Kate - Life in Community

What do you get when you put a native Bostonian, a Cuban-American Miami girl, a Texas Christian graduate, a New Orleans Frat boy, a Northwest tree-loving chica and a son of Vietnamese immigrants in a four-bedroom apartment for a year? Your first guess may be “Real World: Volunteer,” but this is actually Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Welcome to my community.

I am having trouble articulating what it actually means to live in community. And I think every community is very unique (for example, we happen to have six very strong personalities; the advantage being a lack of passive-aggressiveness and no one being walked all over, the disadvantage being sometimes we are just, well, aggressive). I have tried New Orleans Crawdaddy delight and Cuban Rice and Beans, sat through many an agenda meeting, argued about levels of cleanliness and about who actually knows how to clean. We have our share of fun too – impromptu dance parties, lots of laughing, a Sunday spent taking a Christmas photo (Alana made us wear matching clothes) and making an Advent wreath, good discussions and girls’ nights, and jokes about our Tapestry-covered TV.

It is far easier to talk about community superficially. I think I entered this program being very excited about the community aspect of JVC; I was going to have an opportunity to live with people who must be similar to me; I mean, we all are probably coming from the same place in that we share these four values. That assumption was my mistake, and the fact that it is not true a blessing in disguise.

My housemates are the people most different from me that I have ever lived with. I have come to realize that while I do believe in the four pillars, the ways those beliefs are manifested is not the same for everyone. I think to fully grow from this experience you have to let go of your own notion of what spirituality or community or simplicity or social justice looks like, and be completely open to somebody else’s interpretation of it. I don’t believe that I have completely done that, but I do think it is the way to get the most out of this experience. Ego has to go, and the fact that I have spent a good portion of my life in community does not make me a better housemate than anyone else.

I feel both challenged and blessed by my community. I am incredibly grateful for these people and the gifts they bring (JT’s generosity and delicious desserts, Eric’s easygoingness and dance moves, Susie’s considerateness and outfits that only she could pull off, Alana’s friendliness and endless labeling/color-coding of our lives and Joe’s listening skills and Latin music). We have had our ups and downs, but at the end of the day I come home to a home where I feel safe, supported, and loved.

Learn more about Kate here.

Daniel - A Day at LINK

The other day I was having the typical morning at LINK Community School. I arrived barely on time, cold and hoping to learn from the mistakes I made the day before. I kept telling myself that today I would actually give a detention to every kid that said, "shut-up" or rolled their eyes or sighed when I gave directions to the class. Or, today I would make sure that I was constantly present in every conversation I had with a child. These seem like pretty strait forward goals, and yet, they become so difficult. I'm halfway through my day and I realize that I've lost. Conversation after conversation become one long day, and at the end, I stand in front of an empty class asking myself, "Did I reach them today?" "Did I make a difference?" Will I ever know the answers to these questions?

These are the thoughts that greet me each afternoon, but thankfully I have found a release. Beginning about two weeks ago I began working everyday with the 7th and 8th grade girls and boys basketball teams. (For those that don't know me, I love basketball. I have been playing competitively and for fun for nearly 14 years, beginning in the 3rd grade). My role on the LINK staff is the assistant coach, a position of authority--but the role of disciplinarian and all-around tough guy is reserved for Coach Jones. It’s at this point that I can talk to the kids about something they love and make them appreciate it even more.

It’s a chance for me to talk about something I love and know. I feel like that's major part of being a successful teacher - when a teacher is passionate about a subject, not because they have to teach it, but because they love the subject itself. When the time comes for them to share their knowledge, it’s not a class/teacher scene, but a conversation between people. They bounce ideas and questions off each other to find the best understanding.

I've had one of these "conversations" recently. Cassie is not your typical/ideal student. She is not eager to pay attention to a teacher lecture about algebraic equations or scientific theories. But, mention basketball, and she is all ears. Sort of. She is a 13 year old girl, born and raised in Newark, New Jersey. You can't tell Cassie what to do; you just hope when you give her an assignment, all you get back is a sigh and a role of the eyes. It’s that, or she is out the door ready to do her own thing.

During a recent practice Cassie was taking several jump shots, becoming more and more frustrated with each subsequent miss. I walk over to the basket and begin rebounding for her. She misses again and is ready to chuck the ball through the ceiling. Luckily, I retrieve the ball first and calmly walk over to her. I hand her the ball and remind her that Steve Nash shot 1-9 the previous night and he has two MVPs under his belt. She nods her head reluctantly, takes the ball, and then we begin to talk about her form. We decide on a comfortable shot for her and test the results. She makes the first shot from twelve feet out. She makes the second. I pass her the ball and remind her to use her legs. She hits a third shot in a row. She begins to smile and quickly hides it, because for Cassie, she expects to make every shot. We work for another 25 minutes. She takes nearly 60 shots. When practice ends, she jogs over to me and asks if we can work on her shot tomorrow after practice. I say yes, of course--trying to hold back my own beaming smile, less she find out exactly what that means to my heart.

