Everybody´s switching to Mango

The last few weeks at Stanford before my departure for Uganda saw me struggling between a political theory paper I had to finish, a comprehensive exam I had to pass and a field paper I had to submit and re-submit. The demands and expectations of early graduate school took their toll on me and the existential crisis that seems to have become a rite of passage in academia broke out as I submitted the fifth version of my field paper and hopped on a plane to Kampala. Why the hell am I in grad school? Why in the world am I putting myself through a career in a field where it is so painstakingly difficult to produce good work and so ridiculously easy to deconstruct others´? I entered grad school without expectations, knowing only that I could write and that I enjoyed reading. By the time I completed my second year, I wasn´t even sure I knew how to think for myself anymore. So I welcomed this summer of mini-field work with an MTV Real World flavor as an opportunity to find some inspiration and some answers to the big questions; not those "how do I save the world" type questions – although it would be nice to figure that one out while I´m at it as well – but the "why am I in grad school again" type questions. If the 20s are indeed the new teens, I was certainly going through a puberty crisis again.

I turned in my field paper. I left Stanford. I arrived in Kampala, my spirits a tad down but my mind and heart wide open. If I was looking for inspiration and answers, I was certainly taking the perfect trip for it – into the heart of a developing country and four young scholars´ ever-burgeoning minds.

Inspiration – it has come in fits and spurts. It´s the ritual morning Ugandan handshakes and smile I get from the local staff, who know nothing of pre-coffee moodiness. It was Daniel´s smile and nod at 6 in the morning as he opened the gate. It´s a stranger walking out of her way for half a kilometer to direct me to her local council leader´s office and send me off with a hug and four kisses. It´s the astonishment on the matatu conductor´s face when I yelp out the bit of Lugandan I have learned, like "masao" (stop) or "webale sebo" (thank you sir). It´s the delight in a child´s eyes when the mzungu that I am turns around and waves back. It´s stories of how participants in our project´s experiments will use their games´ earnings to pay their school fees or to care for their orphan grandchildren. As Jeremy says, if nothing else, this project will have provided some income redistribution. It´s the excitement in the et als´ eyes when the first regressions turn up statistically significant. There are a myriad subtle reasons to be inspired; maybe we just look too hard to see them sometimes.

Answers – those are few and far between. Ironically enough, though, it was the most laborious and intensive week yet that offered one up to me. Data sorting reached record levels and my mind had grown numb by the end of the day, my only relief being a boda boda ride to the gym with the sun setting behind me. And yes, it´s in the middle of that data sorting misery that I caught a glimpse of one answer – or at least a story I could tell myself whenever the existential crisis would start to creep in again. It was Monday night. I had worked all afternoon on data sorting, going slightly mad by dinner time. After dinner, Jeremy, Macartan and James came back to the dataset scene with me, sat down, and started ripping envelopes open and counting coins with me. The five of us sat on the floor, ripping open envelope after envelope, organizing and cleaning up the information as Tracy Chapman sang to us from Nathan´s i-tunes and we all hummed along to "Fast Car"... assistant professor, graduate student, undergrad. It was beautiful.

So why am I putting myself through the trials and tribulations of academia? Because it seems to me there is no other career path ever so humbling. Sure, you´re a hot shot 30-year old assistant professor at Stanford or Columbia who kicked some butt at Harvard graduate school; yet you are still sitting on your butt at 11 p.m. on a Monday night in Kampala, opening little manila envelopes and counting money to the rhythm of Tracy´s sorrowful tunes.

Maybe I´m wrong. Maybe this holds true only pre-tenure. Maybe academia is a place where a few become incredibly lucky and arrogant while the rest struggle resentfully. But I´d like to think – and part of me really believes – that this kind of journey, the one where you count data, run regressions and discuss grand ideas all in one day, will keep me humble.

I was promoted to middle management by Wednesday when the et als hired three local staff to help out with the data sorting madness. It was fun to manage tasks and processes rather than envelopes and coins. And it was incredibly revitalizing to chat and joke around with Susan, Alex K. and Ben about Congolese cuisine (monkey), the upcoming political referendum on multipartyism, tacky places where Bazungu congregate in this town, and how everyone is switching to Mango cell phone service in East Africa.

So field work is ups and downs. It´s highs and lows. It´s the high of a great insightful interview in the morning and the low of data hell in the afternoon. It´s the high of new, higher level tasks one minute and the low of the stench and the color of Ugandan Shilling coins on my fingers. It´s feeling like a grand idealistic theorizing intellectual in one conversation and a data sorting monkey the next. And by extrapolation I suppose it´s the high of a new research idea in September and the low of its complete deconstruction from March to June. It´s all of it. Exactly the kind of reality checks that motivate me to sort a little faster and think a little deeper.