The other day, my friend and I fell into a conversation about the the social network of Foreigners in Addis Ababa. Every corner you turn, every street you cross, every supermarket you shop at, every restaurant you dine-in, you will most likely see a foreigner. We are a plentiful bunch. After all, Addis is the NGO and diplomatic hub of Africa.
I was sharing with my friend that it seemed to be quite difficult to find ‘real’ friends or connect in selfless ways here. Surely, I have my network of different groups of friends, but how many of those would do things for me without expecting anything in return. Or, how many would actually genuinely care about my well-being. Hmm…a handful.
It’s a very intriguing social dynamic. You have the foreigners who work here on long-term contracts as diplomats, businessmen/women, consultants etc.; and you have the short-term foreigners, who are usually interns, graduate students, volunteers etc. Those who have been here a while are more often than not, lonely. They see their friends come and go while they’re here permanently. The latter group is here for a relatively short duration, so loneliness usually doesn’t creep in. Most of us have traveled here alone, not part of any specific group or team of people, thus we all eagerly try to build our social network. We try to be everyone’s friend, just in case one day, we’ll need a favor. That’s the basis of networking isn’t it? You can meet the World here, so why not, right? There’s nothing wrong with successful networking, but I ask myself all the time, can’t we just be ‘real’ friends? Call me naïve, but I want a network of friends; not a network of acquaintances.
The thing is all of the newbies here are very similar in fact. We are a plentiful bunch, and a bunch with extremely similar personalities. Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism, OCEAN, are the broad factors of The Big Five personality traits. A known descriptive model of personality (by the way I had the coolest prof for Personality). It is evident that it takes a special personality, a specific concoction of OCEAN, from abroad to work and survive in Addis. And frankly, we all have similar traits. We live in a social vacuum.
We have variable doses of the same traits, but undoubtedly we are uber high in Openness and Extraversion. The other three broad factors vary from individual to individual, but essentially we are all very similar. One would think everyone must be everyone’s best friend since we have so much in common. Well, imagine you were in a room with clones of yourself, sort of like Mr. Anderson from the film Matrix 3 (oh, Keanu :p), do you think you could be lovey-dovey 100% of the time? All I’m saying is that there is definitely tension in the air and a lot of fakers in the workplace and social scene. Though there are those who are not the most genuine people in the world, on the flip side, there are plenty of people who I know I can trust and genuinely care for.
In the Bible, it says to bring JOY even to the LONELY. Easier said than done. It has to start with yourself. Frankly, we are all lonely, and only God can fill us with real JOY. Joy is infectious. I have seen and experienced it. However, my personal struggle is to overflow with joy every single day; not just 80% of the time, but all the time. I can only be accountable for my own actions, so I will continue to strive to be as joyful and genuine as I can be, even towards those of us who choose not to.
It’s a choice. You always have a choice.
Filed under: Africa, Ethiopia, Life, Photography, Thoughts, Travel, Big Five Personality Traits, Ethiopia, God, networking, spirituality
the BIGGER picture 