What If You Knew
In my time here in El Salvador, I've come to more clearly see the results and causes of the sickness in the world. I knew when I signed up for Peace Corps that I wasn't going to save the world. I even knew the expectations of how effective I would be were probably exaggerated. Still, it has been a frustrating experience, rewarding in ways different than I'd expect, but still frustrating.
I often find myself angry at the people here. The way they always assume I've got a treasure chest in my backyard. How they tell me "yes", they'll do something, and then simply not do it. The way they know exactly what they ought to do and will tell me in detail, at the very same time doing the opposite right in front of my face. How they don't want me to help them to help themselves, they just want me to do it for them.
My anger is misguided of course, and I realize that. If I were here, with their situation, their childhood, I would be exactly the same. I know that the real cause of this situation comes from the wealthy countries and the many ways they've manipulated these countries to be subservient. The aid given actually contributes to a further weakening of the countries, by creating a crutch that if removed would be devastating, another tool to bend the 3rd world governments to their will. Rather than using the aid to directly build these projects, the money were used for these countries to develop their own ways of generating wealth, they eventually wouldn't need the aid. Shouldn't that be the goal anyway?
Being frustrated down here I realized I was approaching the problem of suffering in the world from a very typical American way. The dealing with the end product of a problem rather than doing anything about the root cause that I've railed about before. It reminded me of a similar realization that my Dad told me about on his trip to Peru. He never made it to Peru, but while talking with some university students in Mexico, he came to understand that he can't change the world without being in the "lion's den", i.e. the U.S. A positive change in U.S. policy can have a magnified ripple effect in the rest of the developing world. So, working for that at the center of power is far more affective than anything you can do on the ground level.
It's been good to be here and see the poverty and the effects of our devastating foreign policy on the world. To see it and make it tangible has easily been worth my time here, but I'm ready to go back to the "lion's den". I can't wait to take the train to D.C. to protest, to participate in the elections, and whatever else I can think to do. I'm so eager I've already started.
I woke up the other day and just felt like I wanted to use my skills to do something. I'd been listening to some David Rovics and decided to make a simple video to one of his songs. If you're not familiar with him, he's a progressive singer/songwriter that talks about all of the major and minor issues going on in the world and exposes them for all to see. Anyway, I spent the entire day and came up with the following little video to a song called "What If You Knew".
After making the video I decided to send it to David Rovics himself to see what he thought. We've been e-mailing back and forth since and needless to say he liked it. I started seeing that I have a lot of skills that can really augment and help people. I decided to help David some more and I'm renovating his web site for free. Christine wasn't too happy with that, but I have a strong feeling that it's going to pay off for me in other ways. If you're interested, his current web page is here(for the next week or so)www.DavidRovics.com, it will soon be looking like this though www.StopAndWonder.com/Rovics/.
When I get back to the states I'm going to be looking for a web developer job, still doing my own freelance on the side, but I think I'm also going to offer my services to politicians who I think might be worth something, or maybe an organization, etc. Anyway, I'm just dreaming, psyching myself up to bring it to the root.
My project when we get back is to get the library working at the girls' school. I'm going to bring down a donated computer from my dad when we come back down and get it set up with a database for the books. Then I hope to do a reading once or twice a week with some younger kids and teach the library girls, who don't do anything right now, how to work the database, organize books, and hopefully do readings with the younger kids so that it continues once we leave.