Justice & Judgment
I don't know how Nicas do it. Living here physically* wears me out...but I have a plane ticket back to California and I have health insurance and even when I've been agonizingly sick (which has been twice since I arrived here), I can afford to rest myself in a comfortable bed in a private room.
Every day I walk to work past people missing extremities in order to spend a few hours interacting with children who have a slim shot at attaining basic literacy, who frequently don't have shoes**, who have been on the streets selling gum and hair clips since they were five, and who look an average of 2-3 years younger than they actually are, thanks to malnutrition. I am reminded daily that life is not fair, and that those on the short end deal with it however they can. What's surprising about my students is that, by and large, they're good kids. Sometimes they cheat and sometimes they quarrel, but they still walk in smiling.
Until recently, I was renting a room from a widowed lawyer with two teenage daughters. It was rather interesting to see the differences--the divisions--between the poor and middle-class locals. One day during lunch, my hosts were discussing my volunteer activities. One mentioned that there aren't quite so many street childen around as there were last year. "Yes," another replied between forkfuls of salad, "they must have died off over the winter."
Overall, what I've come to discover here is that the answers may not be immediately apparent, but the questions are now much clearer to me. Who is responsible for development? What should be the top priorities? and most importantly, What the hell can actually be done?
* though not emotionally, which may indicate any number of things about my well-suppressed sense of compassion
** I'm not obsessed with shoes, I'm obsessed with public health.
Every day I walk to work past people missing extremities in order to spend a few hours interacting with children who have a slim shot at attaining basic literacy, who frequently don't have shoes**, who have been on the streets selling gum and hair clips since they were five, and who look an average of 2-3 years younger than they actually are, thanks to malnutrition. I am reminded daily that life is not fair, and that those on the short end deal with it however they can. What's surprising about my students is that, by and large, they're good kids. Sometimes they cheat and sometimes they quarrel, but they still walk in smiling.
Until recently, I was renting a room from a widowed lawyer with two teenage daughters. It was rather interesting to see the differences--the divisions--between the poor and middle-class locals. One day during lunch, my hosts were discussing my volunteer activities. One mentioned that there aren't quite so many street childen around as there were last year. "Yes," another replied between forkfuls of salad, "they must have died off over the winter."
Overall, what I've come to discover here is that the answers may not be immediately apparent, but the questions are now much clearer to me. Who is responsible for development? What should be the top priorities? and most importantly, What the hell can actually be done?
* though not emotionally, which may indicate any number of things about my well-suppressed sense of compassion
** I'm not obsessed with shoes, I'm obsessed with public health.
2 Comments:
I want to hear more about you having been "agonizingly sick"... what was the problem, did you go to hospital, etc. Alison wants to know!
The first time was just a combo of general traveler's malaise and sleeping in a bad position.
The second time, I developed fever, chills, muscle aches, and intestinal distress just as I was getting on the bus for San Jose (an 11-hour trip, including 3 hours standing in line--in the sun--at the Costa Rican border control). Fun fact: my guidebook lists those as the chief symptoms of over a dozen illnesses, from malaria to dysentery.
But after dozens of hours of bed rest, I'm OK now.
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