Cultural mediators

the final lines of my book......

It is done!

The final draft of my book is ready for professional editing, as it contains 140,328 words (377 A-4 pages) that require an external eye to improve it.

The other day, in a post I made for LinkedIn, a friend asked me to share the final words of my book.

Today, I’m sharing with you the whole final piece I wrote.

Enjoy it.

Cultural mediators

To conclude this introduction, I would like to highlight an essential figure in our mission.

We called them translators or assistants, but they were cultural mediators—people who helped us understand and be understood in places we didn't belong. They were there because we didn't speak the language or dialects, nor were we aware of the culture and customs of the place.

In highly insecure and volatile contexts such as our projects' locations, they were our ears, eyes, and even shields of reality. They faced the same risks and challenges as we did. Yet, they were there, protecting us, helping us pass the messages adequately so they were heard and not rejected, and accompanying us to meet various people that we probably never before had the chance or the desire to encounter, including politicians, authorities, military commanders, rebels' leaders, religious figures, and a long list of others.

Some of us delegated more duties than others; some connected deeply with them, while others had a transactional relationship during their mission period but never knew the person or their circumstances. However, they were crucial and indispensable in our daily project implementation tasks.

Some were hired long before we arrived and knew more about the project and specific tasks than they had previously studied or worked on. We hired some of them when opening a new project without knowing their experiences or affiliations, but we always assumed they would uphold the MSF principles of neutrality and impartiality.

In some places, I'm pretty sure they were under immense pressure from local authorities, including civil and police or military personnel, to act as informants about what they observed during our encounters with other actors. They hid this from us, trying to protect their jobs, families, colleagues, and even us from such a stressful situation. We must acknowledge and respect the immense pressure they endure in their roles.

In other cases, without our knowledge, they likely belonged to or worked closely with the Secret Service, the police, an armed group, the militias, or any other organization that felt the need to spy on our work.

Anyway, they were always important to have in our teams. Very often, we had many of them, but we hardly ever went without one. In places where we did not have them, because we all spoke the same language, we probably made several mistakes by lacking a person to mediate between us culturally, the international staff, and the local realities of life.

That's the magic that those cultural mediators made in our projects. They understood what was expected of them when we met with stakeholders and conveyed the message in a way that was both convenient and culturally accepted. Sometimes, they may have been less efficient or even used us for other agendas, but who wouldn't do that?

Sometimes, they become a firewall to the information we receive, a filter that modifies how we perceive reality, or move the attention towards a specific segment of the population, a tribe, or a group, taking us away from the values we stand for.

I won't mention their names here, but I would like to pay tribute to the cultural mediators who worked directly or closely with me on some of my missions and with whom we shared many fun, dangerous, and incredible experiences.

I'm grateful for their advice, camaraderie, and feedback that were crucial to fulfilling my roles and even, on more than one occasion, saving my life or my ass from getting into an unnecessary burden.