To the right, Prof Ercilio jiggles his watch, peering through his sunglasses to read the time that really doesn't matter. He peers back up, elbows on his knees in that classic pose of waiting for absolutely nothing. To my left, Alfred and Kingston are waiting just as patiently, but with no idea of when the end will be. They're just waiting until someone fills them in.
And me? Well, I've resigned myself to the knowledge that I will be waiting here for quite a while and without any idea of what will happen next. I arrived about an hour ago after happening to find Ercilio and Julio on the way with Ercilio's wife.
I fill my thoughts with funerals I've missed - most recently Horacio, also Rich E., some family members...well, I'm not missing this one. I sit in front of emptiness, by the door where I see sad people (mainly women) go in and rarely come out again. Some of my students have walked by, but I still don't understand everything.
I was informed this morning that a former teacher, Professora Anastancia, passed away yesterday, and so I'm here "paying my respects". Really, I'm sitting outside with the other men to mark my presence and take time to think about many things clearly and lucidly.
Like how I don't want my funeral to be like this.
We receive word that the services will be tomorrow at 9 AM, so Alfred, Kingston and I get up and leave slowly, quietly. We talk about how foreign all this is to each one of us. We talk about Anastancia.
She was a math teacher until this year when she went to Pedagogical University. She had had failing health for a few years and though she gave birth to many children, is survived only by her ailing husband and one son. The next door neighbors, considered family here, are a family of children orphaned by car accidents. The life expectancy is 32 and dropping - expected to hit 27 in a few years. It doesn't take a lot to be old here.
And so my mind takes on the reasons why this is so. Because it wasn't always this way. Before the war for independence, things were better in terms of health (but political freedom is another matter). Before colonialism, things were even better.
I take another look around. 50% unemployment. And a shortage of teachers. Many other jobs go unfilled. How come? There are people, but they aren't properly trained. So why don't people get the training? The man who gets free fish every day doesn't see the need.
The worst thing we've done for the "third world" is to call it just that. Because our Judeo-Christian sensibilities get spooked at the thought that millions lead crappy lives while we bask in luxury. Well, I can tell you, it's only crappy if you're given the hope of better. So we guilt-laden rich want to help those who live horrible lives.
And who's to say all this is "crappy"? Left to their own devices, people are perfectly content to live in a small hut, have a nice-sized farm to tend to and repair the same clothing. It's what Westerners call pride. Having to work for the next meal, deserving a day off, keeping a clean, tidy house, raising respectful children.
It's still like this in some places. Yes, there's often famine, drought and disease. Like anywhere. Like the US before the past few decades (or even in some places today). And on the occasions when people came in to give assistance, was it the French, Somalians, Mexicans or Japanese? No, our own government. Nobody stormed in and said "You need money."
But that happened here. Instead of the community relying upon itself and growing stronger, we came in and tried to show people how to build a community. A Western community. And to tide people over, we gave them food, money and medicine which ran out. So nobody was motivated to be trained to do these things, and the traditional structures fell apart because we ruined them, arrogantly assuming they were also destroyed.
After a natural disaster of our own, we remark on the togetherness of the community. After a natural disaster elsewhere, we remark on how much aid other countries have given. And so, more people give more money and make "third world" citizens more enslaved. People die younger from more because the bottom has fallen out. The existing structure we assumed would always be there and would service to give some framework to our aid, has collapsed because we have superseded it. And somehow, strikingly, we look at these numbers and wonder how we can give more. About how we can possibly raise enough money to feed this many children. Don't we see the problem?
It's not that AIDS is getting worse, that malaria is evolving, that teens are having sex younger - it's that we are not letting the "third world" take care of itself. We see these countries as innately helpless. We see in one death, doom, and in one new life, redemption.
A parent knows that if they tell their child not to do something, they'll go ahead and do it anyway, often in spite, and not learn from any negative feedback they may get. If, however, the child is allowed the freedom to explore and discover something that they should clearly not be doing (ouch, that's hot - oops, I guess she'll need new glasses), they will remember it 10 times better. Adults, too.
"Don't smoke. It will kill you." OR
"My father smoked 2 packs a day and I smoked about the same, until he died from lung cancer and I started coughing uncontrollably. Then I stopped."
The point is, people constantly learn and share that knowledge with each other. People are inherently intelligent - I have no doubt that Africans will develop (and have) methodologies for preventing AIDS and malaria transmission. But we can't do it for them. Just like they wouldn't be able to do it for us. But this misnomer of "third world" gives us the right to think that our solutions are better and more applicable. So how come it hasn't worked?
Peace
John
