Long Reflection - Unexpected Challenge

Here's a response to the first DukeEngage prompt: What has stood out as the most unexpected element of your experience? How has it reshaped your previous expectations? In what ways has this surprise positively contributed to your service experience?

It’s hard to pinpoint the most unexpected element of my DukeEngage experience. I guess on a personal level I didn’t realize how challenging it would be to live in much different conditions than I’m used to – faced with sweltering humidity, never-ending bug bites and encounters with crawling bugs on the floor, in the shower, and on the counter; living in a house with 9 other volunteers and all of the household challenges with cleanliness, waking up and rounding everyone to go on time, and cooking a nutritious meal with uncertain access to the fruits and veggies I enjoy at home. When I thought about my project and the work that I’d be doing, I didn’t think much about my living conditions at the volunteer house nor how added living challenges would affect my work performance. It was difficult at first to adjust to a situation I had never encountered before – vying with nine other people to meet my own personal needs to eat, drink, and sleep. At the volunteer house, my own standards for cleanliness were certainly not shared by many of the other volunteers, yet at the same time I had to adjust my own preferences to tolerate dirty conditions because it would have been exhausting to clean the house thoroughly and keep it clean. On one occasion, just after my group returned from a grocery shopping trip in La Ceiba, I went on a cleaning spree since I felt it an opportune time to use the Clorox wipes I had just bought. I cleaned the countertops, the stove, parts of the refrigerator, the coffee pot, the blender, the toaster, and then I even cleaned my bathroom. I felt empowered and a bit refreshed, feeling as though I had made my living conditions more “live-able.” However, to my dismay, the next day after all the volunteers had passed through the kitchen and the counter and the table that I had so meticulously cleaned, the house was again dirty, with unwashed plates in the sink and crumbs and opened packages on the countertop, and the ants were visibly back on the countertop. I learned from this that although I can put in my own effort to keep my own area clean – our bathroom stayed relatively clean after I spent half an hour wiping dirt away since only Melody and I used the bathroom – in general, it’s very difficult to keep public space clean when other people aren’t motivated or willing to do their part to clean the area. I felt frustrated at times because I always washed my dishes and put my opened packages of food away and generally kept my storage space compact and tidy. However, cleanliness was not so much a priority for the other volunteers, especially since the house was already dirty beyond redemption that keeping things very clean was nearly impossible and thus extra efforts were mostly futile.
Yet all hope is not lost – and rather than change my attitude to resignation, as I saw many of the other volunteers had become resigned to a perpetual state of un-cleanliness, I just vowed to do my best to keep my own items clean and to always contribute my fair share to keep the house clean through cleaning dishes, taking out the trash, and occasionally wiping down the countertop. I realized that sometimes compromises are ok and that I just had to have faith that everyone would try their best to keep everything clean. However, I acknowledged that given the unclean state of the house, sometimes even contributing enough effort to fulfill your “fair share” cannot surmount extenuating obstacles – like bugs constantly flying into the house and exhausting humidity and heat in a non-airconditioned house that kills motivation to do anything but sit in front of the fan after a long morning interacting with kids. Even though it was difficult, I learned that living with a lot of other people in a house poorly suited to accommodate the needs of everyone with respect to cleanliness can still build community around a desire to do things to take your mind off the heat and humidity and dirtiness. I enjoyed playing cards and monopoly and basketball with other volunteers, and venturing into the community to play with the kids on the corner and to do interviews, and heading over to the restaurant when we literally had nothing left to eat other than some peanut butter and uncooked pasta.
