Respect

I'm not one for titles and subservience.  Ok, aged three I was dressed up in Welsh costume, held on shoulders for hours, and blew kisses to Prince Charles on his investiture tour round Wales. But that was many moons ago.  Aged 18 I worked for eight months in a German hospital, bemused at how in even the most trivial interaction with our head of department we needed her full title...'Frau Professor Doktor Schmidt, would you mind if I popped off to spend a penny now?'  And later, working with high flying German medical students, all with confident, imperious cut glass Oxford accents in this their second or third language, I used to have to lock myself in the store cupboard to do more deep breathing exercises to calm my butterflies after too long in this environment which, thanks to their voices, came over as far too rarefied for my comfort.

Its my background too. Quakers have a long and proud history of unruly defiance.  Believing that it matters to demonstrate that we are all equal in worth, all children of God, early Quakers were thrown into prison for refusing to doff hats to show respect to the King.  You doff your hat to God, otherwise not.  You call the Queen, Elizabeth Windsor and you show her the same respect as to the mentally ill homeless man, John Smith, on the street corner.  Of course hat-doffing is yet another custom which is less relevant nowadays, but I try to do my bit, telling our guards please to call me Catrin, not Madam or Memsahib. 'It's my religion' I add, to give it Kenyan weight. Of course in practice I'm 'you' or 'Mama' if they're speaking Swahili and think I can't understand.  But I think it matters - or at least it does to me.

So its interesting for me to learn of the experience of BigCorporate's student interns that I work with.  They are all highflyers, - top scoring girl and boy in their district at A level, - and each is given a well paid 18 month internship with BigCorporate, in their home districts, between school and university.  It offers work experience and they save half of their wages to help pay for their university studies.  A great opportunity, a foot on the ladder, I'd thought, but little more beyond that.  But now people know me better, they talk in greater depth.  One student told me how now, back in his home village, old men - the respected mzees of the community - bow to him.  He's 17 and only on work placement with BigCorporate.  But his exam success, his position in an office, the fact he wears a suit, well wow. 

And he's not the only one, others agree.  The wages earned by our student interns, generous, but not extravagent, have overturned family dynamics in many of their houses. They are now, for this 18 month period, the wage earner, the breadwinner of the household.  Not infrequently the first time a wage, rather than a handful of coppers from subsistence farming, have come into the household. They are the ones the community will turn to as the moneybags, the one who might be persuaded to buy a soda, to help fund this need or that project.  The student who frequently has never before had 500 Ksh - £5 - of their own in their hand is now earning more than a teacher in a state school.

Yes, in Africa, teachers are held in great respect. In Madagascar you bring your teacher, or your former teacher, a (live) chicken at Easter.  In Kenyan upcountry villages to call someone Mwalimu, Teacher, is to demonstrate great honour.  It's a respect for learning, - but for that learning personified in one human being. Or is it, here, respect for an access to money, a steady mealticket, a good gig?

It's not that I begrudge them their moments of glory, but it does leave me uneasy.  Uneasy that any society pays such inordinate respect as to bow to anyone. Especially to a sweet but spotty 17 year old.  I worked for four years in Brussels, administrative centre of the European Community.  For me it was a heady time, working in multicultural, multilingual, multitalented teams. Partying to salsa before it had reached Manchester, fado or toasting with brennevin. Everyone you bumped into was an expert on something - rocket technology, human rights in Albania, EU trade negotations in bananas and coffee.  But I bumped into many, midcareer, for whom the magic had faded. Who would really rather be doing something very different, back home maybe. But who felt they couldn't give up the very generous salaries earned at that time in the Golden Cage.

I've heard, though don't know if its true, that Eton, the UK school for the global teenage elite, have found a way round this.  Keen to recruit the best teachers, enthusiastic and at their peak, they offer a generous salary package. And keen to help those no longer at their peak to move on to enticing pastures new, they guarantee to make up your next salary to its former level for the three years after you leave them. So, if you feel teaching is no longer for you, or if you want to try your hand at honing that novel, Eton will supplement your garret earnings to encourage you to take the step, away from a disgruntled classroom and golden handcuffs, leaving them free to recruit someone new.  It matters that individuals feel they can step away from roles which restrict.

It matters too, I believe, that we validate more than just the position of power.  My first job in Brussels was as an intern with the Quaker Council of European Affairs.  We sought to lobby in the European institutions and NATO, to advocate, to research and coordinate on issues of interest to European Quakers.  The previous representatives, Nick and Ena, had been in post when Leon Britten, a fellow Brit, had taken up his post as one of the UK's lofty Commissioners.  Many had been the invitations he had received to welcome him to Brussels, from lobbying groups, from big corporations, - and also one from the Quaker Council.  When eventually he worked his way down the list, he came for a simple soup and salad lunch at our Art Nouveau offices. They had an interesting conversation. And Nick and Ena were interested in him and his doings.  Towards the end of the meal, bewildered policitian, he asked, 'Is there any agenda you wanted to bring to my attention through the lunch?' 'No, no, we just wanted to welcome you to Brussels. To make contact, to help you to feel at home.'  Naive, would say the corporate lobbyists.  But Leon Britten, so the story goes, really appreciated it.  Said this was the first time this had happened to him.  Human contact, valuing the individual, valuing more of them and their potential than the current, transitory, position.

I really understand the allure and attraction of a steady, generous income. Of basking in positve regard from your community.  But it worries me how this could unduly influence the choices our young interns will make next.  If all of Kenya is your oyster, but some choices are so endorsed by the community, will the Brightest and the Best devote their energies to the trickiest and most intractable issues in this society, as the next generation of social workers, community leaders and teachers?  What courage would it take to step aside and opt for something less well regarded?  In UK we call it the rainshadow effect of the City. That highly numerate or scientific graduates opt in their thousands for the well-paid financial markets, rather than the alternative options using their specialist skills, - engineering, biotechnology, academic research, teaching.  People have to be free to make their own choices. But I, as a minority of one, will be talking up the benefit to the community of those who coach, who inspire, who pick up the vulnerable, dust them down and set them back on their feet, who 'send the lift back down' as they say in France. Not to coerce or cajole, but just to articulate alternatives, and to show that different individuals in society bow in respect to different professions - the choice is yours.