Dermot - Fr. Fred

Fr. Fred

"…The steward was shutting the door to the plane and, finally, I felt some relief. I was being deported from Peru. Then, the door opened and in popped Monseñor Luis Bambarén, the Auxiliary Bishop of Lima. He looked into the cabin to make sure I hadn´t been kidnapped and then secretly taken off the plane. In those days, you know, they were ´disappearing´ many people in Peru…"

It´s about 11am on a Sunday morning. I am gazing out over the Pacific Ocean, relaxing at the Jesuits´ beach house, about a thirty-minute drive from Tacna. I have the 85-year-old Fr. Fred Green, SJ, right where I want him: he is comfortably lounging in his favorite chair, relating another story from his unbelievable past.

Before me sits the legend of Tacna: the founder of two of its most prestigious schools, the builder of whole communities for the poor, the former-World-War-II-bomber-pilot-turned-priest, the Hawaiian-born surfer who has dedicated his life to a dusty Peruvian border town, the near saint completing fifty years in the priesthood.

In Tacna, the name "Padre Fred" is gold: he is a humble super-star, as unassuming as he is effective in the good works he directs. There are teachers at Fred´s schools who say they pass up better pay in other areas only out of gratitude to the man who inspired them to lead in the classroom. As Jesuit Volunteers, if we encounter problems at the border crossing to Chile, we are instructed to drop Fred´s name, as many of the guards are Fred´s former pupils. I know at least three Peruvians who bear the very un-Peruvian first name, "Fred," in honor of this extraordinary gringo.

I will even concede an almost selfish desire for one-on-one time with Fred, and so I was elated to accompany him to the Jesuit beach house, a refuge where Fred has spent almost every Sunday since before most who are reading this email were even born.

Alone with Tacna´s Superman in his own Fortress of Solitude, I have an insatiable desire to know all about Fred`s past. The problem is that Fred is too coy to reveal his cards so quickly: truly, this octogenarian Jesuit possesses a reticent dignity emblematic of America´s "greatest generation." I know his eyes have seen the horrors of war, the injustice of abject poverty, and the triumph of steadfast prudence against the caprice of Latin American despots. I want to learn about all that Fred has experienced, but realize the man possesses an inherent humility—characteristic of so many born in the 1920s—that prevents him from sharing too much of the grandeur of his past.

To get this deportation story out of Fred required a good fifteen minutes of digging. I knew that he had outlasted three Peruvian dictators and that he had had a close encounter with one of them. Now, Fred is relating how, in 1971, he fought on behalf of his teachers at Colegio Cristo Rey for higher wages and how this fight almost cost some of his motley crew their lives.

All the trouble started with an open letter to the Peruvian military junta. In 1971, with Peru in the hands of the tyrannical and pseudo-socialist General Juan Francisco Velasco Alvarado, all available funds were being directed toward the military, at the expense of other vital services, such as education. Fred`s teachers saw their purchasing power shrink mightily, just as Peruvian army bureaucrats saw their salaries rise.

The teachers asked Fred to take a position on the matter and so Fred wrote an open letter to Velasco, noting the discrepancies in salaries and suggesting that the army chiefs take a reduction in pay, to free up more funds for the teachers and to show solidarity with their "comrade" teachers who played an equally important part in Velasco`s revolution.

The response to the letter was swift. Within a few days, it was published in Tacna´s daily newspapers and, within a week, in dailies in the large, southern Peruvian city of Arequipa. Shortly after, unionized teachers in Lima were making hundreds of copies of the letter and using it as a rallying call for a national strike.

With armies of teachers striking and thousands of ordinary citizens attending rallies against the government, Velasco was forced to acquiesce to the teachers' demands or face the possibility of a coup.

He increased the teachers` salaries and even paid them for the days they were on strike. The teachers could claim victory, in part thanks to the catalyzing effect of Fred`s letter.

But, now, Velasco wanted revenge. Convinced that Fred was a CIA operative bent on overthrowing his government, Velasco sent his agents to Tacna and to Colegio Cristo Rey, both to observe this troublesome gringo and to arrest some of his teachers. In a calculated operation, two of Fred`s teachers were "disappeared" to the Peruvian jungle and held there as political prisoners.