On the other hand, by living in such different conditions with additional hardship truly lent me a greater appreciation for my living conditions at home and at Duke. I reflected more on an idea that I had learned at Common Ground, that privilege means not having to worry about the little things. This was especially brought to light when I visited our Peacework coordinator at the Porvenir Inn, the local hotel in town. She had AC and internet and a TV in her room. We had no AC, no internet, no TV – and not having these things really put everything into perspective for me. I’m so used to having immediate access to internet at home and at Duke such that I spend a lot of my time on the computer. However, not having this in Honduras not only enlightened me to how incredibly privileged I am to have the world literally at my fingertips when I’m in the US, but also to think about people living in Porvenir in even more compromising living conditions than me. I found it difficult to live in a house without AC and the internet; yet I still had access to purified drinking water, running water in the sink, a toilet and shower and electricity, and fans, a bed, pillows, a washing machine, and enough space to sleep 10 people, albeit a tight squeeze. Although it was admittedly a step down from living at Duke or at home, it was unimaginably a better living situation than many of the people in Porvenir, who have very limited electricity, if any; who get their water from a faucet that probably brings them contaminated water and gives them parasites; who probably don’t have as many fans as we had in the volunteer house; who wash their clothes with washing boards and hang them to dry on clotheslines outside; who may not even have beds or pillows or enough space to comfortably sleep all of the family members. The women in Porvenir get up at the first light of dawn to work on the day’s chores – cooking and cleaning and looking after their kids – and undoubtedly worry about so many more little things than I probably ever will have to worry about. Even the poorest households in the US have more access to basic needs than the poorest in developing countries like Honduras – where the corrupt government and limited infrastructure guarantees nothing to struggling impoverished families. In a conversation with a cab driver here, I learned that the poor constitute nearly 70 percent of the population and the other 30 percent are rich politicians and land-owners. Many of the people in Porvenir and surrounding areas work for Standard Fruit Company, which owns Dole. This multi-national corporation exploits cheap labor and reaps the benefit for themselves. Doctors here earn minimum wage and contend with difficulties unimaginable to health professionals in the US – limited supplies, technology, insufficient staff, limited beds for patients and no personal rooms, just open areas and large waiting rooms for recovering patients. Some clinics in rural areas may not even have access to running water or have a way to sterilize equipment and it’s really a double-edged sword because the people here are not content with the health services offered yet the nurses and doctors are strained with limitations on resources and basic clinic needs and above all the government has not provided the country with proper infrastructure to meet the health care needs of the people here. It’s hard to determine the exact cause of how all of this came to be – what came first, a chicken-vs-egg story if you will between corruption and the influence of multinational corporations. Add poverty and contaminated water to the mix, and you’ve got a helluva witches’ brew. The multinational corporations, like Standard Fruit, carry with them an even worse form of the pervasive “machismo” here in Latin America – the ideology that men here can call all the shots without consequences, including domestic and child abuse, drunkenness, gambling, irresponsibility with regard to finances, family needs, and general “macho-ness” carried to an extreme. Companies like Standard Fruit come in with the hope to pay people the least amount they will accept so that they can reap the most profit. Beyond that transgression in the name of “efficiency” or “maximized revenue” – with a failure to carry the actions through to see the consequence paying people less than is enough to feed their family – Standard Fruit and other companies compromise the health of workers by exposing them to cancer-causing and otherwise hazardous and toxic chemicals. And on a community level, the runoff of pesticides into the Porvenir river is very damaging to the health of people that bathe in the river, swim in the part of the ocean that the river feeds into, or really have any contact with the river at all. Failure for the government to install a trash-collection and recycling system is also damaging to public health because people are inclined to burn their trash – plastic and all – which releases chlorine gas and other air-polluting fumes into the air that people breathe in every day. And the most basic need of all – clean drinking water – is not a right but a commodity, a luxury if an individual has enough money to afford it. Many of the families here are only able to survive from receiving money from relatives living in the US – money to complement the meager earnings they scrape off of working in the piñeras (pineapple fields) or selling fish they’ve caught in the Caribbean Sea. Many people have complained that there aren’t work opportunities here, and seem to think that the only way to help the environmental and health challenges are through outside organizations coming to provide healthcare services or create environmental projects. From a volunteer standpoint, my hope is that motivated individuals will continue on with the projects I help launch in the community. One of the obstacles to this goal is that many people in Porvenir are not motivated to do projects on their own because they have lost faith in the government to the point that they have lost faith in themselves and their own power to rise up out of their impoverished challenging conditions to do something about the problems they face. The government’s inability to provide infrastructure to meet basic needs has stripped the people here of confidence that they can make a difference in their community through working together to solve a common problem. It is enough of a challenge for people to care for themselves and their children and their extended family and to cook and clean and scrape up enough money occasionally for healthcare. It is a different philosophy here than in the US, where we have the resources and the privilege to believe ourselves invincible and able to meet our individual goals as well as make a difference on a community level. In Honduras, partly due to the limited resources and the daily struggle to meet basic needs and partly due to resignation that individuals are powerless to larger corporations and the government that takes advantage of the people with no regard to their well-being, life is slower, difficult, and challenges are debilitating. It shouldn’t have to be this way – no one should fall victim to a vicious cycle of poverty and exploitation and health and environmental concerns through the roof. I think in a way that the people have learned to deal with it not by helplessly trying to surmount challenges through collective action, which may or may not – likely not – be successful (without outside help), but rather people have learned to do what they can to take care of their families and to acknowledge that some things are beyond their control. People here are friendly – and likely have united through shared challenges to build community. In a way, although it seems to avert the staggering problems of poverty and unsanitary conditions, it is a method that may not surmount the challenges but to find peace despite the challenges.
