7 February 2009
Check out http://clemsongnomeproject.blogspot.com/ for stories and pictures from GNOME the Clemson Gnome's visit to Ethiopia!
14 January 2009
There were whispers and hints along the way, but it was a car commercial aired during the NFL Playoffs that provided the definitive evidence: America has seen profound changes during the time of my absence.
It was just over one year ago that I left my home and my country to serve in Ethiopia with the U.S. Peace Corps. It was October 2007, I had just graduated from college with two shiny degrees, and my friends and I were heading off to graduate schools, medical schools, respectable jobs or crazy adventures in foreign locations. Americans were showing optimism heading into the new year, according to a variety of slightly rising poll numbers. Jim and Pam were together on The Office. The future looked bright and supremely confident – just as it always had for as long as I had been alive to anticipate it.
A Peace Corps volunteer in Africa has a limited number of windows through which to view her home country, and it wasn't long until the glimpses I was getting began to paint a steadily darkening landscape. Letters from friends recounted struggles to find work. Emails from my alma mater announced new measures to meet a drastically reduced budget, including a mandatory five days of unpaid leave for all faculty and staff. Phone calls from my parents found them at home, having called off their weekend trip to visit my grandparents in the face of soaring gas prices. Meanwhile, stories passed throughout the Peace Corps world lamented rising food prices. TIME and Newsweek began educating the public on subprime mortgages and collateralized debt obligations, and shortwave radio programs aired experts delivering increasingly more pessimistic predictions about the future of the world economy. As news of massive home foreclosures, rising unemployment rates, and collapsing financial institutions streamed back to us volunteers with frightening regularity, we felt as if the very fabric of modern society was crumbling before our attentive ears. And polls showed that for the first time, a majority of American parents believe their children will be worse off financially than they are.
It was with some trepidation, then, that I boarded a plane to come home for the holidays. What could I expect now, over one year later, from a country that had seen such dramatic events in my absence? Would I find a sense of national depression? Wide-spread panic? Would I even recognize this new American life that awaited me?
When I deplaned in Knoxville, swaths of grey clouds hung low in the cold, desolate sky – not unusual for a Tennessee winter morning, but perhaps, to my apprehensive mind, a reflection of the gloom I would witness in the coming days. What I actually saw, however, did not immediately appear so far removed from life as I had always known it there. With gas prices having fallen back to more comprehensible levels, people were returned to their old driving ways. My mother insisted on driving twenty-five minutes out to Norris, Tennessee to buy a bottle of mead for Christmas. (And here I had always thought mead was only for celebrating Viking pillagings and plunderings – not so, apparently.) I did, though, spot two Smart Cars during my time at home, which was much more that I would have expected to see in staunchly conservative East Tennessee.
It was Christmastime, that most wonderful time of the year, that epitome of American commercialism and consumerism and generally extravagant habits of spending, and in many ways, Americans seemed determined to press boldly onward into all the glorious holiday chaos, economic slow-down be damned! The mall exit ramp remained backed up well onto I-40 throughout the days leading up to Christmas, and the brilliant displays of alternately blinking colored lights and glowing plastic Nativity scenes were erected just as big and brash as ever. (Energy crisis? What energy crisis?)
A little closer to home, though, Christmas at the Smith household and elsewhere was a more subdued affair than in years gone by. The gifts exchanged were fewer, smaller, less extravagant, and the gift-giving, for once, did not seem to constitute the core of the holiday. Families employed "Secret Santa" and other similar strategies to cut down the number of obligatory exchanges, some forgoing presents altogether. With my family, the whole gift-exchange ritual consumed only fifteen minutes of our Christmas morning, leaving us the rest of the holiday to...spend quality time together? Enjoy being together again after a year? Talk?
It was really the car commercial, though, that convinced me that a massive shift had taken place in American society. My dad and I were watching the Colts and the Chargers play in the AFC Wild Card game when it came on, an advertisement for the Hyundai Assurance Program, which offers (with some strings attached) the chance to return your car if you lose your income within a year of buying. It was contrary to everything that a car commercial placed during a prime-time sporting event should be, the fuel-injected, pulse-pumping, semi-erotic demonstration of speed, power, and sleek curves counted on to appeal to the American football viewer's yearnings for adventure, ostentation, and all-around bad-assedness. In an industry whose advertising has always taken advantage of an American craving for thrills and risk-taking, this foray into realms of safety and security – assurance, if you will – reflected a significant change in the hopes, needs, and desires of the American public.
