Friday, November 14, 2008

the hecklers.

There is something inherently condescending about volunteering abroad, isn’t there? What do I, a slightly educated American baby, have to offer that the entire continent of Africa is unable to produce on its own? And at some level, is there a lack of gratitude implied by leaving one’s home, family and privilege for 27 months on a whim?

These questions were raised to me by very compassionate friends – the very anti-modernization theory, the pro-American, and the just plain skeptical. Once quick to dismiss these doubts, they nonetheless invaded my subconscious and took up permanent residence in head.

These internal hecklers started at it in earnest Sunday night a few weeks ago, one of my last shifts at the restaurant where I work. Our kitchen assistant, a mid-aged woman from Guatemala, sliced peppers while I lamented the dismal lack of customers in the dining room and zealously munched oyster crackers. “How long you go for,” she asked, between knife falls. “Two years, 27 months,” I say.

“Oh. Long time,” she said. “What your mother say?” I smiled, and explained yet again, how my family was sorry to see me leave but knew that this is something I really wanted to do and so on and so were overall happy about the Zambia thing.

She looked up from her work to grab the Saran wrap. She hadn’t been home to Guatemala in seven years, she said. In that course of time, her sister had died of cancer, and not having a green card, she was unable to attend the funeral. She still expected her sister to answer the phone when she called. She still waited for someone to pass her sister the line in the rotation of family members who crowded the receiver to speak to her.

Going back to Guatemala would require a lifetime commitment and a sacrifice of a hard-earned American life –friends, job, a private apartment in town. My decision to take off to Africa for a life of voluntary deprivation seemed baffling in comparison.

(Unfortunately for me,) a recent Campus Progress article echoed similar fears. Noting that the main benefit of the Peace Corps service now is cross-cultural exchange and not concrete development work, Adam Welti says, “Changing the structure of Peace Corps to allow for more short-term, highly-skilled positions for those men and women with more years of experience could help change the monolithic nature of white, fairly privileged and under-experienced volunteers that tend to enroll now.”

These Peace Corps criticisms have likely been floating around since Kennedy’s proposed the idea in ’61. And people like my restaurant kitchen assistant, those who own experiences make my choices seem more like indulgence than heroism, will always be there to give my own doubts substance. Still, I take faith from the blogs of current Volunteers in Zambia, and their professions of doing good work (no matter how biased!)

So for now, this white, fairly-privileged and under-experienced volunteer, will have to continue to write, read and educate herself as best as possible. I am now a card-carrying Massachusetts Public Library member and have been devouring books on Zambia. I have learned that eldest generation of elephants in Zambia have been killed by poachers and the remaining adolescents group together in packs of rule-deprived bandits and teen-aged mothers. That song and dance is the best way to teach sexuality to villages (there a really interesting group dance that mimics the birth cycle if anyone's interested). That tsetse flies may be one of the seven deadly plagues. That Zambia is complex, beautiful and contradictory, just as everyone one of us is.

Persistent wireless stealing - thanks Netgear - has kept me up to date on my blog and newspaper reading, which is now at an all-time hopeless level of addiction. On the good days, that's just enough to keep those internal hecklers at bay.