Thanks to Fred`s quick thinking, however, more teachers were not captured. Fr. Fred even surreptitiously celebrated a wedding for one profesora in her home and then spirited the new couple away to the Jesuit beach house for their necessarily secluded "honeymoon," in a grand scheme to evade Velasco`s spies. In the end, Fred was able to outfox Velasco: he stayed in Peru and his teachers—after a period of detention—were able to return unperturbed to their classrooms.

As Fred winds down his story, I am once again aware of the immense privilege to be able to spend time with a man who inspires me at times to consider a vocation to the priesthood. And the cause today seems all the more urgent. Fred is the second oldest Jesuit in Peru, yet the rest are not far behind. The Society of Jesus is aging fast and is constantly challenged to support works like the ones Fred started, with an ever-dwindling number of religious. Indeed, meeting Fred at the end of his life, I encounter a humble warrior readying himself for one last fight. Fr. Fred has parried the blows of Japanese fighter pilots, Latin American dictators, and Tacna´s petty bureaucrats; yet now he faces a much more indefatigable foe: his own mortality.

This fight against time is most apparent at Colegio Miguel Pro, a second school Fred founded in 1992, where three of my fellow Jesuit volunteers currently work. Unfortunately, this school is still more dependent on money that Fr. Fred raises on yearly trips to the US than on donations from other sustainable forms of funding.

Amazingly, Fred is still able to find enough money to allow Miguel Pro to offer a well-rounded education (he is able to put one student through the school for $129 a year, despite the falling value of the dollar and rising food costs). The problem becomes what happens when Fr. Fred is unable to keep up with the exigencies of exhaustive fundraising trips.

What will happen to Miguel Pro when Fred dies? Is it our job as volunteers to continue the financing of his good work? Would it be better if Miguel Pro were administered by the Peruvian government? Is it good that Fred´s schools were/are dependant on foreign financing?

Is JVI contributing to an unhealthy dependency on the "West" through our presence at these schools?

These are real questions that Fred and my community-mates tackle on a daily basis. You can only imagine the stresses that build from the uncertainties raised about Miguel Pro´s future. Moreover, as I have mentioned previously, when confronting such daunting challenges, the response can be fear-driven inertia: you don´t know how to deal with the problem so your response is slow or absent.

Here at the beach, though, soaking in the sum of Fred`s life experiences, the focus is not on these elephants in the room. For better or worse, I have stolen a moment to learn of Fred`s past. The fight will continue tomorrow. For now, the two of us sit back, take a break from the stresses of Tacna, and look out over the Pacific blue.

Dermot - Api

To lay the groundwork for this story, I need to take you back to the battlegrounds of Mes de Misión: the month-long service trip I completed in January. This is where I first tried api: a warm corn-based drink that has the consistency of runny toothpaste, the flavor of something awful doused with a lot of sugar, and the potential to ruin your day, if consumed in large quantities. I imagine that in some dystopian future, an alien invasion force might force-feed api to rebellious humans, as the beverage is as torturous as it is other-worldly. If you disagree, ask yourself: how many times have you seen anyone voluntarily drink steaming, purple goo? Before Mes de Misión and outside of reruns of Star Trek, I had never encountered anything like the pseudo-beverage that has become the nemesis for my teaching at Cristo Rey.

Now, I can't entirely blame what happened on the api. I was on my third day of Mes de Misión and was getting ready to eat a simple breakfast, when my new best friend Doña Lila filled my Nalgene water bottle with an overwhelming quantity of the purple stuff. I was happy for the generous gift and was pleased to know that Doña Lila (the cook at the cafeteria where we ate every morning) had taken the bait from all the effusive compliments I had paid her about her cooking. Unfortunately, the Almighty frowned upon both my gluttony and my sycophantic tendencies toward Doña Lila by giving me the all-to-familiar rumbling in my stomach which sends me running to a Peruvian bathroom.

I politely excused myself from the breakfast table and headed toward my living quarters. I was fiddling with the keys to open the door and quickly redeposit the api in our communal toilet, when mother nature dictated that that the front door to our house would be a better place.

Luckily, no one actually saw me vomiting up purple bile. But, sure as sunshine, all my kids came marching out of the cafeteria as I was attempting to hide the evidence of my latest failure with Peruvian cuisine. I tried to play it off that a dog had done something nasty….or maybe it was funny run-off from the river (I tried to tell them, "It´s the rainy season, you know"). Then, the biggest smart-ass in the class stared at me deadpan and said, " Meester Liinch, es vomito de api." (No translation needed).