My time at home showed me a country gaining in caution, shedding some of its formerly unshakable certainty, more worried and perhaps a little more humble. As a nation, we are beginning to entertain the idea that not all steps forward constitute progress, that sometimes misguided steps must be retraced, undone, in order to return to a point where real advancement is possible. It is of course no coincidence that "change" carried the day in our presidential elections, when American voters raised their voices in favor of a new direction for our country's future.
Moreover, we are beginning to truly see and acknowledge that our actions have profound consequences in the world, for better and for worse. The slogan for Hyundai Assurance is, "We're all in this together, and we'll get through it together." As the frightening domino effects of this financial crisis ripple throughout a tightly interwoven world, one gets the sense that the "we" is being interpreted in America more broadly than ever. One gets the sense that this time around, finally, the U.S. is ready to see itself as part of a global community, and to act accordingly. In the words of Hillary Clinton during her Senate confirmation hearing, "America cannot solve the most pressing problems on our own, and the world cannot solve them without America."
Now that I am back in Ethiopia for my second year of service, local people ask me, "How is America?" I tell them that times are difficult, that the American people face many challenges, that many are worried and some are indeed suffering. But I can also tell them that I know the determination of the American people, that I have seen it in action time and again in the face of crisis. I can assure them out of my belief that an American system that responds to its people and gives them the freedom to speak, act, and innovate will find solutions to our problems, especially when it is allowed to admit and learn from the mistakes of our past. I can say that even when the American Dream has become tarnished, the American Spirit remains, believing that despite all its imperfections, America has every potential to be great, if its people demand greatness from it and work together to achieve it.
And in that way, nothing has really changed after all.
It was just over one year ago that I left my home and my country to serve in Ethiopia with the U.S. Peace Corps. It was October 2007, I had just graduated from college with two shiny degrees, and my friends and I were heading off to graduate schools, medical schools, respectable jobs or crazy adventures in foreign locations. Americans were showing optimism heading into the new year, according to a variety of slightly rising poll numbers. Jim and Pam were together on The Office. The future looked bright and supremely confident – just as it always had for as long as I had been alive to anticipate it.
A Peace Corps volunteer in Africa has a limited number of windows through which to view her home country, and it wasn't long until the glimpses I was getting began to paint a steadily darkening landscape. Letters from friends recounted struggles to find work. Emails from my alma mater announced new measures to meet a drastically reduced budget, including a mandatory five days of unpaid leave for all faculty and staff. Phone calls from my parents found them at home, having called off their weekend trip to visit my grandparents in the face of soaring gas prices. Meanwhile, stories passed throughout the Peace Corps world lamented rising food prices. TIME and Newsweek began educating the public on subprime mortgages and collateralized debt obligations, and shortwave radio programs aired experts delivering increasingly more pessimistic predictions about the future of the world economy. As news of massive home foreclosures, rising unemployment rates, and collapsing financial institutions streamed back to us volunteers with frightening regularity, we felt as if the very fabric of modern society was crumbling before our attentive ears. And polls showed that for the first time, a majority of American parents believe their children will be worse off financially than they are.
It was with some trepidation, then, that I boarded a plane to come home for the holidays. What could I expect now, over one year later, from a country that had seen such dramatic events in my absence? Would I find a sense of national depression? Wide-spread panic? Would I even recognize this new American life that awaited me?
When I deplaned in Knoxville, swaths of grey clouds hung low in the cold, desolate sky – not unusual for a Tennessee winter morning, but perhaps, to my apprehensive mind, a reflection of the gloom I would witness in the coming days. What I actually saw, however, did not immediately appear so far removed from life as I had always known it there. With gas prices having fallen back to more comprehensible levels, people were returned to their old driving ways. My mother insisted on driving twenty-five minutes out to Norris, Tennessee to buy a bottle of mead for Christmas. (And here I had always thought mead was only for celebrating Viking pillagings and plunderings – not so, apparently.) I did, though, spot two Smart Cars during my time at home, which was much more that I would have expected to see in staunchly conservative East Tennessee.
It was Christmastime, that most wonderful time of the year, that epitome of American commercialism and consumerism and generally extravagant habits of spending, and in many ways, Americans seemed determined to press boldly onward into all the glorious holiday chaos, economic slow-down be damned! The mall exit ramp remained backed up well onto I-40 throughout the days leading up to Christmas, and the brilliant displays of alternately blinking colored lights and glowing plastic Nativity scenes were erected just as big and brash as ever. (Energy crisis? What energy crisis?)
