Good people

Tuesday 10/26/10

All of the volunteers have come here to do a service. We want to improve this world one person at a time, giving opportunities these people may otherwise never get. Coming from a modern world we all believe that every man is equal although that is not the case here. We live in a hut and just a short walk away there is a house where we do all of our planning, eat all of our meals and regroup with our project managers. In this house we have people who do our laundry daily, cook our food, do our dishes right from the table, and all outside maintenance. While we eat breakfast, some days we see a black man cut the grass with a machete, and no the yard is not small.

Although we all understand that they do not have the technology that we may have and that is what the people here are used to, it is a hard thing to watch and accept. We know that the jobs they have here are opportunities for them but we do not feel as though we should treat them inferior to us. You cannot possibly judge or belittle someone who was never given the tools or placed in an environment to excel beyond what they know.

We do feel in our house that it is encouraged that there be a large separation between us and the staff. We all try to be as warm and grateful as possible for everything they do, but when we offer to help they are insistent that we don’t. As we all discussed our feelings on this I found out that they get in trouble by our sponsors if we participate. There is a young 17 year old boy from the Netherlands here that has been here for two months already during his gap year; he likes to dry the dishes for our cook Samuelli, and every time he does he gets asked not to by our project manager.

Tonight our leaders all went out to dinner to have a meeting. We were told to behave as though we were all children and going to have a party, and so we did exactly that! We filled our plates and sat around our huge dining table and then we went and got our staff and asked them to come and join us. They were very resistant but obliged. They were worried that they would not get enough work done and so we told them to come fill their plates and we would help them when we all finished. We asked them what they normally had for dinner and it was nothing compared to what we were having, a beef stew over rice with veggies. We shared cookies and tea with them after dinner. Then we all had a blast singing and joking while we did our chores.  

It does not seem to me that making a difference one person at a time includes reminding everyone where there place in life is. We are here to give as many experiences as we get. Not everyone will get an English lesson, but knowing someone is going home at night with a full belly and a smile is just as rewarding to both them and us.