The cat was out of the bag. And it’s been the running joke in the school ever since. In class, on a bad day, I turn around to write something on the board and I hear “api,” “api,” “api,” from various corners of the room. I try to discipline the kids and somebody invariably yells, “don´t worry, Miister Liinch, be api (happy).” Two weeks ago, I was watching Cristo Rey play a soccer game and the entire 4^th year and 5^th year classes (120 students) started chanting “api” as I walked by.

What can I do in the face of this problem? In reality, very little. At first, I tried to be rigid: a strict disciplinarian. I tried to make the kids fear me. I threatened them too much with detention. I tried to shock and awe them with meticulously organized lesson plans. None of this really worked. I realized that excessive punishment only alienates you from the students, while more trust will give you a great class.

I learned this valuable lesson in balancing discipline and encouragement after visiting the houses of my "tutoria" students. As part of the Peruvian education system, every thirty kids are assigned the equivalent of a super-homeroom teacher who must fulfill the role of head disciplinarian, counselor, spiritual guide, and adult best friend for the student. Part of this job entails a visit to each students’ house during the first half of the year. As an assistant tutor (working with a very capable Peruvian), I have visited 29 of the 30 kids at their homes and have learned about the difficulties many of them have overcome.

Perhaps most shockingly, I learned that about half of my students come from broken families. The parents might have had children early (and unexpectedly), as is often the case in Latin America, and now have trouble maintaining a marriage caused more by an accidental pregnancy than through mature and prolonged feelings of love. On the other hand, there are a surprising number of families who are split for economic reasons: the man or the woman might work across the border in Chile or in the mines outside of Tacna, while the other parent is left to work in town and take care of the family. Either situation is far from ideal and certainly gives my kids more to worry about than the correct way to conjugate the past perfect simple.

Furthermore, after talking with my fellow JVs who teach at another school in Tacna, we all concluded that depressingly few of our kids have positive male role models in their lives. I´d never known so many single mothers until I came to Latin America. I´d never met someone who beat his wife until I moved to Tacna. And I felt especially grateful this Father’s Day to have such a caring and stable father, when so many of my students lack the same.

I kept all this in mind when I saw the 120 kids chanting “api.” What did I do to stop them? I could have flown into a fit and punished the entire class. I could have grabbed some more teachers to "tranquilizar" the students. I could have ignored them.

Instead, I put a big smile on my face and charged head-on into the crowd. I half-tackled the ringleader of the group and introduced him to the very American concept of a "noogie," only after picking him up and playfully throwing him in the air, in a move reminiscent of the WWF wrestling stars all these kids love so much. The kids enjoyed my antics thoroughly and only chanted “api” in a louder voice: something I interpret as a good thing.

I understand now that these kids need a male in their lives that will do more than yell at them and demand of them without reward. In short, I've learned to embrace api in all its forms, as long as it will bring me to a closer and more respectful relationship with my students. Not, I join in the api jokes when it suits me, as a self-effacing way to connect with my students.

Learn more about Dermot here.

Dermot - The Peruvian Girlfriend

As a Jesuit Volunteer, the greatest mistake I almost made was to start dating a Peruvian. It took the advice of my community and family, coupled with some honest introspection, to prevent my insecurities from getting the better of my good judgment.

What follows may seem like a prudish, anachronistic, or even insulting justification of Jesuit Volunteers International's counsel to eschew all "significant relationships" while in the field. Nevertheless, after having almost broken this rule, I more fully understand its purpose, not as a paternalistic norm designed to control the libidos of free-spirited twenty-somethings, but rather as a healthy means of challenging volunteers to question the "amorous" feelings that can fool them into an attraction based more on external stresses than on true romantic chemistry.

It all started with a favor for a friend. In September of last year, a male acquaintance asked me to help a young woman with her application for an April 2008 placement in an au pair program in the US. I said yes and, through my male friend, started to help her with the project. One night, she came to a party we had in our house.

By then, it was late November. I had just greeted the new JV arrivals, while I was preparing to say goodbye to the two veteran volunteers who had accompanied me through my first year. It was a stressful time, during which I felt like I was being pulled between the needs of my old community and the desire to integrate with the community we would form in 2008. Things seemed to come to a head at this party; and I ended up pouring my soul out to my new friend, talking to her until the wee hours of the morning. A week later, I bought her an ice cream. A few days later, we exchanged gifts for our birthdays (two days apart) and I started thinking about the nature of our friendship.

