The grace of good training

The picture really has nothing to do with the subject of my post. I just know that everybody likes pictures. This is me with my afternoon kindergarten students from last year.
Recently, I attended a going away supper for a fellow community member with her co-workers at a girl's home. I spent most of the evening listening to these other volunteers and their comments and reflections about life in Bolivia. Nothing they said was particularly negative or wrong. They just embodied for me the typical foreigner coming to Bolivia to volunteer. Their words got me thinking about how different they are from my own and why.
Of the group the most experience went to a woman who has been here for five months and the least experienced was a woman who had been here only about a week. That was the most significant difference between us. I remember what Bolivia looked like after a week or even five months. Even at two years, I know there is so much that I still don't understand about the culture. I am not judging them for their thoughts but to understand why mine are different I settled on a rarely acknowledged aspect of our outlooks and that is training. At the time of our three month orientation in DC, I didn't really understand everything that they were presenting to us. Now I think back to those lectures and workshops and really relate to what they were telling us about approach to mission and culture shock. The overall message that I took from my training and tried to integrate into my time in Bolivia is not a focus on what I can offer Bolivians, rather a focus on what they can offer me. As a fly on the wall of these volunteers' work spaces, I think I would see an approach of "how can I fix this clearly broken system?" I would hope that if someone saw me in my element they would see an approach of "what can these people suffering a broken system teach me?" That key difference has been the men and women in the FMS office who did all of this before us and care enough to share their wisdom and insight with us.

Excerpts from class

Continuing with my plan to integrate the themes from Dr. Seuss into class, the students are in the process of writing an essay about the places they want to see in their lives. I thought it was an easy enough question to get them started thinking about their futures. Some of the students really impressed me with the content of their essays so I thought I'd shared some of them.

I want to see Paraguay. I would like to be able to take my parents and siblings and have my own house. I want my children to study in the best schools in the country and be professionals so that they don't suffer.
-Jhimmy 8th grade

I want to see China. I want to see how they dress and dance. I want to know how they talk, how they eat, how they cry, and how they argue.
-Bladimir 8th grade

I want to see New York. I want to see the Statue of Liberty and the skyscrapers. I want my family to be proud of me and give them my best.
-Samuel 8th grade

I want to see Brazil with my family. I want us to eat in their restaurants and play in their parks. Then I want to return to Bolivia where I have lived since I was little. Where I had computer classes, my best subject in school. I want to be like the computer teacher, Emily. A teacher very smart and gentle. She supports me and all my classmates.
-Karla 8th grade

I want to see the United States. I want to see the Statue of Liberty, archeological museums, and especially the WHITE HOUSE! I want to get to the US by boat.
-Ariel 9th grade

I want to see the United States. I want to see the houses, the buildings in the cities, the stores, the movies, the art expositions, the paintings, the statues, the parks, the museums. I want to see their traditions.
-Jenny 9th grade

I want to go to the hot springs in Santa Cruz, and the forest reservations in Beni, navigate the enormous rivers in Pando, and travel to the mines in Potosi. I want to go to Carnaval in Oruro, and walk the intense paths of Copacabana. I want to try the steaks in Tarija, and visit the Cristo de la Condoria in Cochabamba. At last I want to go to the capital of Bolivia, Sucre.
-Jhonny 9th grade

I am going to go by boat to the ports of England. I want to be an English professor and try the delicious English cuisine. I want to be a great writer of poetry.
-Victor 9th grade

I didn't have the heart to tell Victor about English "cuisine." They are great kids and they have big goals. They are enthusiastic and motivated. My hope for them is that maintain their momentum and continue to move forward no matter what life throws their way.

Coolest Kid on the Block

I love this picture that my boss snapped of Rudy and myself. It captured a moment of playfulness and fun that we often share. The best part of my day, as a rule, is at 4:30pm when Rudy is released from daycare and runs to my computer lab to give me my hug. He is the youngest of seven and as a result is one of the most affectionate Bolivians I have met but he is also fearless and tough. My favorite image of him was last year during PE. I was watching the group of four year olds running across the court, doing a somersault on a little mattress, flipping a sign and then making the return trip. Most of the kids were absentmindedly jogging along and were slow and deliberate in their somersaults. Rudy's turn came and he took off at full sprint towards the mattress. When he arrived, without hesitation or slowing, he became airborne in a rolling dive onto the mattress and was immediately on his feet sprinting towards the sign. The control he commanded over his little four year old body was impressive and hilarious. He is a great kid and his joy and laughter give me hope when I fear the worst for these kids. They are resilient and strong, more than they should have to be, and those traits will benefit them well.

Oh, the places you'll go!

