A flirt with democracy

Since June 2003 Mette Frost Bertelsen has been working for MS as an analysis adviser in the organisation IPADE in Nicaragua.

By Mette Engel Friis

31. January 2004

She is young. She is blonde. When she walks down the passage in the big assembly hall, there is more than one man who tries to flatter her with a quick remark.

“Hola, amor” – hello, my darling. “Mira, chela” – one moment, blonde lady. Mette Frost Bertelsen is used to the flattering remarks. By now.

“Nicaraguan men flirt a lot. At work as well on the street. It took some time to get used to it because I feel it is strange to flirt at a workplace,” says Mette Frost Bertelsen, who has worked as analysis adviser in the organisation IPADE in Nicaragua since June 2003.

“I decided quite quickly to respond a little along the way but, at the same time, I draw very clear lines. I accept their culture, but I also want to have my own integrity,”

And that is clearly respected.

Mette Frost Bertelsen stood and chatted with a colleague during a break in a meeting. Following the mandatory preliminary flirting, he resorts to a serious tone and soon they are both deeply engaged in a conversation on results of an evaluation of Nicaragua’s much-publicised strategy of poverty.

It takes time

During the conversation, they nod and take down notes. She can clearly contribute with a meaningful input to this discussion. However, Mette Frost Bertelsen’s level of self-confidence during professional debates was not so high in the beginning.

“It takes time to find your own position. I am the only foreigner here and no matter what I do, I will always be different,” she points out.

Her, Nicaraguan bosses and colleagues in the organisation IPADE are well-educated, as well as full of ideas. So where does she fit in? Mette thought a lot about this during the first weeks in Nicaragua.

She gradually found out that she should base her knowledge from a country with an old democratic ballast and tradition for looking critically at all sorts of decisions. A viewpoint which fully complies with the attitude at her place of work.

“The director of IPADE once said that they have always looked at either Cuba or USA in order to find role models for the country’s democratic development - without really liking any of them. However, after IPADE has come in contact with MS, it is often the Scandinavian model of democracy they often relate to while discussing social structure.”

”To some extent, you learn to look at poverty and say: I am trying to do something about it. But the day you consider it cold and cynical, I think you should return home because the world is not supposed to look like this. When I go back home, I hope that I have contributed towards supporting and advising some organisations in such a way as that they are able to change the political structure for the benefit of Nicaragua’s civil society.”

Mette Frost Bertelsen.

Lobby for democracy

IPADE is the second largest non-governmental organisation (NGO) of Nicaragua. It works with everything from the rights of peasants and indigenous people to monitoring political decisions and lobbyism.

Mette Frost Bertelsen has two key tasks:

“A very specific task is that I should be instrumental in looking into the current state of democracy in Nicaragua, and how the country wants to influence the development. It partly deals with that our memberorganisations, through their work, put pressure on the government; and partly with involving and informing people about how they can contribute at a local level in developing the country.” The other task is to project the organisation externally. Among other things, this implies that we should improve the internal structure of IPADE, and project the organisation towards international donors so that they might possibly get interested in funding some of the activities.

In both the cases, it ends up as lobbyism – for democracy or for IPADE.

“In Denmark, we are accustomed to democracy. We have confidence that things work and we get a fair treatment. It is not necessarily so in Nicaragua – there are many things to be addressed,” says Mette Frost Bertelsen. Democracy is one thing. Flirting and integrity is another.