To be clear: I had all the power to make the decision about what to do next. I was the one with the English skills she wanted. I was the one with the US passport and all the prestige and expectations that come with it. I was the one who had the economic power (my family would visit me later in the month, at a cost out of reach to most Peruvians). I was the super star. As one former JV uncouthly put it, "You are a Backstreet boy for 2 years; enjoy it while you can."

She told me that she got a kick out of hanging out with the tallest man in Tacna. Being around a beautiful girl made me feel special. More disturbingly, at one point, she even told me that we could "be" whatever I wanted us to "be." She was willing to do anything to call herself my girlfriend. This scared the hell out of me. Even after one private encounter, the friendship started to feel so one-way and almost manipulative.

In the midst of these confused feelings, I thought constantly about the JVI handbook, whose regulations I had agreed to uphold. Under JVI guidelines, I would have a week to inform the JVI office if I pursued a "significant relationship." If I procrastinated, it would be the responsibility of my community-mates to fulfill this requirement "out of care and concern for the JV in the relationship."

Assuming that my community or I would inform the office, I began to weigh my chances in a debate with the three members of the JVI Program Team in Washington, DC. I knew that pretty much every year in JVI Tacna´s recent past,

there has been a relationship between a North American and a Peruvian. Some have been fruitful, some quite hurtful, and some have even ended in marriage (as a side note, of the six marriages I know of between North Americans and Peruvians, two have ended in divorce).

I told myself that if I was willing to "take on" the office, I could eventually get my way. I immediately created an adversarial lens with which to view the JVI staff, anticipating a fight to get what I wanted. The poor people in DC hadn´t even done anything to me. And they seem, for the most part, like nice folks. I was definitely acting weirdly.

My arguments for "being with" my friend were based in everything from Bill-Clintonesque semantics ("it depends on what your definition of ´significant´ is") to idiotic nonchalance ("it doesn't mean anything that I have bought her ice cream; I buy ice creams for people all the time; this isn't so serious"). In short, I had an array of rhetorically bankrupt justifications in favor of pursuing a relationship.

Questioning both my misplaced aggression toward the office and my inadequate reasons for starting a relationship, I began to look for a deeper rationale to explain the feelings I was having. I concluded that the stresses of being in Peru were finally playing upon a weakness I rarely acknowledge.

Let me preface this analysis by postulating that a long-term volunteer program like JVI will exacerbate insecurities you didn´t even know you had. If you binge drink in the States, you are more likely to drink excessively in country. If you have a problem with depression, it can be intensified by two years away from home.

For me, my insecurity concerned relationships with women. I do not have too many close, female friends. I have never had a serious girlfriend and felt "defective" for this apparent "failure." Add to this insecurity the pressures of culture shock and the stress of transitioning communities and you find the textbook explanation of why I was seeking a special friendship. I started to look more objectively at the situation and realized that it would be manipulative and unfair to use my friend as a means of dealing with my inquietudes.

In the end, perhaps my mom put the final nail in the coffin on my vacillations as to the future of my "relationship." In the Lima airport, ten minutes before I would say good bye to my family for another year and a half, my Mom took me aside to give me two bits of patented Anne Lynch advice.

First, invoking the counsel passed through Irish mothers for centuries, she told me to "beeeee careful during this coming year" (the Irish brogue turns "be" into a 4 syllable word). Per usual, I have failed to follow her advice.

Second, and more importantly, she told me, "Now, Dermot, if you don´t stop fooling with the emotions of that Peruvian girl, I´ll………………….…….." To keep this blog PG-rated, let´s just say that my mother can be very convincing and horrifyingly creative when she is both angry and holds the moral high ground.

I left Lima with a sober vision of what I would need to tell my friend. I had a hard, but honest talk with her. She accepted the platonic friendship I offered; and I have helped her complete the visa requirements to travel to the US as an au pair. She will be leaving Tacna in a month. I hope that she truly does forgive and understand me.

For better or worse, I have come out of the experience knowing much more about what makes me tick. More importantly, the process has allowed me to realize the value of the JVI handbook: a practical document not written by those who wish to "dictate morality," but rather by those who bring with them decades of experience the problems inherent to long-term distance from home.

I am back at school now enjoying my second year with my Peruvian kids. I wish you all a Happy Easter season and a pleasant spring. I went fishing last week for a Good Friday catch. The Peruvian man I went with said that I would be a better "fisher of men" than fisherman. I didn´t even catch one fish to his 15.