A little closer to home, though, Christmas at the Smith household and elsewhere was a more subdued affair than in years gone by. The gifts exchanged were fewer, smaller, less extravagant, and the gift-giving, for once, did not seem to constitute the core of the holiday. Families employed "Secret Santa" and other similar strategies to cut down the number of obligatory exchanges, some forgoing presents altogether. With my family, the whole gift-exchange ritual consumed only fifteen minutes of our Christmas morning, leaving us the rest of the holiday to...spend quality time together? Enjoy being together again after a year? Talk?
It was really the car commercial, though, that convinced me that a massive shift had taken place in American society. My dad and I were watching the Colts and the Chargers play in the AFC Wild Card game when it came on, an advertisement for the Hyundai Assurance Program, which offers (with some strings attached) the chance to return your car if you lose your income within a year of buying. It was contrary to everything that a car commercial placed during a prime-time sporting event should be, the fuel-injected, pulse-pumping, semi-erotic demonstration of speed, power, and sleek curves counted on to appeal to the American football viewer's yearnings for adventure, ostentation, and all-around bad-assedness. In an industry whose advertising has always taken advantage of an American craving for thrills and risk-taking, this foray into realms of safety and security – assurance, if you will – reflected a significant change in the hopes, needs, and desires of the American public.
My time at home showed me a country gaining in caution, shedding some of its formerly unshakable certainty, more worried and perhaps a little more humble. As a nation, we are beginning to entertain the idea that not all steps forward constitute progress, that sometimes misguided steps must be retraced, undone, in order to return to a point where real advancement is possible. It is of course no coincidence that "change" carried the day in our presidential elections, when American voters raised their voices in favor of a new direction for our country's future.
Moreover, we are beginning to truly see and acknowledge that our actions have profound consequences in the world, for better and for worse. The slogan for Hyundai Assurance is, "We're all in this together, and we'll get through it together." As the frightening domino effects of this financial crisis ripple throughout a tightly interwoven world, one gets the sense that the "we" is being interpreted in America more broadly than ever. One gets the sense that this time around, finally, the U.S. is ready to see itself as part of a global community, and to act accordingly. In the words of Hillary Clinton during her Senate confirmation hearing, "America cannot solve the most pressing problems on our own, and the world cannot solve them without America."
Now that I am back in Ethiopia for my second year of service, local people ask me, "How is America?" I tell them that times are difficult, that the American people face many challenges, that many are worried and some are indeed suffering. But I can also tell them that I know the determination of the American people, that I have seen it in action time and again in the face of crisis. I can assure them out of my belief that an American system that responds to its people and gives them the freedom to speak, act, and innovate will find solutions to our problems, especially when it is allowed to admit and learn from the mistakes of our past. I can say that even when the American Dream has become tarnished, the American Spirit remains, believing that despite all its imperfections, America has every potential to be great, if its people demand greatness from it and work together to achieve it.
And in that way, nothing has really changed after all.
11 November 2008
This entry should probably just be called "Catharsis." Perhaps, though, I can also rightly subtitle it "The Dark Side of International Volunteerism."
So, here we go.
Christen's Catharsis:
The Dark Side of International Volunteerism
Since the very beginning of my recently-completed one year in my site, I have taught supplementary, conversational English twice a week to a group of ten orphaned high school girls, housed together by a local NGO. For the past nine months of that instruction, I have been joined by the VSO volunteer who works at the local university. Over the time that we have spent with the girls, we have developed a close relationship with them. We have seen them grow and progress both in their studies and as young ladies. We have been fortunate to have them open up to us, moving beyond thinking of us as teachers to considering us as friends.
At the end of last Saturday's class, the girls told us that a man named Colin would be coming from Canada to visit. Visits like these, judging from the photographs I've seen and the stories I've heard, occur fairly frequently, in which donors to the program – usually male, usually Canadian – come to see the girls they have been sponsoring. At least two others have come to town during this past year, but having been away both times on other business, I had never been personally involved. This time, however, we were invited by both the program director and the girls' house mother to come and meet Colin, to help welcome him and explain our role in the girls' lives.
When we came to the house on the appointed day, along with the program director and the rest of the office staff, Colin had already arrived and was sitting at a table with some of the girls. We entered the room, greeted everyone in turn as per Ethiopian culture, and then introduced ourselves to Colin and explained our function as volunteers. Immediately, he seemed confused and put off by our presence. As we sat down in the chairs that were pulled out for us, Colin asked his Ethiopian counterpart for "a word" and called him into the hallway for discussion.
