I can't remember exactly what I was thinking and feeling while volunteering for three different organizations last fall, but I'm pretty sure I was at least unconsciously miserable for most of it. It wasn't that the organizations were incompetent, their missions misaligned with my values, or my contributions unfulfilling. In each of my roles as a volunteer providing legal information to clients, befriending callers on a suicide hotline, and working one-on-one with Cambridge residents to help them access services in employment, housing, and public benefits, I genuinely believed and still believe that my work had a significant positive impact on the lives of others. And because I happen to really care about that, I put in a lot of effort. Most weeks, I was working more hours than I had committed in order to do research or follow-up work for clients. But where most of that lot of effort went was interactions with each individual. I did all I could to be polite, understanding, and caring. I actively listened. I put on smiles and laughed. Eventually, though, I tired. I was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. With little sleep and appetite, I mustered just enough to get through my classes and needed five weeks of doing nothing and Korean food to set me right again.
Did I have too much on my plate? If we are not talking about Korean food, then yes. But after these past two weeks of cross-cultural exchange and service in Nicaragua, I've stumbled upon the other reason for my Gasol-esque freefall. You know that feeling you get when you take a bite of Digiorno's after your cheap ass settled for that frozen shit from Ralph's instead of Pizza Hut? Well, that's kind of what happened. I tired because I didn't truly love the people I was serving. I tried to love, tried to convince myself that trying to love and loving are the same, and that, boys and girls, is the wrong place to use the equal sign. Moral and logical impetus to do good and to treat human beings with respect and dignity, while very powerful - and even preferable to love in some instances in my opinion - simply does not carry the raw, primordial energy of its counterpart. In this case, I was running on Digiorno's and crashed.
I think my inability to love at the time partly stemmed from personal root causes I don't quite understand, but it was also not helped by the design of service opportunities that I participated in. Developing profound emotional rapport with another requires knowing the other as well as you know yourself, and that is incredibly difficult to do in a sixty-minute client meeting, much less a ten-minute phone conversation. So this two-week trip to the rural community of El Limon, the fifth of its kind organized by Harvard College Project for Sustainable Development, was about engaging in a meaningful, sustainable human network that is so often neglected in the contextual framework of international development. Hidden in the child mortality numbers and skilled birth attendance coverage rates are uncounted years of surviving, growing, and feeling done by folks who, just like us, had no control over the conditions of life into which they were born. And we owe it to not only the success of poverty alleviation programs, but also ourselves to hear those stories and return them with our own. It is when we free ourselves from predispositions of understanding and interpreting accumulated through our lifetime, and see the world through others' that projects can be designed and implemented effectively. But genuine friendship and love, which make such a step possible, also transform the fundamental meaning and purpose of these projects. If you really love someone, why wouldn't you want to help?
Luckily for me, the host family who graciously welcomed me into their lives was easy to love. During the two weeks that we bonded over meals, games, and Nicaraguan penis jokes, they adopted this chino as one of their own hijos. Now it's time to meet the family:
Yami
My global health policy class taught me that maternal mortality is one of the most urgent and inequitable (99% of maternal deaths occur in developing countries) public health crises in the world, but then I met the mothers of El Limon and I understood. No statistic can capture what they mean to the community and the future of Nicaragua. Yami is a great example. Her stout body and slender legs would warrant a comparison to the mother hen if mother hens had her melodic voice or courage. Despite her claim to the fastest speaking member of the family, I enjoyed listening to her most because her voice always carried the crests and troughs of a songbird, the same way she acknowledged the joys and struggles of her life without deception. Her voice would dim and linger as she reminisced about her son who passed away, but regain its regular pace and brightness in time to greet one of her many tortilla customers. And the silky smoothness with which her tongue ran through the syllables of her daughter's abbreviated name would be sufficient to convince anyone of the love she had. Yami, though, always tells it like it is, and aside from making her a genuine person worth knowing, that is an invaluable asset in communities in the specter of chauvinism. She is the principal voice for women's rights in El Limon, and seeing how she showed no hesitation about choosing gender violence and machismo culture as the theme of our family "sociodrama" - a final skit that we prepared with our host families for the entire group - I think she doesn't mind reminding everyone once in a while. A very strong woman in all senses of the word, and a wonderful mother and cook who, after a day's work of being strong, mothering, and cooking, always looked you in the eye with caring vigilance when you talked. And I won't forget the quick flashes of silver from the filling in her front teeth when I smiled and she grinned back without speaking.