The photos included in this blog are from various recent travels, since returning from Mes de Misión. The first is a shot with my community-mates before boarding our transport home from a recent retreat. We passed 3 cops with all this cargo and were not stopped by one of them. Asies la vida en la America Latina. The second is my appearance as our Savior in a Domingo de Ramos celebration.

Learn more about Dermot here.

Dermot - Mes de Misión

Since last we spoke, I´ve experienced quite a bit in the Peruvian campo, working with students from my high school in the town of Locumba (pop. 500). I was given the opportunity to travel to these towns as part of a program called Mes de Misión (in English, "Mission Month"), a four-week service project that all students at my school must complete during the summer between the equivalent of their freshmen and sophomore years of high school. The purpose of Mes de Misión is to give the students the opportunity to help people in poorer areas of Tacna, while challenging them to live independently, away from their families.

For me, living in rural Peru this past month was like entering another world, where the main lodging was often huts made from cane, with dirt floors and communal, outdoor plumbing; where the primary means of transit was in the back of a rickety camion, which would race down narrow, unpaved, and dangerously sinuous roads to towns in which few Westerners have ever stayed; and where the natural beauty of the valley where Locumba is located was matched only by the hospitality with which our group was greeted by many of the locals. Mes de Misión was, in short, the greatest adventure of my life: a journey back in time and a very close encounter with people who live without the daily stresses and comforts that we are accustomed to in the West.

Now, before you start to think that this month was some romantic tour of the idyllic Peruvian countryside, let me give you a taste of how I experienced rural third world poverty, and how I endured what was easily the most challenging month of my life.

One of the most difficult things about the month was the diet. I ate a lot of rice and potatoes, and pretty much nothing else. I went a month without protein. The month-long fast would have been manageable on its own, were it not for the tough requirements of the manual labor. Most of my month was consumed by the construction or filling-in of zanjas (big ditches) that would be used to bring water to a small town outside Locumba. To dig these zanjas, we had available pick axes, shovels, crow bars and about 60 sets of scrawny 14-year-old arms. Needless to say, I became well acquainted with construction methods used in the US in the middle of the last century, and spent days toiling on projects that could have been accomplished by a mechanized backhoe in a few hours. I personally had an intimate, four-week relationship with a pick-ax that left my hands blistered and my unchallenged mind craving both the climate control and intellectual stimulation of good desk job.

Finally, on top of both hunger and exhaustion, there were, of course, the "chookies." Perhaps you remember the B-listed 1980s horror film about a demonic doll named Chucky? Peruvian professors love this film and have adopted the name of the lead character (pronounced "chooky" in Spanish) to refer to their equally devilish students. I certainly had my fair share of run-ins with the chookies, to the extent that I often felt that if Sartre is right, and hell really is the eternal presence of other people, then the deepest darkest circle of my own personal inferno is one inhabited by Peruvian 14 year olds. These kids' teasing, their lack of focus, their raging hormones, their constant need for direction (from 5am until 9pm) left me more emotionally and physically sapped than the manual labor. Thankfully, I have a slight respite from them, until classes start in March.

Well, I have now given you 500 words of complaining about Mes de Misión. And that's often what I did during the month: bitch. Self-pity was my constant companion in January. Be it my rumbling stomach, my often rumbling bowels (yes, even a diet of only carbs can make a gringo sick), or the constant presence of the chookies, I always had a way to feel sorry for myself. It was not until half-way through the month that I actually tried to enter more fully into the experience and rely on my faith to keep me from getting completely overwhelmed. For, yes, I was malnourished; yes, I was emotionally drained; yes, I will never look at a ditch in the same way again; but, at the same time, I had moments in this month where I could not have felt more spiritually alive.

In the end, I concluded that you could choose to look at Mes de Misión as a taxing and absurd obligation which is unhealthy, unhelpful (professional workers could have done our work in half the time and with a tenth of the drama), and, thus, unnecessary. I know some of the kids I led felt this way. Some part of me agrees with them, too.

