danielbaylis.ca

Daniel! I can totally relate and think that it is important to question the cost/benefit, especially if it means that your time in Scotland will not permit you to experience much of it. You sound truly burnt out and in need of some rejuvenating exploring and introspection. Are there any other options besides the two extremes of all or nothing? Can you take some days off? Work shorter days? I’m sure they’d rather have you some of the time than none of the time.

xo

Oh, I do love your blog and please keep writing about your adventures no matter how good or bad. Here’s to keepin’ it real!

Tough read. It almost feels (to me) like you are searching for the ultimate experience, over thinking it, instead of being in the moment. Sure, people are fantastic and amazing and nourishing for the soul. Although all of this may seem pointless or just kinda flaky/superficial, those entertainers depend on press to make a living. You are contributing to their well being.

That being said, I agree with the reflections about working long hours because things need to get done. That is more a problem with the organization that expects too much and whose structure depends on people who do not object to this type of labour. In the end of the day, the work that gets done is often shitty and not very professional and the organization suffers as a result.

I think that it might be a “juxtaposition” thing. You’ve done alot of super “meaningfully” altruistic postings for people who have much less than people priveleged enough to be in Scotland running a artsy festival have. Perhaps you shifted gear too fast? To quick a jump from the ‘have nots’ to the ‘haves’? Perhaps you’ve changed? perhaps this was something the “Pre-7-months of world travel Daniel” would have thrived on, but the “in-the 8th month” Daniel isn’t valuing?

Also – you could write a “debriefing report” at the end of the festival letting organizers know what works and what doesn’t work in their system and what some possible fixes are for next year that might make it “better”. Perhaps your task is to analyse and make next year better. Post it in your blog too as a “lessons learned” piece.

Something else you need to put into context is that you’ve been travelling for 8 months. Personally I love to travel, but after a period of time (no matter how connected electronically I am) I just want to be home surrounded by my stuff and ‘the familiar’. Travelling is fun, educational, spiritual, and all those sorts of thngs, but it is also stressful, exhausting, and draining. Perhaps you’ve “hit a wall”? Do you need to just step back and regroup?

You expected to grow and change in this year away, but there is no way to anticipate what forms that growth would take, nor how the experiences would affect you. I recall you writing about how you expected this year to be difficult; now it is.

Maybe there’s a way to stop working a few days before your departure so as to get some needed rest and more time to see the city.

On the other hand the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. From my perspective sitting here with a miserable cold in August, I’m thinking that you’ll probably get to see some interesting plays that people here in Montréal will never get to see and along the way you may even meet some interesting actors and playwrights.

For others working with the organisation (the few quasi-permanent ones) it is, probably only the month of August that is so frenetic and the other 11 months probably move at a decidedly slower pace. For every 12 or 15 hour day in August, there’s probably a Thursday in February when they can cut out of work at 4 p.m. sharp. As for the volunteers, well many of them could be staying on in Scottland after the festival to take in the sights. Others may have started a few weeks before you, so their longer tenure might give them a great sense of involvement and ownership in the festival. Still other volunteers will want to put this experience on a resumé. Because of your very original situation, those benefits may not accrue to you.

Nevertheless, when you were moving out of France, I’m seem to recall that you warned us all that you would be subject to a crazy work load. I don’t think that you can be surprized that it indeed materialised. However your deduction to the effect that if you do your job well, then the system will just perpetuate itself is probably correct, In response, I like Gingerspark’s suggestion of a debriefing memo or conversation at the end or your work there.

Chronic underfunding of the arts and a lack of recognition of the economic benefits and cultural richness they bring to society – (hence a chronic under payment of people who work supporting the arts), are all serious problems,… especially in Canada where art is increasingly censored to please the political purposes of hostile funders. So I’m not sure that volunteering in a Finge festival in Canada would have turned out to be any more humane or volunteer friendly than what you’re currently experiencing in Edinburgh.

I can only imagine that with the riots in England earlier this month, getting space and attention in the press and attention from the public has been more difficult than usual.

I can appreciate the fact that you are tired. I once read a travelogue from a man who had travelled across the Pacific on freighter. The ship changed approximately one time zone a day and it took about 14 days to get across. He described cumulative and extreme exhaustion. Although the time zone analogy is not perfect, the fact that you pull up stakes every month and move to a totally different environment / language / culture and job has got to be exhausting. On the list of the most stressful human activities, moving ranks high on the list, so you’re probably experiencing cumulative stress.