Ismael
El padre. It was more difficult to get to know him because he doesn't talk a whole lot and I don't talk a whole lot. I don't talk a whole lot in English so you can imagine how I am in Spanish. Based on my observations, I can tell you that he has no opinion whatsoever about the English words on the hats he insists on wearing, that he usually enjoys a second helping of arroz and also fried plantains if they are still on the table, and that he likes to walk around without a shirt when he's working. But he is also one of the most actively involved in politics in El Limon and is something akin to a community representative for his party, the Sandinistas. With a presidential election coming up, he was planning to relinquish some of his usual duties on the community planning committee to his wife to help with the campaign. Let's see, he is a skilled builder and wields a mean axe. A quiet pride flows in his face when he talks about constructing his family's house, and if the mood is light and he's feeling talkative, he will even throw in a deadpanned penis joke. What I'll remember about him is that sort of half-smile that creeps into your face when you are about to conjure an enjoyable or funny memory - he did that a lot with a friendly baring of the teeth. And a random ass question he asked me one day about whether I ever had a painful growth around my nipple during puberty.
Franklin
The 24-year old stud who emerged from the union of Yami and Ismael. Most girls on the trip were crushing on him to some degree, and I don't blame them. He has these big, earnest eyes I used to have before my Asian genes got transcribed, and the great thing is that they are hard to attract when you first meet him, but once he's done being shy with you, he'll gaze them straight and pure on his female prey and melt their hearts like rattlesnake venom. Can you tell I took a National Geographic Youtube break? It's clear the dude inherited his father's quiet swag but has given it his own spin, executing the redneck steez to perfection. His tall, well-built frame has found a home for vintage flannels, oversized belt insignias, and Wrangler jeans, and to top it off, he purchased a pair of black rainboots toward the end of our stay. Someone get this man a denim jacket. For all his flyness, though, he is gentle and humble, as well as a budding veterinarian. I've seen anger flash in those eyes from time to time but I'm sure Yami's raised him well. There's talks that he's getting ready to wed his girlfriend, and if so, other trip-goers and I are all excited to see him as a father on our return trip.
Alyeris (?)
There's a very good chance that her name is actually spelled Algeris because that's how her name is pronounced but with that exotic countenance of hers, I'll give her the benefit of the igriega. She is the 20-year old daughter of Yami and Ismael, and like Franklin, she was slow to break out of her shell. But she is much more openly affectionate and frivolous than her brother, and frequently surveys the room to see whether her gesticulations are being noted, at which point she will look down or away with a twist of her lips to feign embarrassment. I think the word used to characterize such behavior in certain circles of the female genus is cute. But the times she sits on her mother's lap or tries out new silly dance moves (which look good) when someone may or may not be watching are few and far between because she's always busy helping her mom around the house. She frequently cooks for the family, which on one occasion, included the task of digging through the body cavity of a freshly killed chicken, and still finds the time to attend school as she studies pharmacy. Alyeris definitely inherited the caring gene from her mother. She applies her steady gaze as soon as the slightest gravitas enters the room and will make you feel comfortable without doing anything. I think I got to know her the least well out of the family, though, and nowhere well enough to explore the dark corridors that are present in every woman. Case in point is her "accidental" peak-a-boo while I was taking a shower. Whatever she was thinking, she picked the right time to do it because my side view is the thing to order.
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