When Colin had finished his "word", we all sat down together in the living room to wait for the rest of the girls to arrive from school. The oldest girl, our best and most eager student, sat next to us, her teachers. She had qualified to enter the medical program at a prominent university, and this would be our last day to spend with her before she moved there. As we all waited in the slightly awkward silence borne of language barriers, relative unfamiliarity with our new guest, and a perceived formality of the proceedings to come, our little cluster of three made light conversation and laughed as I managed to spill things all over myself. Colin chatted with the girls at his table, and they responded as well as they could in their limited English. They gave him gifts, and as they named the girl who had given him each one, he pretended that he knew what they were talking about. I complimented a sweatshirt Colin had given to our star student, and overhearing, Colin turned to me and said, "Yes, she has received her shirt early. Once the two of you leave, we will give out the rest of the gifts." It seemed to me a rather odd thing to say, and I was beginning to feel quite uncomfortable with this Colin character.
Girls trickled into the room one by one as they arrived from morning classes. Finally, as our group was complete, the room quieted down, and Colin took charge of the proceeding. Namely, he took charge of the proceedings by saying to the room, "So, I think we are all here now, but our other guests have not yet left…So if you two wouldn't mind to leave, I think we'll make this a time for just our family."
Fortunately, the shock of his incredible brashness kept me silent until I could gather myself enough to be diplomatic in front of the girls. In the most amiable voices we could muster, we gathered up our things and exited the house, telling the girls we would see them in class the next day. Our star student walked with us to the front gate, where we stood and said our final goodbyes. Then, once safely outside the compound and out of earshot, we gaped at each other in disbelief of what had just occurred.
I know for certain that this was the most brazenly disrespectful act that anyone has ever deliberately committed against me. In retrospect, though, I can't actually decide which part of it was most audaciously offensive. There was the fact that a once-a-year visitor has just walked into my town of residence and my place of work and tossed me ungraciously out. The fact that a man had stepped into a program designed to encourage girls' confidence in a strongly male-dominated society, proceeded to gain control of things by disrespecting his female counterparts. The fact that, despite my living and working here for a year now, I was demeaned as a "guest" who was not worthy of inclusion in some sponsorship-purchased "family". There were so many things, really, to infuriate me in that moment. Looking back in a more calm and collected hindsight, however, one thing stands above all others in bothering me.
Beyond the personal slights involved in Colin's dismissal of myself and my colleague, his actions reveal an attitude of ego and self-importance that is poisoning international aid and volunteerism. Every industry has its egos. For some reason, though, we tend to turn a blind eye to such things in the charity and aid sector, as if the sheer force of perceived "goodness" surrounding our acts can overpower any shortcomings in our motives. The problem becomes worthy of our concern, however, when self-involved motives begin to hinder our labors. In my experience, there are too many Colins doing charitable work abroad, too many people who are more concerned with arriving as the foreign savior, savoring center stage in the temporary affections of a disadvantaged people, then broadcasting their righteous acts back home and collecting accolades and pats on the back from the people around them.
If Colin were really concerned with the wellbeing of these girls, he would have been interested to talk to the two volunteers who had been involved with them for the past year, to find out exactly what they had been doing, to learn from their first-hand perspective, to discover ways to work together with them for real solutions to real needs. Instead, his concern was that the two other white people in the room would steal his thunder. We were treated as a threat and an intrusion, rather than partners in a common cause. In the same way, concerns over recognition and attribution have blocked efforts to collaborate and cooperate throughout the world of international aid and development.
The dire needs that challenge us as a global community are simply too large for stubborn, go-it-alone egoism. They are simply too important for solutions to be forestalled and derailed by antagonism and short-sighted selfishness. If we cannot put aside pettiness to work together toward effective, broad-scale, sustainable solutions, then no amount of sponsorship money will be able to cover the fact that we have thrown away our best opportunities for success.
So, here we go.
Christen's Catharsis:
The Dark Side of International Volunteerism
Since the very beginning of my recently-completed one year in my site, I have taught supplementary, conversational English twice a week to a group of ten orphaned high school girls, housed together by a local NGO. For the past nine months of that instruction, I have been joined by the VSO volunteer who works at the local university. Over the time that we have spent with the girls, we have developed a close relationship with them. We have seen them grow and progress both in their studies and as young ladies. We have been fortunate to have them open up to us, moving beyond thinking of us as teachers to considering us as friends.
