During our Peace Corps training over a year ago, we learned about the different "roles of the volunteer". It was a touchy-feely session on how a volunteer is a learner, co-trainer, co-facilitator, project co-planner, mentor, and lastly, a change agent. The excessive use of "co's" in the descriptions indicate we should be working side-by-side with the community members, empowering them to implement their own projects, etc. At first blush, it could seem like a lot of BS handed down from on high, but I guess I'm towing the company line on the softer side of Peace Corps training. I really do feel as a volunteer, you wear all of these hats, and, that having a vocabulary to define those roles, is a helpful tool during service.
The role that seems most controversial is that of the change agent. The whole idea of the gringo rolling up and trying to convince a group of indigenous of a different way of life seems like history repeated. Maybe that's not fair. Peace Corps certainly has a different mission statement than those in our history books. But at the end of the day I am a change agent. What change is good? What change is bad? Who am I to say what is right or wrong, what should and should not be done? And maybe that's why Peace Corps is a two-year minimum commitment. It takes a long time to figure out what change really is a good thing.
Being a change agent has been hard. Development work is hard. Finding the distinction between helping and hurting takes awhile. Example. The government is building a road connecting the main highway to a Ngabe metropolis, Kankintu, tucked away in the river basin adjacent to mine. The road will mean better access to employment, health services, and bringing goods to market. It also means they've cut a path through virgin rain forest. There's also talk of the road being used for future mining. So do we forgo environmental stewardship to help build infrastructure to raise the standard of living of the region? What development truly raises the standard of living? Luckily, the scale of Peace Corps is so much smaller that volunteers can sleep well at night. Most of the work we do involves education, building capacity within the communities so that they can help themselves long after the aid has left.
As with all my thoughts, I think about what the context will be when I return to the States. Being a change agent back home is just as important. Culture is fluid. Look where we were on civil rights just 60 years ago. That wasn't something that happened just because. It has been a movement. A collection of change agents have decided the course of history, have caused a cultural ebb and flow. I feel like the two years away from my culture and my home will have made me a more informed change agent. This time peering back through the looking glass makes me excited about change back home. What does being a change agent mean in the context of being home?