When I was home in November I was looking for Spanish language picture books for some of the youngins I've grown so attached to the last couple years. I happened upon Dr. Seuss' Oh, The Places You'll Go! (Spanish title: Oh, Cuan Legos Llegaras!) and got to thinking not just about the young kids but about all kids. The message is so essential and ingrained in kids from the US, but I'm not convinced Bolivian kids have ever heard it. I could only get through the first few pages before my eyes welled up with tears because I am not so sure these kids will start on their journey and accomplish their goals. The vast majority of young kids don't finish high school. They have to work to help support their families or they become pregnant, starting their own families. When up against those odds, you can see in their faces they are just biding time until the inevitable plea from their parents to take on extra burdens and responsibilities. Maybe they won't becomes doctors and lawyers, but I couldn't help but think that they certainly won't if they have resigned themselves to settle for anything less.
Upon returning to Bolivia, I made a decision to make this book the focus of my last year in Bolivia. I will use it in all of my computer classes and if nothing else these kids are going to hear the message that they are capable of great things! What is so beautifully presented in this book is that it won't be easy and at times it will be scary and frustrating but it is important to keep moving forward. The first day of class this year I had them write me a little passage about what they want to be when they grow up. A task that kids in the US are doing as early as first grade but some of my ninth graders just stared at the blank computer screen. I read the book to each of my classes and the kids really responded to the message. They were able to identify the major themes and seemed very excited about the whole exercise. Books are an expensive luxury in Bolivia so not only do these kids not have books in their houses they certainly don't have reading time with their parents. Even the older kids were on the edge of their seats as I read this picture book to them.
This is my favorite passage from the book. The challenges somehow seem more tangible and daunting to these kids than they ever seemed to me.

But on you will go
though the weather be foul
On you will go
though your enemies prowl
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.

On and on you will hike
and I know you'll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are.

A Four Fold Franciscan Blessing

I first encountered this prayer while in training at the FMS house in DC and I came back to it recently after a long time. I think it is beautiful and inspiring. It really challenges me and gives me hope at the same time. I hope you enjoy it as well.

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

May God bless you with a holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work tirelessly for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with gift of tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach our your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really can make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God's grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.

Amen!

Corruption

I recently finished a great book titled The White Man’s Burden: Why the West Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good by William Easterly. It gave me great insight on the US approach to foreign aid and a laundry list of reasons why it doesn’t help to bring people out of poverty. One of this arguments is corruption and bad government. As the vast majority of foreign aid goes from government to government, if the receiving end is corrupt then the poor will never see that money. He cites various research results that indicate that corrupt/bad governments create/maintain poor countries and not that poor countries create bad governments.
I’m not convinced that the current Bolivian administration is entirely corrupt. President Evo Morales was democratically elected and democratically supported in a referendum election. He is not a dictator and people don’t just go missing. The government could probably be doing more to bring its citizens out of poverty but on the whole they don’t appear to be horrible.
The government seems to do a pretty good job creating laws that protect people’s rights. The problem that I see exists in the corruption of the police that are charged with enforcing the laws. I have not met a single Bolivian that trusts the police. Recently some friends witnessed some criminal activity and tried to call the police station SEVEN times without anyone even picking up the phone. The large open air market known as La Cancha is probably home to the highest incidence of crime in the form of petty theft. There are police officers all over La Cancha, but they are directing traffic (poorly! it shouldn’t take an hour to move through 6 blocks of space). There is a vicious cycle of no one respecting the police because they accept bribes, don’t answer the phone, and don’t seem to actually help/protect people, because no one respects them; and the cycle continues.
I think my own personal worst example is in the barrio where I work. It is located just 10km outside the city. If someone calls the police for robbery, assault, or domestic abuse the police literally say “it is too far, uses up too much gas, deal with it yourselves.” I was talking about it to a Bolivian that lived in the States for 10 years and we actually laughed at the idea of calling 911 in the States and being told that six miles is just too far.
Easterly would probably argue that this country is never going to be relevant on an international scale until they find a way to eradicate, or at least seriously diminish corruption.

Sometimes you forget

I shared this story with some recently but for everyone else...

I wait on a corner at the edge of the city to catch a second trufi to the barrio where I work. For months there has been a woman sitting in the median with donkeys. A mother and baby donkey to be exact. For these months I've assumed that she was selling the donkeys. I don't know why someone would come into the city to buy a donkey but that was nevertheless where my thought process went. Finally one day a couple weeks ago I saw a man approach her. I thought to myself, "lo these many months this woman is finally going to sell her donkey!" I just hoped that it wouldn't be for magical beans. I stood there and waited to see the pending transaction even as numerous trufis past. To my horror I saw her walk towards a bucket with drinking glasses on top. A bucket I failed to notice before. She walked over to the mother donkey, milked her straight into the glass, and handed it over to the man who seemed more than willing to pay to chug some donkey milk.

Sometimes I forget that I live in a poor country but there are always incidences that remind me.