It seems that most Peace Corps volunteers, at least the ambitious ones, suffer very similar fates. And this goes for NGOs involved in open-ended development work, too. I'm pretty sure, from all I've been told and all I've experienced, that it has to do with the amount of overlap between the needs of a community and the abilities of the development worker. Typically, this overlap is much smaller than either the volunteer or community anticipates or wishes it to be.
You can imagine the two as dishes - one dish for the needs of the community and one dish for the abilities of the worker. It seems like the overlap is where the rims would just barely touch, a small percentage of all the projects you could undertake.
But the rest of the dishes are very tempting - in it are all those little things like building a playground, giving out food, installing computer centers, building a new school, etc. OK, so those aren't very small things. But what the community needs is always great, and what the newcomer sees first are the things they can't necessarily do. And the community has a list of things they want done, and will ask for these first, regardless of the volunteer's abilities. Likewise, a volunteer will come in with preconceived notions of how they can help and the community will assume that anyone coming in will be capable of certain things.
So inevitably there is a long period of time where both communities try to feel out the overlap between the dishes.
I'm still in that phase, but I took the approach that I was going to keep on throwing darts in the dark until I hit things that were in that overlap. Incredibly enough, as I've seen in stepping back from this experience and from "development" in college, the same things happen. You try something, momentum builds, and you reach a critical juncture with tough decisions. If you make the right decisions in terms of sustainability, needs of the community, and ability of the people involved to stay motivated, then the project will continue. And abroad, as it is here, you're only successful a vast minority of the time.
So when people warned me that "Most of the things you try will fail", I fully expected it. And if most of the things you try aren't failing, then you're not trying hard enough.
Of course, this is still a very Western view, but development and outside assistance is a very Western idea. Africa's strength is the idea of community. We're in this community for two years and then - poof - the white guy's gone. So even if we ARE part of the community, our fates are completely different and we are never one OF the community. So within the overlap of the dishes is a very important factor that has to do with not ever being one OF the community. Excessive skepticism, cultural divides and motivation are all stumbling blocks even when a good project is found.
And, fully expecting this, I hope to accomplish one significant thing before I leave, putting everything I can into it. I just have no idea what that is yet!
I walked here tonight after watching a movie, eating apple pie and speaking English for quite a while - among a few Mozambicans, at least. Walking alone, I found it hard to believe I was in Africa. All the signs were there - the road, the houses, the starfields. But it felt like home. I tried picturing myself on a map of the world - in the heart of humanity. It just didn't seem real. I still have this antiquated version of "Africa" stuck in my head, discordant with what I see and live every day. I don't have to translate all the Portuguese I hear or speak every day, and people are starting to respect and understand me.
I'm beginning to see why people find it hard to leave, and it's nothing magical. It's simply home. And since I was about 12, I haven't lived in the same room for more than a year - so this reality that I'll be here for a while is just settling in. (NOTE FROM MOM --- JOHN WOULD SPEND HALF THE WEEK AT HIS FATHER'S AND THE OTHER HALF AT MY HOUSE. NO, WE DIDN'T MOVE AROUND -- HE DID.) But this doesn't make me miss people any less. If home is where the heart is, I'm still in the US. But my hat is here and so I have to keep my mind in Africa as well.
So why did I come here? I get asked that question, directly and indirectly, every day. Someone mentions America and how nice it is, someone else mentions how poor Mozambique is. But they don't understand the very thing I'm still trying to figure out. Yeah, I came to help people, because I know I'm talented in ways that can benefit others and I'm willing to volunteer these talents. But why did I make such a capricious decision to join Peace Corps and blindly follow where this path took me? And so can it really be asked "Why did I come here?" if all I did was leave myself to someone else's hand? I didn't come here - I left America because I felt like I wasn't doing anything for people there. Coming HERE was just luck.
And so people here see me coming, and I see me leaving. It makes sense why this question is so confusing. I'm arrogant enough to think I can help anyone and they're cynical enough to think that the privileged would never want to live below that level. So really, as I'm realizing I can't help everyone, they see why I'm here.
Peace
John
