communities. For example, we once spent a week evaluating drinking water well installments in a nomadic winter settlement where water was extremely scarce. One of our team members declined to wash his face on the first day in order to save water. His home-stay family thought that washing was against his culture and proceeded not to offer him water for the rest of the week. After several days, he felt so dirty that he washed his face with his canteen water. One of the village children saw this and ran back to his family shouting, “The foreigner is washing his face! The foreigner is washing his face!”

Such misunderstandings are inevitable when projects cross cultures but, having guided several teams of students through international field work, our experience is that these misunderstandings can have humorous rather than deleterious outcomes if students follow a select set of guidelines.

To the seasoned international traveler or development worker, these guidelines may seem obvious, but we hope that they will be useful to newcomers looking to form connections and build trust in unfamiliar lands.

How can students attempting international projects during a single winter or summer vacation hope to make a positive (rather than a negative) impact?

1) Engage in change for the right reasons. When you begin an international project, make sure that you honestly want to help others and are not just engaging because you feel pity, superiority, or distaste for another's way of life, or because that's what all your friends are doing. Since we are all connected through the earth we share, we cannot survive without helping other living beings. So, help others because that is our only choice.

2) Orient yourself to the culture. It's not a passive process. This is the age of the Internet (digital natives galore). There is no excuse for not knowing the historical and cultural context of the communities with which you are working. Please take the initiative to be an active learner and don't be afraid to ask questions both before and after you arrive. Otherwise, you and your local partners are in for a not-so-healthy dose of culture shock.

3) Communicate, check for precedent, and support local projects. If you are working on a development project, find out about similar projects that others have done in your region. Contact them for background on the topic and potential collaborations. These people can help you while you're on the ground. If possible, establish contact with community members beforehand, but don't expect this to mean that you can forego formalities on the ground.

4) Practice cultural sensitivity, respect, and awareness. Obliviousness will earn you no friends when you arrive in the midst of a new culture. Stay aware of your surroundings, take your cues from others' behavior, and—to start out with—err on the side of  sensitivity and respect rather than informal overtures of friendship.

5) Always ask permission and heed advice. If you want to do something that you don't see others doing, please ask for permission first. If your hosts say no, don't do it. Please use common sense.

6) Have a polite default option. Inevitably, you will find yourself in situations in which you have no idea what to do. Have a back-up plan, the polite option that you fall back on whenever the 'correct' option is not clear. It's important that you try.

7) Respect host culture, but don't let go of your own (they'll find it entertaining). If you pretend that you're a local, you'll be disappointed in yourself and others will see you as false. Just be yourself and respect your hosts. We are all people, and most of us are pretty forgiving. Your unusual thoughts and behaviors will provide entertainment in the absence of television.

8 ) Have clear and realistic expectations about your own role. You cannot save the world by yourself. Accept this and work with local people to find out how you can realistically contribute to the efforts that they are already undertaking.

9) Know your field instruments and procedures. If you are doing field research, it is best to be familiar with your equipment beforehand. Read the instructions (and bring a copy). Try using your equipment a few times to make sure its working. Familiarize yourself with operating parameters and storage/transportation precautions. Practice working with any necessary software. You don't want any equipment to explode or malfunction.

For the sake of data analysis, be sure to decide on a systematic data recording plan beforehand. Come up with a consistent labeling scheme for samples (make sure your permanent markers don't run in the rain; the black color is most permanent). Keep a field notebook with dates, times, GPS locations, photo filenames, and other relevant notes. Setting up equations ahead of time ensures that you don't forget to record any key information.

10) Prep translators so that you know that you're getting the right point across. Avoid sending the wrong message by working with your translators ahead of time to make sure that they have understood the nature of your work and questions.

11) No false promises. Do what you say you'll do and promise no more. You cause more harm by promising to come back with a solution and not showing up than you do by admitting that you are not sure whether you will be able to come back.

12) Familiarize yourself with the range of solutions that others have implemented in the situation you are investigating. When you discover the cause of a problem (e.g. bacterial contamination in a water source), be ready to tell the community about the ways that others have addressed this problem and what options have worked under which circumstances.

13) Don't proffer solutions with certainty unless you are certain about them. If you know that a certain solution is absolutely the best one, great! Usually, however, this is not the case. Communicate as much as you know about possible solutions, but be honest about your uncertainty and, in many cases, your lack of expertise.

14) Don't begin a project unless there is a plan for continuity. Follow-through and continuity are imperative to project success and creating positive impact. It's not enough to characterize a problem. You must take the next step to facilitate the implementation of an appropriate solution. If you can't continue the project yourself, find someone locally who can and partner with them.

We hope that this list of guidelines will help you create positive impact in the world. Sharing three cups of tea is often not enough, but there are concrete steps you can take to channel your time, patience, and altruism into building friendships and partnerships rather than burning bridges (even if unintentional).

We want to build this into a good guideline list for newcomers to international development. Please let us know what we've missed or gotten wrong.

One Earth Designs (OED) was founded in 2007 by Catlin Powers and Scot Frank ( OED website; OED blog; OED facebook page; Twitter @OneEarthDesigns). Catlin will post on Mondays and Wednesdays. You can also find her on Twitter @CatlinPowers.