You are about to read about my adventures in Haiti and then in Bolivia. They range in emotion and tone. Most of them have a little sarcasm, irony, and are aimed at making you laugh. All of them are meant to help you understand what it is like to be a missionary-volunteer.
There are many challenges and sometimes I just want to go home. But no matter what I'll make a difference here!
Wish me luck cuz I'm going to need it.
Today we had a visitor in Okinawa, Melia. To show here this divide, we took her on a
tour of Okinawa. Within Okinawa we have
many different Barrios (or district) and each has its own flavor. In the Japonese Barrio there are two story
houses with electric gates, buzzers, satellites, boats on trailers, one or more
cars, solar panels, trimmed gardens, etc.
These are houses built of brick, covered with stucko so the bricks don’t
show, and painted. There is a fence
around the property and space between yards.
On the other side of Okinawa we have the barrio where I
went to pray the rosary. This barrio has
a very different feel. Nice houses are
made of exposed bricks, then there are houses made of wood with thatch roofs,
the cheapest houses are mud huts with thatch roofs. Sometimes there are multiple families living
in each house.
This is a shack, but not the worst...
Our discussion today surrounded the injustice of
poverty. We talked about poverty here as
compared to the states. The Japanese here
didn’t always have wealth; many of them fled Japan after WW2 because they
didn’t have any land (due to radiation or other factors.) They started here with nothing and their
wealth comes from their crops. They
flaunt their wealth in their houses because they are proud of their
Conversely we have Bolivians who have lived on the same
land for generations and have not been able to get a leg up. They are living similar to how they lived for
generations without the motivation to build up. Some of these shanty shacks will be built right next to the Japanese houses. It's very much like the lords and the surfs of old. The money "trickles down" from the rich to the poor. Although it may be more of a drip than a trickle.
Yet, how do we address this gap when asked? What do we do when a child comes up to us and
looks for inspiration or support? I
think Melia nailed this on the head, there is dignity in poverty. We can be proud of the privileges that we do
have, not taking them for granted, yet not wishing for others to the detriment
of our personal sanity.
This is the mentality that will help volunteers get from
working in a field filled with poverty to living amongst our family again, as privileges
become common place again.
Why is this all important to a volunteer? Well as I’m sure you all know volunteering
means giving up a certain amount of privelage.
It’s always there even though the people who are hosting you try their
hardest to minimize this. I still have
running water (and sometimes it is hot!).
I have a bed a toilet that flushes.
I can afford to get my clothes washed.
I have books and a computer. Yet
even with all of this, to a volunteer poverty is very IN YOUR FACE.
I’d draw the comparison to a phantom limb lost somewhere
in life, you may get used to missing a hand but it never feels quite
right. That is the life of a volunteer;
we are always halfway between cultures.
My phantom limb consists of potable water, air conditioning, my truck, a
flat screen TV, Playstation 3, Laundry Machines, etc. and it itches constantly.
No matter what I do I sense the feeling of loss. As I lay awake at night I feel the heat
beating down on me. My one sheet is too
much tonight so I toss it aside. The few
mosquitoes that have made it into my room awaken me once or twice with their
infamous eardrum flybys. I’ve developed
a cough over the past few days, I don’t know what it is but I pray its just a
cold and that it isn’t a symptom of something deeper.
Angry I complain to myself. I think of how nice my house is in the
states, the fact that I can sleep with a BLANKET in the summer. The thought of ice water from the faucet makes
the luke warm water from my reused 2 liter bottle taste bitter. Tonight I’m bitter, I missed mass because of
the pounding in my head. The sound of
others praying seems to set me on edge, even though it should bring me
My heart seems to be in a black mood tonight as I think
of a place where I have a fiancé, a loyal dog, my car, my TV, my language, my,
I wish I could tell you that this was some sort of
fabricated story, but this is how I felt last night. Bitter and sweaty I laid in my bed wishing to
be somewhere else; to enjoy the privilege that I deserve. I hate to admit
these thoughts, and the only thing that got me to stop my whining was when I
thought of the children here.
I thought of children who are sleeping on a shared family
bed, huddling close to their parents in the winter to fight the cold and
seeking space in the summer to fight the heat.
Children who don’t have mosquito nets, so rather than the 1 or 2 flybys
they become a tasty little pincushion for mosquitoes as they rest.
I think of the Television that they don’t have. The deflated soccer balls they feel
PRIVELAGED to play with. I think of the
dirty water that these kids drink which carries amoebas, bacterial infections,
or some other stomach bug they can’t afford to get rid of. I think of the houses that I walk by down
here: the rich, the working class, and the poor. Even the nicest of the houses here in Okinawa
Numero Uno is not as nice as my parent’s house in the states…
These are the thoughts and experiences that allow me to
get through my time here. They remind me
that I don’t deserve my lot in
life. Life down here has taught me that
my phantom limb wasn’t a right I had but a privilege and I pray when it is
returned to me that I never take it for granted again.