There but for the grace of God, go I
Today officially marks two weeks since my return to Colonia Libertad. It's been an interesting time and I think I'll be going back a little sooner than expected.
I just poured beans from an old plastic gas can (I don't think it ever had any gas in it, but who can be sure?) into a metal bowl to be used in the kitchen. Doña Magdalena, my host mother, explained to me that the beans are grown, dried in the sun, and then put into the plastic cans at night, which are then capped off during the day (all of this to prevent "sweating" or the beans getting little bubbles). I also learned that these beans can be put right back into the old ground in December to make beans for the next year! Wow :)
I finally started English classes last night; none of the former students could get together until then, and new students have been hard to find. To paraphrase my friend from the Peace Corps, there's just not much interest in learning English here.
I'm going to complain for a while now. To skip the complaining, click here.
After coming back to town, my host mother described me as "sad." I suppose I have been a little sad about the overall outcome of this trip. After being kicked out of the elementary school, lied to about the possibility of continuing to teach at the high schools, and reduced to teaching a single night class in which only five people stayed the course, you could say I lost a bit of the enthusiasm I came here with. When I first started teaching English here, you would have thought I was reading from the gospel of St. John. But after seeing the results of my labor drift into the wind several times, I'm feeling a bit more like Job.
Several days ago, Pablo from Finca La Anita came to tell me that my host father had gone to the Asociación de Desarrollo Integral (The Association of Integral Development), which is the governing body of the town, to talk about the nature of my stay at his house. He purportedly said, in a nutshell, that it's costly to have me around, that there didn't seem to be any classes, that I should work out some kind of rent with my host family, that I didn't seem to be conforming to the rules of a fairly religious household (viz., I've had my girlfriend over late at night), and that they've had a lot of problems with volunteers who are afraid of work. I tried to take this speech in stride as much as I could, although for me it was quite the slap in the face. I have organized classes four times here, and was in the process of doing so again when Pablo had this talk with me. I explained to Pablo that it's sometimes a little hard to get the community moving right away, and that I thought a week and a half was still within the reasonable time limit for organizing classes. I also explained to him that I am a volunteer and that I'm not prepared to pay rent while I'm working for free. He replied that he would never do volunteer work, but that the volunteers who have been respected in the community have been the volunteers who were out sweating trying to build the community. It definitely seems like there is a lot more respect here for physical endeavors than intellectual ones. I guess I feel like if I had signed up for physical labor it would be one thing. I was told there was a need for teachers and that I would be a teacher in this community.
Pablo's response to everything was basically "I'm just the messenger." This is interesting, because I tried to follow his advice and take these matters up with Changuelo (my host dad) at some point later that evening. Changuelo admitted he had talked with the former President of the Association (they just changed governments) but said that he was asking for support for me, the volunteer, from the Association. I'm not sure what got lost in translation, but I know that I am just about fed up with having to deal with drama and politics here in the community. It's entirely true that a visitor to a foreign culture cannot expect the culture to conform to them (Pablo's words), but I have bent over backwards to be as easygoing and dependable as possible, I have knocked on all the right doors, I have offered the best of myself even when I knew I was being lied to, I have fixed more than half of the computers in the community for free or next to nothing (sometimes more than once), and I'm just not getting paid enough to deal with this crap anymore.
To make matters worse, I stopped by the police station the yesterday to talk to my friends there, and they informed me that someone wrote a letter to the police department saying that I should be investigated as a terrorist suspect because of my name. As near as I can tell, this didn't come down from INTERPOL or the CIA or anything of the sort; this was a letter from a local community member. Apparently the U.S. is exporting more than just beans these days.
Well, there are some positive notes. I got word from El Centro de la Raza that they absolutely loved the 60-plus pages of translation that I did for them. If you're interested in seeing the results maybe you should check out their Learn, Teach and Grow maternity classes in the fall. They're going to give me a letter of reference as a translator! YEAH! Also, the class last night went swimmingly well. There was plenty of laughter and learning, a good consensus about what type of schedule we should have. A lot of the students are now able to translate basic English phrases on their own. Lo veo como el Gollo: sólo bueno. (There's a business here in Costa Rica called "Gollo" that has the advertising slogan "Only Good." I see it like Gollo: Only Good.)
So, I'm sorry for the rather negative blog post. It's been grey skies down here. I'm coming back August 26th and I'm going to grab the first thing that looks like a real job and just get lost in work for a while. It could be Starbuck's for all I care. Most of all, though, I'm sorry to the people in the community who really want to see me stay longer. I've formed a lot of positive bonds here and I hope those will develop into some kind of ongoing relationship in the future. Maybe Project Ganas' dream of having an early childhood and maternity education center here in the Colonia will come true after all.
Until then, I will be excited to come home and see all of my friends in Seattle and Keizer.
From Colonia Libertad,
Chaim Shalom Ammi Eliyah
No comments:
Post a Comment