Why I need to volunteer abroad

Even though it is at least a half a year away, I know that the more I'm aware of wanting to learn before I volunteer abroad, the better chance I have of learning it. I needed to set something at least resembling goals... so here they are.

• Education about International Development means nothing without the experience to back it up. A formal, classroom education is not going to teach me what it means to be a citizen of the third world. Living it is the only thing that can even bring me close to that.
• I will be terrified before I leave, and there is the possibility of danger once there. That these are facts are reasons to go. It will cause discomfort, and that is why I need to go. When something makes you uncomfortable, you have to ask yourself why. When you know why, then you can begin to learn about it, and only after you have learned as much as you can about it can you begin to really do anything worthwhile about it.
• I can raise all the money that I want, I can tell all the people that I want, I can do all the research that I want, but what do I really know? Having been there, I will have more credibility when I spread the word. I can say, “I know these things because I’ve seen it, first hand. I’ve tried to live it.”
• As globally minded as I claim to be and hope to be, I live a very selfish lifestyle. I can’t fully appreciate everything I am so lucky to have until I have been without. Despite being cognizant of how much I have and how little the “underdeveloped” world has, I still want: I want that camera, I want that jacket, I want that ice cream…
• I can’t help but think that there’s something (or, more likely, many things) that we don’t know. So many impoverished people still manage to find so much joy in their lives—so I believe that while they deserve a more comfortable lifestyle if they wish it, and they deserve their basic human rights… we have at least as much, if not more, to learn from them as we can possibly teach them.
• Finally... and this is one of my own selfish and probably idealistic reasons: It will break and make me. It will break my heart... but it will make my life. Make my life what? I don't know. That's why I need to go.

Au revoir!

For a creative writing class. It has a terrible ending, be warned.

I believe in activism over apathy. Apathy is probably the phenomenon that upsets me the most in our world. In a society where there are so many cultures, so many problems, so many differences, so many crises, it angers me beyond words that so many people can share the attitude that a former roommate of mine and even our own president brag of having: the refusal to be informed about the world. I admit, I don’t like to watch the news either, it’s too exaggerated and dramatized, it’s propaganda. I do, however stay informed. I read the newspapers, I utilize the Internet and all its wonderful information capabilities.
I believe in a global community. The problems in our country should be solved, but not with any more priority than the many problems of the developing world that are unquestionably significantly larger in magnitude. I don’t deny that our own country has many internal problems. I respect the viewpoint that we must solve the problems in our own country before we can help other countries. However, I do not understand why a “hanging chad” should take precedence over the 1,000 people who die every week in displacement camps in Northern Uganda (real statistic, find it at www.invisiblechildren.com). I believe that the world is bigger than U.S. and that we should start acting accordingly.
I believe that creative writing and thoughtful photography are my means of spreading awareness and creating a contagious inspiration and motivation to go out there and do. We are a society of short-attention spans and instant gratification, and that must be considered when trying to inform. However, quick fixes in developing countries don’t work (it’s been proven, read Easterly’s The White Man’s Burden for more), and that must be considered when trying to assist. I don’t believe in easy answers.
I believe that by the time anybody finishes reading this essay they will call me a dirty hippie. I believe they are right, and I am okay with that. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it. I believe that wearing my t-shirts and wearing my bracelets makes people ask questions and that I have more answer than they really want to hear. They should want to hear them. I promise I can make it interesting even though I know this essay isn’t very interesting.
I believe that all people, deep down, are willing to help. I believe that they are either a) just intimidated by the apparent vastness of global issues, or b) uninformed. I believe that if everyone just came together, if each person capable gave only 10 minutes or 10 dollars, the problems could be solved. Solved! I also believe that people can’t care and can’t help if they don’t know. I make it my mission to make them know. I can raise all the money I want and do as many walk-a-thons as my legs can handle, but if I’m the only one doing it, my efforts are, despite my reluctance to use the word, worthless. I believe I should, therefore, spend as much time spreading the word as I do doing good works.

Displaced

I wrote this in an email to a friend, and then when I sat down to write in this I realized that I'd said everything that I'd felt and been able to transcribe... so I'm copy and pasting it here.

I wish I had the words to express the feelings that Displace Me has put in my heart.