Returning back to my initial thoughts on cleanliness of the house and doing my best to contribute my fair share of the household duties, acknowledge that some things were beyond my control, and build community around shared challenges by socializing with fellow volunteers, I can almost fully empathize with the people here and their choice to build community around challenges and commiserate together, each doing the best they can to keep their family afloat. Perhaps adrift or perhaps plummeting down an ever-stronger current of rising challenges, the ebb and flow in Honduras softens the presumed daily struggles with poverty and limited healthcare with an attitude of gratitude for life and sharing life with others and accepting delays and obstacles as a part of life. “Life” in essence is completely different here – it is not intensely focused on meeting personal goals and individual accomplishments and statistics technology convenience and efficiency, but it is rather a well-worn fabric interwoven with challenges and small triumphs, of patience and perseverance, of community and talking and finding simple pleasure, or at least feeling content, in cooking for a birthday party and sharing stories with friends and playing soccer in the park, sitting in the shade, eating mangoes, and accepting daily problems as something to keep you occupied and fulfilled in providing and caring for your family. It is not a culture that would necessarily mesh well with the US, which is so fast paced and work-oriented to the point that we have left behind community and socializing and patience in favor of TV and isolated success and superfluous commodities and superficial parties. We may not even know the neighbors down the street in the US, whereas here everyone knows everyone in their near vicinity and people spend a large part of their day sitting and talking or taking a nice stroll or going to church each night or just passing the time with neighbors here. Community is so much more than having one shared interest, but truly it’s having a shared underlying understanding about a complex situation and a shared attitude about what life is and what is important in life. Day by day, people are patient and wait for food to cook or for kids to draw or play or for the clouds to pass over the sun for a minute to get a bit of shade or for the rain to come or for the mangoes to fall off of the trees or for the kids to finish eating food so that they can feel better and so that the food scraps can go to the starving dog. It is a different life here – in ways simpler but in ways enriched with a stronger community bond, the kind that is built around shouldering a hefty burden and the unspoken understanding that your neighbor shares that burden as well. There is not so much a shared responsibility for community problems – since so many are the result of multinationals’ or the government’s negligence with regard to meeting people’s basic living needs – but I would describe it more as a strong understanding about what problems most people face in the community, whether or not there’s any good solution to them. I think in the US there is some awareness but not enough of a shared understanding that people are worse off than others and that poverty exists to a significant extent in some communities and households. In the US, we have more of an attitude of inferiority in the middle class, of “keeping up with the Joneses”, of wanting the next bigger, better, newer item, of striving for personal success even if it means life will be harder for someone else. Middle class neighborhoods in the US are still privileged with clean water, electricity, modern conveniences like refrigerators, AC, TVs, computers, internet, ample food available at a reasonable price at the grocery store, and so many other commodities that people in Honduras and other developing countries may never enjoy. We have cars and roads and bridges and enough infrastructure that we can get around easily, buy food easily, learn about news easily; we have good education systems and a decent healthcare system and generally just such privilege not to have to worry about meeting basic needs. Schools in Honduras are inconsistent; the government doesn’t pay teachers much and even the amount of education people receive is very inconsistent. Many of the women I interviewed had only a sixth grade education – and some only had a third grade education. Learning here is more learning the ways of life – how to cook and clean and be a mother at a very young age. Education in the public schools doesn’t really get people anywhere if there are no jobs – and since women have to stay home and care for the kids anyways men must fill the role of working, but then because of machismo even the men are irresponsible and blow the family’s money on beer and gambling and the family suffers and it’s really a sad situation. It’s sad to see people so friendly suffer and not have the same chance in life to get ahead and rise up out of their impoverished conditions just because they were born into poverty and into a country where privilege is a luxury for the few and basic needs somehow fall into the category of “luxury.” It’s disgusting to think that the Standard Fruit company and the rich landowners here can continue to exploit people and reap benefit only for themselves while failing to think about the well-being of the people who they’re dependent on to work in their fields. I hope someday things will change and people will re-direct their attention away from greed veiled by “efficiency” so that people won’t suffer as much. I hope at the very least the world can take notice of the vast disparities between the privileges people in developed countries enjoy versus the failure to meet even basic needs like clean water in developing countries. Even that, providing access to clean drinking water around the world, albeit likely impossible, would revolutionize public health and hopefully empower people around the world. I would do it if I could, but I am just one person in a vast space of 6 billion people all vying to meet their personal needs. I think even providing clean water for one community in Honduras would make a huge difference. I’ve thought more about it and realized it would be an incredible challenge even just to do that – and that beyond that I couldn’t just provide clean water to one area and not to another in close proximity because that would inspire jealousy and would also encourage people to continue to be dependent on foreign help rather than taking things into their own hands on a sustainable level. What really is sustainable anyway? Is it making the most out of poverty and settling for “good effort”? Is it providing with initial equipment and ideas and expecting them to find the motivation to rise to the challenge? Is it putting a lot of faith in community leaders who may or may not be able to find enough help in the community to carry out the project? Or is it something different entirely that I haven’t considered yet? I’m thinking that putting faith in a community leader is a good way to go. But it’s so difficult with limited ability to coordinate things from the states to Honduras and with different expectations and a different viewpoint on life and its priorities, is it even possible to coordinate something as large scale as a water purification project carried out on the level of individual homes working through a community leader? These are questions I’ll continue to contend with as I think about project design for next year and at some level I’ll need to let the patience and friendly gratitude of the Honduran people seep into my thoughts and goals so that I can continue to have faith and persevere despite difficulties and to find happiness in the simple pleasures in life.