Five Weeks In

I'm finishing up my 5th week at my new position, and I'm exhausted. It's a challenging job, more challenging than I ever anticipated it would be. A few people have said this to me when they found out about my professional background: "You used to work on airplanes and jet engines? Then working on cookstoves should be easy, right?" 

Not really. It might even be more difficult! So I'm sitting here now, trying to digest the past month, trying to understand the stress I feel in this new position. What makes it challenging are the various social and technical factors that are being thrown at me all at once. The learning curve is one of the steepest I've had to face.

First, I am a foreigner with limited Indonesian-language skills. This is not a new struggle, and I believe that every fellow in my position has gone through this. But that does not make my current challenge any less real, any less impacting. It's making me think a lot about how much I take English for granted, how much I take communication for granted. My voice, my ability to make conversation, my ability to make people laugh and smile, especially in a work environment, has always been one of my strengths. And now I am forced to express my personality in a completely new way, using a language in which I am not yet fluent. 

It's not easy. Sometimes I don't even feel like myself.

Secondly, I've had to come to terms with my identity as an engineer. To put my role as a VIA fellow here simply: I am here to offer whatever skills I have, whether it's my fluency in English, my ability to write and think critically, or my background in engineering. But the truth is, the extremely high expectations that come with that title, Engineer -- especially one who is fluent in English -- has created (what I feel to be) enormous pressure, with perhaps unrealistic expectations, on me and my role with the organization. Without getting into the messy details, let's just say that cookstove-science is really quite political, with fragmented bits of information and expertise floating around the world. Trying to piece together these many bits is like trying to read the minds of many scientists AND social scientists, some who are OVERLY technical (thereby losing me in their scientific jargon on matters in which I have limited background), and others who are not technical enough. My technical co-workers are great and are helping me understand some things, but other matters are a puzzle. What I need is a mentor, but I don't have that. Without a proper technical mentor to ease me into this world, it's a lot to take on.

But I'm trying my best.

Amidst it all, I'm trying my best, and I'm learning a lot, even if the information is fragmented. I really think that I could be good at the job given time, especially once I've come to terms with these two things: language (for ease of communication with my co-workers), and my role (as an engineer and non-engineer).

Truth is, I don't want to just be the foreigner and the engineer. I want to be one of them, a colleague who can communicate and ask the right questions. I want to be the multi-skilled individual, and I want to be given a chance to prove myself in areas outside of the technical. I've done the uber-engineering thing, and I want to branch out. That's why I came out here. I want to know about NGO budgeting. I want to branch into the social sciences. I want to be able to talk to the citizens we are supposedly helping and working with. 

Perhaps you could think of these things as goals. This entry was not meant to be a long rant, and I hope it's not taken that way. It's just that today was a particularly interesting day, and since I haven't yet written about my new position, here it is… in all its candidness. 

I am uncomfortable. I am unsure of myself. But I am hopeful.