Welcome to my blog!

Welcome to my blog! I am Siobhan, I just graduated university, I work at an international development nonprofit based out of Zambia.

It was not my New Year’s resolution to start a blog. This has been a long time in the coming—ever since I moved to Zambia and Let’s Go deleted my Morocco travel blog. I realized if I had time to get to Rank 7 on Hearthstone, I had time to do something marginally more productive.

At this point, this blog will mostly focus on life in Zambia (because that is what all seven of you readers care about) and economic development. Outside of that, my top interests are currently: theology/philosophy, cooking, running, fun animal facts, and a certain online card game. So they will probably appear.

Writing about development is difficult. It’s paralyzing to write on any topic outside your own experiences, because there are always people out there who know loads more than you and have all legitimate grounds to criticize and dismiss what you say—so why even talk? For development, specifically, I worry about engaging in conversation. I showed up at my office five months ago and everyone knew so much: they’d gone to grad school and had been doing legitimate things in the sphere for years. I showed up straight off an all-humanities semester and had no idea who heads the World Bank or what the chickens vs. cash debate is. It was intimidating.

But I’ve been realizing that it’s all about audience. In my office, I’m knowledgeable about Christian theology, which was not true in the context of my university’s Christian theology magazine. To the non-development, non-Zambia world, I’m knowledgeable about Zambia and economic development—or, at least, know enough to begin a conversation.

A conversation has to start somewhere. I can explain how to buy a car in Zambia, randomized control trials, and chickens vs. cash. I can share some interesting stuff about the problem of evil and marine mammals.

So if anything mentioned above is something you’d like to talk about, do stick around!