They're the same feelings I had upon seeing Invisible Children the first time, upon seeing it every subsequent time, upon attending the global night commute, upon volunteering to work directly with IC to promote for Displace Me, upon spreading out on my living room floor and getting started, upon receiving all the promo materials direct from the IC office, upon running around on campus for hours on end putting up posters flags flyers and stickers... and doing it all again when they all got torn down......


and yet now it is magnified that much more.


I had the unbelievable, amazing luck and opportunity to meet, shake the hand of, and talk with Bobby Bailey, one of the 3 filmmakers/founders of Invisible Children-- one of my heroes, my motivation, my inspiration. I was reluctant at first, because it's so cliche, but I told him all that. About how his film changed my life, how I'm now studying International Development, and how one day I very much want to go to Uganda and actually meet these people I feel like I know from having watched the videos over and over. ("and YOU WILL!" he kept saying, "YOU WILL! I can see it in your eyes, you WILL!") I didn't have my picture taken with him though... as much as I wanted to, that was just a little too cliche for me. ("I can't wait to travel with you!" he said... well, somehow I doubt I'll ever have that chance, but boy it sure excited me)

Anyways, he told me about opportunities to intern with Invisible Children in Gulu, Uganda. Every passing moment since then has made me feel like this is more possible.

We had rations of food and water, and had to get them modelling the way that the Acholi must do it-- women ages 18-22 getting water, only one container at a time, so you must go through the line again and again for those who aren't women aged 18-22, and men getting the food rations, only 3 rations at a time so they too must go through the line again and again in order to get food for themselves and the women.

And there were some Ugandans there! I got to meet some Ugandans... Come to find out, Jacob ("the boy who cried" in the IC documentary) was actually the speaker at one of the locations (whereas ours was Bobby) . They came to thank us, and to remind us to write letters and keep being active.

There's so much more I want to say but so few words to say it in. It was such an amazing experience. It rained, but I hardly think of the rain at all when I look back on the night. I'd do it again.... over and over and over again.

In the long run, Displace Me (however huge it may have been) is naught but a grain of sand in all of this... yet still, it made me feel so powerful! It's like when you get an A on the first test of the semester and you're instantly more confident that you can get A's on all the rest... and so you're more likely to. Same thing.

I'm bouncing and my heart is 3 times bigger and I met Bobby Bailey and I ate nothing but saltines and water (and even those just once) in 15 hours and it was nothing compared to what the Acholis experience, but it was a step.

I just want to hug everybody around me, even those not around me, and spread my motivation, I want to be contagious!

The UN disappoints me

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2005/08/unchr.html


How is it that the UN pretty much blatantly ignores the issue of human rights?

Well, at least the article did a good job of describing the atrocities in Uganda.

Countdown to Displace Me: 5 days!

I take for granted...

"Hey Mom, I'm here"
"Yep, everything's fine. I'll give you a call when I'm on my way home."
"I love you too. 'Night!"

Phrases I take for granted-- that my mother takes for granted. Since I was in elementary school, I've been calling my mother whenever I got to a destination that I'd travelled to without her. It started out as mandatory, moved to highly recommended, then requested, eventually it became just appreciated... and now it's just force of habit. It's certainly a comfort for my mother, but it's a comfort for me as well.
The children in Northern Uganda, of the Acholi tribe, they don't have that luxury. Every night they walk, up to an hour and a half- or more- into a village that has been deemed a "safe" place to sleep-- and there they sleep among thousands. Thousands of other children who, like themselves, fear being abducted by the LRA and forced to kill or be killed. So they commute to the villages... they sleep in bus parks, verandas, hospital basements. They don't get to call- "Hey mom, I made it here okay." They don't get to hear "goodnight" as they crawl into their makeshift "bed." Their parents wait, wondering, until morning. My mother would never sleep if I didn't call to check in, and I'm under no real threat of being abducted just because I'm asleep. Imagine the effect that kind of stress and worry would have on a person's health. Imagine that stress and worry compounded over 20 years.
These are the effects of this war that few people consider. These are the things we should appreciate more dearly... we are so lucky for what we have.

To Start

Well, here I am. Hello readers, whoever and wherever you may be. As a part of the URI MIND (Minor in INternational Development), I decided to keep this journal... not because it is a requirement for the minor, but as a device for me to keep track of my thoughts and journeys (physical, cognitive, and emotional) within the program.

So, that's my introduction... I'll be back soon to write something real.