What made the effort at times fruitful was that I forced myself to believe in a prayer from Saint Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuits), which I recited every morning and which I have provided you below. Among other spiritually uplifting Jesuit mottos, I forced myself to remember this prayer whenever I questioned the utility of the construction project, the sanity of the chookies or even my rationale for spending two years in Peru.During those times when I rejected the temptation of self-pity, this month was very spiritually powerful for me. Like St. Ignatius suggests, I was able to realize that I could offer up to God all that I loved (i.e., a balanced diet, contact with my family, my health, my liberty) and feel blessed and honored in the sacrifice. Perhaps I´m crazy or just gullible enough to believe in Jesuitical trickery. I prefer to think that I genuinely grew closer to God in the past four weeks and know that I helped some of the kids to do the same. All the same, I am happy that I have finished the two Mes de Mision experiences that I will have in Peru.

I wish you a blessed and (hopefully) warm month. I am conscious, however, that there are probably around 150 potential JVs out there, who are in the middle of a demanding discernment process. You all have a lot of questions, probably which you would like to ask me anomously, instead of risking a misstep with the dreaded JVI office (they´re not THAT evil). Ask me anything, no question is out of bounds (and all will be kept in confidence). Email me at dlynchper06@yahoo.com. I will try to respond to your quesitons in the JVI blog next month. In the meantime enjoy the prayer below as a tranquil way to reflect on the discernment process you are undertaking at present.

Prayer of Saint Ignatius of Loyola

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding, and my entire will.
All I have and call my own.
Whatever I have or hold, you have given me.
I restore it all to you and surrender it wholly
to be governed by your will.
Give me only your love and grace
and I am rich enough and ask for nothing more.

Learn more about Dermot here.

Dermot - The Latin Kiss

Let me start with a Christmas admission, from under some Peruvian mistletoe. I have kissed more women in Latin America—way more—than I ever will in the United States. To start with, I have kissed every one of the profesoras at Cristo Rey, every señorita in my host family, many a married woman, all of my lucky female community-mates, a surprising number of nuns and Latin grannies, at least one member of the Jesuit Volunteers International (JVI) staff, quite a few strangers on the street, and maybe even a few women who didn´t deserve the Dermot mark of approval, but received it anyway. What can I say? I´m a generous guy.

If I were in the United States, between my personal and professional life, I would probably have violated every sexual harassment law in the country. But before JVI picks up the chastity hotline to put an end to the wanton lasciviousness of this philandering gringo, let me qualify comments made in the above paragraph with a note on cultural sensitivity. In Peru , you must kiss women when you meet them. To not do so is considered rude and highly impersonal. It is just one way I observe this country to be a much more "tactile" place. The people want—expect—more than a moribund and guarded handshake. They want the gift of your touch and are happy to give it, too.

Peru engenders none of the interpersonal distance that I see in the US. I recently learned that North Americans require an unoccupied space, 30 inches in diameter, to feel unthreatened and comfortable. You get within 1.5 feet of someone in the US and we reach for the mace. Down south, they think much less of it. Peruvians require you to give them a robust embrace, a passionate conversation, and an almost immediate closeness that would make many North Americans flee to a quiet and solitary refuge. So, if you plan on joining JVI Peru, get ready to pucker up: a Latin´s lips—and hips—never lie…at least in the opening salutation.

Before I continue, I should probably share with you the best way to kiss a Peruvian woman ( I never thought I´d use that line in the JVI blog). Stop laughing. Kissing is serious stuff in Peru . To effectively navigate this delicate maneuver, you must approach the Latina , embrace her, touch her right cheek to yours, and blow a kiss approximately toward her ear. Don´t blow the kiss too hard and make sure you don´t have spit in your mouth. You don´t want to give the poor girl a wet willy. Confront the task like a salsa dancer. Do it suavemente (smoothly) and she will be encantada (let´s say, very thankful).

Also, an important corollary: do not plant the kiss on her cheek with your lips. It took me about six months in Peru to realize that the platonic kiss is normally meant for the air, not the woman. A kiss on the cheek is a sign that you might be looking for passion in more than just the conversation. Oops! Mea culpa. I may have given some poor Hermanas de la Merced (Sisters of Mercy) the wrong idea on how I feel about their vow of celibacy.

Having given you a brief introduction to Latin philematology, let´s continue with more Peruvian rules of etiquette. When you arrive late (if that is possible in this country) and find a group of Peruvians has already arrived at an engagement, you must make sure to greet each of them individually. In these situations, the typical formation Peruvians adopt is what I call the "circle of death." Perhaps it´s a sociological curiosity endemic to this country, but when Peruvians mingle, they don´t form small groups like in the US; rather, they almost always create large circles where everyone can see everyone else and note which reproached Latina the gringo forgets to kiss. If I am going to end the night on good terms with all, I must proceed around the entire circle (at times, upwards of 30 people), making sure to kiss the women and embrace the men. This process can be more involved, prolonged, and subtle than Middle East peacekeeping. Moreover, if you get it wrong, the Latinas might forgive, but they will never forget.

