Last day musings

Despite all the frustration that some of you may have noticed over the last few weeks, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have been here in Guatemala this summer. A lot of the learning and value has come from unmeasurable places, but I'm richer for having been here and have new relationships I’m proud to have made or strengthened. 

Some snippets of all this…

Stop doing things for people. Support and help them do them themselves. Charity and handouts create dependency. Empowerment should be the goal.

Making change has to be slow. If it’s not you’ll waste time and money by trying to move too quickly. Build trust, learn about the people, the history, the culture – social problems are probably more likely to sabotage a project than money. In places of poverty or with histories without reliability or transparency people and families are always watching their backs, always finding a way to capitalize when there’s a chance, and always worried that the person next to them is doing the same.

Language is the gateway to successful work. We all know what it’s like to stumble through another language to communicate – surface content, only getting near an idea but not getting exactly right, and the frustration of having so many thoughts locked away because you don’t know the words. That is what we earn when we fail to attempt the language spoken in the place we travel to.

Good intentions are not enough.

Poverty is not having information. Not having information is lacking control of your own life. This is what anchors poverty. Living in darkness keeps families from moving forward in any purposeful direction. This is the reason diseases like diarrhea and the flu kill so many each year; this is why corruption comes so easily – no one has all the information to confront the often not unique problems constantly invading and violating the life of a family in poverty.

If you’re going to have a career in the service business remind yourself each day what your purpose is – whether you are working for an organization, a family, a disease, a community. Remember to serve that purpose above the others when there comes a conflict. If serving a community means letting someone else takeover a project because they are better, do it. This work is not about putting your name on something, it’s not about making a profit, and it’s not about building a resume.

You can’t force change. It takes a long time. And you can’t know every nuance of the problem unless you’ve lived there, so don’t assume that your survey has armed you with infallible information – if a community doesn’t want something, you either have to put in the time to convince them or you have to change your plan. Make sure you spend time in the place you’re targeting:  eat their food, go to church with them, sit through classes with the kids – you can’t do the work properly from the corner office in the US.

It’s ok to make money. Just watch your thresholds. Watch where you draw the lines. Don’t yield on values for a few dollars. NGOs can be just as harmful as profit-seeking businesses, sometimes more – look at the ends AND the means before passing judgment.

Being "the other"

Have you ever felt every pair of eyes linger on you for a few too many seconds? Have you ever known people were talking about you in hushed voices as you walked by? Have you ever known that no matter what you do people are going to overcharge you, make you feel stupid, and give you bad information? Have you ever had to swallow all the independence you’ve built over the years and admit that you can’t do simple things by yourself? Have you ever known, with 100% certainty that you don’t belong?

Sure, I’ve had people mutter under their breath or watch me a second too long. But never every person I passed. I’ve never had strangers warn me of my safety just a block from my house. I’ve never felt so dependent on others. It’s an invaluable lesson, even if I’d rather not be in the midst of it.

Being a woman in the US has its setbacks: balancing proving myself as a competent young woman while not letting the fact that I’m female cloud relationships with older professionals. I will always be starting slightly behind my male counterparts, suffering from ingrained and often unconscious cultural biases, let alone competing against males from business schools, law schools etc. American society simply values that much more than a woman with an M.Ed. But I have the fortune of being white, having a strong education and a diversity of experience with a passion for succeeding in everything I do. I can at least get in the door, even if I have to work harder than others to be taken as a seriously.

I’m spending my last week in Guatemala by myself, including a few days here in the City and Las Conchas. While I’ve walked around alone before, this is the first time that I know I won’t get a reprieve by having my personal Mexican bodyguard around later. I’m not afraid that something is going to happen to me, but I can’t shake the nerves as hard as I try (because let’s face it, that’s a very realistic fear). And I’m glad I’m here this way. I’ve never felt so conspicuous but I’m glad I’m learning what it feels like to be foreign; to be different; to be the minority; to work through constant discomfort. Now I have some small idea what immigrants and minorities must feel every day. But I can never really know because I’m a white American. Whether I’ve earned it or not and despite lacking language and cultural skills, I will almost always be taken seriously. Whether they want to or not, people will usually listen to me, meet with me, entertain me at the minimum. What must it be like for someone in the United States, for a Guatemalan in the US, who doesn’t draw that inherent respect?


But there have been plenty of people to help ease the discomfort. Even today, during my hour+ spent in a taxi my driver asked to be facebook friends. How sweet... 

Take that extra step to help someone different, someone that is obviously an outsider, feel seen, heard and equal. It doesn’t take much and can mean a great deal – hold a door, make casual conversation, look someone in the eye, ask about their children. If you can do more, wonderful, but these small acts of human decency should be routine anyway. Yet sometimes they are let slide with people that are different because it makes us uncomfortable. If you as the majority feel uncomfortable imagine what the other person feels – make the gesture, it only takes a minute. Step out of your bubble.