At the end of last Saturday's class, the girls told us that a man named Colin would be coming from Canada to visit. Visits like these, judging from the photographs I've seen and the stories I've heard, occur fairly frequently, in which donors to the program – usually male, usually Canadian – come to see the girls they have been sponsoring. At least two others have come to town during this past year, but having been away both times on other business, I had never been personally involved. This time, however, we were invited by both the program director and the girls' house mother to come and meet Colin, to help welcome him and explain our role in the girls' lives.
When we came to the house on the appointed day, along with the program director and the rest of the office staff, Colin had already arrived and was sitting at a table with some of the girls. We entered the room, greeted everyone in turn as per Ethiopian culture, and then introduced ourselves to Colin and explained our function as volunteers. Immediately, he seemed confused and put off by our presence. As we sat down in the chairs that were pulled out for us, Colin asked his Ethiopian counterpart for "a word" and called him into the hallway for discussion.
When Colin had finished his "word", we all sat down together in the living room to wait for the rest of the girls to arrive from school. The oldest girl, our best and most eager student, sat next to us, her teachers. She had qualified to enter the medical program at a prominent university, and this would be our last day to spend with her before she moved there. As we all waited in the slightly awkward silence borne of language barriers, relative unfamiliarity with our new guest, and a perceived formality of the proceedings to come, our little cluster of three made light conversation and laughed as I managed to spill things all over myself. Colin chatted with the girls at his table, and they responded as well as they could in their limited English. They gave him gifts, and as they named the girl who had given him each one, he pretended that he knew what they were talking about. I complimented a sweatshirt Colin had given to our star student, and overhearing, Colin turned to me and said, "Yes, she has received her shirt early. Once the two of you leave, we will give out the rest of the gifts." It seemed to me a rather odd thing to say, and I was beginning to feel quite uncomfortable with this Colin character.
Girls trickled into the room one by one as they arrived from morning classes. Finally, as our group was complete, the room quieted down, and Colin took charge of the proceeding. Namely, he took charge of the proceedings by saying to the room, "So, I think we are all here now, but our other guests have not yet left…So if you two wouldn't mind to leave, I think we'll make this a time for just our family."
Fortunately, the shock of his incredible brashness kept me silent until I could gather myself enough to be diplomatic in front of the girls. In the most amiable voices we could muster, we gathered up our things and exited the house, telling the girls we would see them in class the next day. Our star student walked with us to the front gate, where we stood and said our final goodbyes. Then, once safely outside the compound and out of earshot, we gaped at each other in disbelief of what had just occurred.
I know for certain that this was the most brazenly disrespectful act that anyone has ever deliberately committed against me. In retrospect, though, I can't actually decide which part of it was most audaciously offensive. There was the fact that a once-a-year visitor has just walked into my town of residence and my place of work and tossed me ungraciously out. The fact that a man had stepped into a program designed to encourage girls' confidence in a strongly male-dominated society, proceeded to gain control of things by disrespecting his female counterparts. The fact that, despite my living and working here for a year now, I was demeaned as a "guest" who was not worthy of inclusion in some sponsorship-purchased "family". There were so many things, really, to infuriate me in that moment. Looking back in a more calm and collected hindsight, however, one thing stands above all others in bothering me.
Beyond the personal slights involved in Colin's dismissal of myself and my colleague, his actions reveal an attitude of ego and self-importance that is poisoning international aid and volunteerism. Every industry has its egos. For some reason, though, we tend to turn a blind eye to such things in the charity and aid sector, as if the sheer force of perceived "goodness" surrounding our acts can overpower any shortcomings in our motives. The problem becomes worthy of our concern, however, when self-involved motives begin to hinder our labors. In my experience, there are too many Colins doing charitable work abroad, too many people who are more concerned with arriving as the foreign savior, savoring center stage in the temporary affections of a disadvantaged people, then broadcasting their righteous acts back home and collecting accolades and pats on the back from the people around them.
If Colin were really concerned with the wellbeing of these girls, he would have been interested to talk to the two volunteers who had been involved with them for the past year, to find out exactly what they had been doing, to learn from their first-hand perspective, to discover ways to work together with them for real solutions to real needs. Instead, his concern was that the two other white people in the room would steal his thunder. We were treated as a threat and an intrusion, rather than partners in a common cause. In the same way, concerns over recognition and attribution have blocked efforts to collaborate and cooperate throughout the world of international aid and development.
The dire needs that challenge us as a global community are simply too large for stubborn, go-it-alone egoism. They are simply too important for solutions to be forestalled and derailed by antagonism and short-sighted selfishness. If we cannot put aside pettiness to work together toward effective, broad-scale, sustainable solutions, then no amount of sponsorship money will be able to cover the fact that we have thrown away our best opportunities for success.
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