I probably have kissing on the brain in this blog, because, today, I gave some of my longest anticipated kisses of the year. My family touched down in Tacna´s Airport at 7:20 AM today (but who was counting the hours?). You can be damn sure that my mom and two sisters benefited greatly from the great kissing education I received during the past year. Needless to say, this Christmas will be very special for me, as it will be one in which I get to share my gringo family with the Peruvian one which has adopted me during the past year. I am excited to continue with another year of JVI and am already feeling refreshed from the energy boost my family has given me.

In my last blog, I promised a rebuttal to Ivan Illich´s indictment of volunteer programs . Sorry to disappoint, but I´m not ready to offer it up, yet. I´ll make it a New Years resolution to tackle these issues, after a long conversation with my parents.

Learn more about Dermot 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.

Dermot - Looking back on year 1

Walking down Avenida Bolognesi, Tacna´s main drag, you almost forget you are in Latin America. You can buy ice cream, read the newspaper, and embrace a modern, internet-connected Peru. Less than three miles from the center, however, the street lights and paved roads disappear and the estera (cane) huts prevail, until you find yourself in the midst of some of the worst poverty in the country, in a neighborhood called Viñani.

When I think of the “third world,” I think of Viñani. I know that Peru is “developing” and that the term “third world” is offensive; but one trip to Viñani makes you realize the absurdity of maintaining a quixotic and semantic focus on the euphemisms we use to describe an impoverished existence that is so unjust and difficult. Viñani crushes all politically correct thoughts about poverty and “living in solidarity with the poor.” Quite frankly, the place feels other-worldly. I have trouble identifying with the people. Nothing will allow me to free myself from the privilege I feel over them and the distance I feel from them. I am most gringo when I spend time in Viñani.

Every time I visit the place, I want to curse. I resort to vulgarity not only because of my indignation at the injustice of the situation, but—more importantly—because I am presented with a frustrating problem that is so damn mind-boggling to solve. At Harvard’s commencement last year, Bill Gates said, “The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity. To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact. But complexity blocks all three steps.”

I can now identify with Gates on how complexity thwarts progress on poverty, as I feel overwhelmed by the challenges of confronting it and will protect myself with something that feels like indifference. When I am not indifferent, I feel that I can only apply small bandages on a gaping wound. I am completely uncertain if I am actually helping anyone when I visit those I have befriended out there.

On second thought, the last paragraph also explains many of the problems with “Western” philanthropy in Viñani. Did you notice what I did? Look at how this do-gooder JV described his relationship with the poor. I offered vague terms to describe the “desperate masses.” I rightly expressed my frustration and indignation, but incorrectly presumed that I am helpful in applying the “small bandages” that I can offer, or that I have sufficient experience to “solve the problem of poverty.”

I also set up a nasty relationship with the “poor,” in treating them as nothing more than passive repositories of my charity. I am the doctor; they are the patient. I know what they need and I will provide it. JVI challenges us to examine these unjust dichotomies that we can often create in our interactions with the poor.

On my Reo/Diso this past month, I read a speech by the radical Catholic priest Ivan Illich, who notes that “the road to hell is paved with the good intentions” often carried out by North American volunteers serving abroad. In a brusque and often cynical form, Illich goes on to indict my work, writing to a departing class of volunteers to Mexico, “You are ultimately-consciously or unconsciously- ´salesmen´ for a delusive ballet in the ideas of democracy, equal opportunity and free enterprise among people who haven't the possibility of profiting from these.” Illich goes on to condemn the very existence of organizations like JVI, which send volunteers into “developing countries,” as we will only experience a very damaging false solidarity with the poor whom we are purportedly “serving.”

Illich would have me pack my bags and return to the US tomorrow. Moreover, his strident indictment will serve as a constant reminder to me in my second year, of the dangers endemic to acting with self-righteousness as a JV. For better or worse, though, I am still in Peru. You call me a hypocrite or a seductive salesman of corrupt Western values. I will explain in my next entry why I do not believe this to be the case, yet will definitely give Illich his due, given the infernal pain I have seen “well-intentioned” NGOs cause at an orphanage here in Tacna.

Learn more about Dermot here.