Erin Tansey - A Life without Borders

I am fascinated by how a person’s perspective can change throughout their life. I once saw a series of macro photography, where all of these everyday objects were magnified to such an extent that the object became unrecognisable. It is only when the photographer zoomed out, that you could eventually begin to identify what the subject really was. In the same respect, came my deep appreciation for Erin Tansey. To me, she had always been Erin, who had given me one of my first reading books (on the subject of monkeys). Because I was never very aware of her professional life whilst I was a child, she had become familiar to me – like the object before it is magnified. The lens of a camera can easily be explained using the basis of aperture, or depth of field. The aperture of a camera determines how much light is let through the lens, and thus, how the camera focuses itself onto its subject. In the same way, this principal can also be applied to life. Take, for instance, my life – Smooch Africa is my lens, through which I magnify people’s stories. I have known Erin as far back as I can remember, but through the blog, she has also become something different, and beautiful in her own right. Through my lens, I saw her as an objective person, and this completely changed the way in which I see her.

Erin has worked for USAID for nearly two years as a senior project development specialist, and her job entails developing and designing programmes that the US government implements as part of their international assistance programme. She has worked on a variety of different project topics such as education, environmental awareness and counter-wildlife trafficking. Prior to her position at USAID, she has also worked with the World Food Programme and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. In a humanitarian capacity, she has travelled to countless countries, glimpsing all that humanity has to offer. Having coffee with her, it was almost incomprehensible that one person had seen so much, and in turn, done so much to the situations of the people with whom he has come into contact.

But I wanted to hear the story behind the story… what moulded Erin to be the inspirational woman that was sitting in front of me today? As it turns out, Erin’s life has always been full of adventure. Although originally born in Canada, when she was 14, her family moved to Kathmandu in Nepal for her father’s work on a Canadian development project expanding Nepal’s hydroelectric capacity. Because the international school in Kathmandu ended in grade 9, Erin and her brother were sent to boarding school in India… 700 kilometres away, and the full span of the Himalayan mountains in between her and her family. The international school was made up of 1/3 Indian citizens, 1/3 Americans, and the rest were people from all over the world. She cites the mix of cultures as a major influence on her life, and although the experience was difficult for her in its isolation, she made some very good friends, with whom she still keeps in contact. “From that point on, I realised that I needed to have an international life; a life where I was constantly in contact with other countries. It had a huge impact on me.” Even though Erin was only in the boarding school for a year, it was enough to set her on the path to becoming a citizen of the world.

I listen, absolutely captivated, as she begins the story of visiting Chad during the conflicts between Chad and Darfur. She acted as the emergency team leader for the assessment team, to judge what the most pressing needs were at that current stage. The land was gripped in a drought, and Erin tells the terrifying tale of seeing this at face value. “There were animal carcasses all over the place,” she tells me, “and I realised that each animal carcass was the life of a family. They just died. There was a whole NGO that was only dedicated to picking up animal carcasses so disease wouldn’t spread.” The humanitarian organisations working on the situation had set up camp in a hospital building in Northern Chad, where there was no running water. “We got our water that we bathed with off of a donkey’s back, off of these huge sacs. The water was the colour of mud, with little fishes swimming around in it…and we didn’t even have the worst of it.”

However, this was not even the tip of the iceberg. When I ask the question about what country has touched her the most, she begins to paint the picture of an excursion she took with the World Food Programme (WFP) to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2015. They stayed in a town called Bukavu, and as she describes all that they have seen, I am dumbfounded, to say the least. She tells me about how they visited a hospital set up exclusively for women with gynaecological problems; the result of the sexual violence happenings, and a rehabilitation for child soldiers between the ages of 12 to 18. The WFP were responsible for providing food to the hospitals, Erin explains to me, because in many hospitals in Africa, the families of the patients bring the food, which is a big problem if the patients don’t have families. But the single story that broke her heart, is the same one that broke mine. On the same trip, the WFP provided food to a place of safety for homeless children run by Catholic nuns. There, they taught the children skills like cooking over an open fire, woodwork, and literacy. “Well anyway, There was a hostel there, and there was this one little boy who was my son’s age.” Erin continues. “He was just the most gorgeous kid, all smiles, and he was the only little boy who was staying in this hostel. It was so bare, you know – dirt floor, metal bed, one of those rough army blankets. It turned out that his mom and dad had divorced, and she had remarried. The new husband didn’t want the son. Can you imagine the position that the woman must have been in, to make that kind of choice? I can’t imagine being her. For two years afterwards, I couldn’t speak about it without crying.” Erin has experienced the world at its rawest, and what I respect about her, is that she can actually say that she has done something to change that situation. The empathy that she retains for the people that she has worked with astounds me. When she speaks about her work, it is always with an undertone of wanting to help, to show her children the value of helping others.

And through it all, Erin’s character stands like a boulder, a monument to testify the person that she is. Throughout the interview, she reiterates the importance of being a good role model to her two young children, as her mother was to her. “For me, work is something that I enjoy. I would rather be working than not working, and I can’t imagine not working. Even if I won a few million dollars or something, I wouldn’t just stop working and garden, or whatever. I don’t even like gardening. You have to live for something else, and there are so many people out there that need help of some kind.” Erin has now lived in South Africa for 15 years, and between her full-time job and raising her two children, I think it’s fair to say that we shouldn’t rule out the conclusion that Erin might actually be Superwoman… after all, I’ve never seen them in the same room together.

In conclusion, I’ve taken the camera and looked through the lens at a person that I thought I knew, but as soon as my view was put into context, I realised that the Erin that I knew was in fact not even an inkling of the woman that she truly is. There is a famous quote by Mahatma Ghandi that came into my mind even before I met Erin for coffee, whilst I was researching her to formulate the questions I intended to ask. The quote reads, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in service of others.” If this is true, then unlike most other people in the world, Erin knows

exactly who she is. She is the product of the seeds she has sown in the lives of others, without ever expecting anything in return.