Learn more about Daniel here.

Dermot - El Hogar del Buen Samaritano

I feel that my fellow countrymen and women of the developed world have failed the people of Viñani. Worse still, I feel that we have failed them not by our indifference (normally the great obstacle to realizing change), but by our moral certitude in knowing what is “right” for those people. With reference to my November entry, I give great credence to Ivan Illich when he says that the road to a third world hell is paved with good (Western) intentions. I see Illich's “path” clearly visible every time I walk into the Hogar del Buen Samaritano in Viñani, a place almost destroyed by the altruism of Western volunteers and NGOs.

The outward appearances of the Hogar are probably what you expect when you hear “third world orphanage.” The building is decrepit, the 17 kids who live there flea-ridden, their clothes threadbare, and their physical size well below the average for their age. This place is right out of a late-night infomercial for Save the Children.

The Hogar is run by an enigmatic and now-evangelical ex-convict named Fermin. He is the type of person who would be barred from running such a social service in the US. I sometimes think that Fermin is a reformed man who was raised on the street and is now desirous to give back to his community, even if he lacks some of the skills to do so effectively. Other days, I think he might be a scoundrel who has successfully manipulated well-intentioned North Americans and Europeans into supporting an enterprise that is more exploitative than it is nutritive to the kids he is raising.

I can’t divine Fermin’s intentions. I can’t determine if the kids are abused or if they would be better on the street. But worse still, I always leave Viñani with the dangerous belief that more Western investment will solve all the kids' problems. I know that my family and friends are a generous bunch (many of whom donated to JVI, when asked). If I merely asked them to support me again at the Hogar, I am confident that I could raise a substantial sum. I am now convinced, though, that money is the wrong solution to this problem, given how ineffective I have seen such donations to be in the past.

A generous French NGO, for example, gave Fermin a new van to drive the kids around. Donating a car to the orphanage might sound like a great idea, as the kids could use a safer form of transportation and Fermin would not have to spend money and time on bus rides. Unfortunately, the van costs more to maintain and fill with gas than the amount saved on bus trips, a situation which is worsened by Fermin's overuse of the car for trips of convenience.

Similarly, a German Rotary Club built Fermin a bakery, in the hopes of making the Hogar economically self-sufficient. They forgot to consider, however, that making profits on bread requires constant, stream-lined, and large-scale production, a goal which cannot be achieved with Fermin's three small ovens. Adding to this problem, before I arrived in Peru, Fermin tried to launch the bread-making enterprise and forgot to factor the cost of electricity into the price of his product. He now faces a $200 electricity bill and another $200 in fines for failure to pay on time. Thus, the kids at the Hogar remain in desperate poverty, despite Western investment of what I would estimate to be over $15,000 (more than enough money to feed the orphans for years).

Fermin has also learned that Westerners are a good source of funds and continually asks me for money. It is easy to understand why. Our relationship from the beginning has been tainted on account of the donations made by my gringo antecedents. I have trouble leaving the place, knowing that I could give money to help out these kids, but cannot shake the idea that I could be contributing to a problem. With reference to my November entry, Bill Gates was right: complexity is a heady opponent to realizing change. As a corollary to this rule, charitable Westerners who oversimplify the poverty of the developing world do so at the peril of those they are supposedly trying to help.

I have no idea what to do at the Hogar. My current solution is to continue to accompany the kids. I organized a tooth brush campaign to get them all brushing their teeth a few months ago (see photos) and feel that this was at least partially helpful. I also continue to be the most popular person to give piggy-back rides and can take some comfort in lightening the mood for little kids who have too much to worry about.

The situation might improve next year, as we will have a volunteer position at Colegio Santa Cruz in Viñani. Brad Mills, a fellow JV who served one year in Bolivia and will be finishing his service in Peru, has recently joined us here in Tacna and will increase our contact with the albergue (refuge). I pray that if I can have more contact with the kids through Brad's connection to Viñani, they will trust me more and I will become wiser in the ways I can help.

I still haven't had the space to address Illich's worthy critique of JVI. Frankly, I have run out of space here. The rebuttal must wait until my third entry in this blog. Until then, Illich's haunting words will cause me to continually scrutinize my actions in Viñani, with the goal of preventing my falling into the trap of providing the same type of hurtful “beneficence” to the poor of Tacna.

Learn more about Dermot, here.