Volunteerism is not indentured slavery, so if you want to quit or reduce your hours you can negotiate this at any time. And if you should start to do work in a deliberately sub-standard way because you are angry at the hyper-demands of the work environment, then you should definitely get out of there because you would be doing neither yourself nor your colleagues any favour.

To me, the opportunity looks interesting, (the grass is always greener) but I’m contemplating it as only one month of engagement and not as the 8th consecutive month of completely disparate experiences.

In the end, I have faith that you’ll make the decision that is right for you.

Travelling vicariously thanks to you – a big thank you!!!

/David T.

Hi Daniel,

I hesitated to write this because I think I’ve already been one of the more verbose responders. Finally however over much internal debate, I decided to give it a shot. I have no idea if it’s pertinent or not so you can feel free to throw this pop psychology idea of mine in the rubbish bin.

In the year 2000 I went to the International AIDS Conference in Durban S.A. The conference was well run, I got to hear and see Mandela speak and I met with many energetic people working to promote prevention and secure medication for patients on a continent being overrun by a fearsome epidemic. We visited the city including the bustling African Market where in addition to produce, meat, traditional medicines and sorceresses, I also saw desperately poor and ill people living and possibly nearly dying in the street. At the conference I met people living with HIV who were running out of time, needed medicine and were from countries where it was not available or alternatively, was prohibitively exhpensive. I occasionally witnessed and heard incidents of racism that were so blatant they took my breath away. And I felt honoured when on one occasion a parent living in Durban asked for my advice or for information about HIV testing in regard to their child who had been raped.

I had a poignant, interesting and respectful encounter with a man in a Shebeen in Cato Manor Township and I will remember his name and face until the day I die.

Later we travelled to Swaziland, a beautiful country with friendly and helpful citizens.

At the time, near the centre of Manzini there was a garbage tip on a hillside. The edges were surrounded by ditches lined with outhouses up above and the water in the ditches didn’t look or smell that great. Houses lined the edges of the tip which was perpetually smoking as the garbage continually burned. Through dense clouds of foul smelling smoke I could see adults and many children crawling across the face of the dump. They looked like spiders in some kind of hellish inferno. They were searching for items to recycle. They scavenged cardboard, plastics, and metals. On a hilltop not far away was a luxury shopping plaza where people arrived in BMWs to purchase gold jewellery in air-conditioned comfort.

It needs to be repeated that much of Swaziland was truly beautiful and the citizens were kind and friendly. But the image of those people and in particular the children scavenging across a large field of burning garbage 10s of metres high remains burned into my memory to this day.

At the time when I travelled there, I remained stoic and intent on learning and observing as mush as possible. However, when I came back to Montréal, I felt listless and depressed. Nothing in Montréal seemed important to me. My point is that I didn’t go through culture shock while I was in South Africa. On the contrary, it stimulated me constantly and evoked strong emotional expriences that I was happy to live through. Instead, I think that I went through culture shock when I returned to Montréal and the depression and shock only began several weeks after my arrival here. I began to question whether what I was doing was important at all.

You had a eventful, traumatic and rich experiences in Capetown. You have also described for us the difficult challenge that certain aspects of travel in Morrocco presented to you. Could it be possible that having returned to a more traditional volunteer experience in a northern environment, you are finally experiencing some culture shock associated with transitioning back into the hyper-demanding work associated with promoting what is after all primarily entertainment (and of course art) ? Should that be the case, I cannot offer any prescription for a remedy. I only pose the question in case it helps you to reflect on what what you might be going through.

Or you can take this message and throw it in the garbage can maked 5 cent psychology .

Kindest regards,

/David T.

What a limp aresed dick you are. The hundreds of people that applied for your position to work at the festival have basically been let down by a vain and lazy fool. I have know and seen the comadery that growns out of this fesitival and the expericnce that can be gained by jjst working hard and then living and partying hard. There are people who can hack it and then there are people that can’t can’t and I am glad to say that after working for this fesival for over 15 years, many of them with the PLeasnce – people like you have been weeded out. Take a hard look at your ethics and stop making out that they are greater than what they are – you would have been a bigger man had you stuck it out and learnt from it. You didn’t. You kinda failed.