Community Culture

I just got back from spending a few days in a good friend's site.  Dan lives in the Comarca Ngabe-Bugle, but on the other side of the continental divide.  As we climbed through the mountainous landscape in the back of a chiva, I thought about how it would be cool to blog about the differences between Chiriqui and Bocas Ngabes.  After spending those couple of days in his site, I came to realize that the differences between communities has more to do with culture than location.

Communities relatively near geographically can vary wildly.  One community can be organized, healthy, happy, and passing the day tsk-tsking their neighbors.  It happens and with frequency.  So why do some communities kick butt and take names while others seem to pass the time wondering why they've been left out?  While some communities are thriving, leveraging the resources of government agencies or NGO's, some seem to be caught in a holding pattern of complaining about their lot in life.

Most communities seem to have at least one strong leader. They may be the one that has traveled or worked abroad, is more educated, has had exposure to more ideas, or just plain works hard.  They are usually the reason behind a Peace Corps volunteer serving in that community.  But usually the one leader is not enough.  There needs to be a critical mass of leaders, of change agents that seize opportunities, that motivate and empower the community to seek out positive change.  In general, only a few leaders aren't enough to implement community cultural change.  There's just too much cultural inertia to overcome.

Of course that are many other aspects to the culture of a community and many factors influencing those cultural traits.  But as a volunteer trying to implement health-related projects in the community, the role of its leaders and the community's willingness to work comes to the forefront.

What has really been interesting is seeing how these work-related issues aren't boxed neatly by geographic location or race.  Instead, every community seems to have their distinct culture.  A few passionate leaders can move entire communities.  A few strong characters can define the culture of their community.

Guilt and Selfishness - Part 2

I've wanted to write another blog about guilt for a long time, but it's been one of the harder posts to write.  I've been mulling over how our culture tends to elevate the idea of sacrifice and charity and enforces those ideals with a heavy dose of guilt. The truth is it's hard to write about our cultural traits without sounding patronizing. I wish I could say I succeeded in this post.

My trip to the US over the holidays involved a lot of conversations with friends, family, coworkers, and a few strangers about my chapter in Panama.  While topics ranged from diet to Ngabes to my current projects,  I could tell that some people felt guilty that here I was, out "saving the world," while they were still in the States.

While it's true that I've sacrificed a few things, I don't think I've necessarily been sacrificing much for others.  I joined the Peace Corps to have my adventure and helping others was just a part of the decision to join.  (Remember, I passed up the local soup kitchen to live in a hut in the jungle.)  And while I felt a certain smug satisfaction of having a lower carbon footprint than the hippies at Rainbow Grocery, most of what I felt when I was home was how amazing everyone else's lives were.

I'm blessed to be surrounded by remarkably dedicated and interesting people.  Everyone is immersed in cool projects.  My trip was a good reminder of how good I had it.  My only regret was that I didn't have time to hear more about what everyone was doing in their lives.  I felt there was a tendency to downplay what others were doing because jungle boy was in the room. The truth is, everyone back home is doing much more than they realize.  Incidentally, I'm doing much less than they realize.

So why are we consumed by guilt? We flog ourselves instead of appreciating what we have.  We live our lives feeling guilty for not living at the lowest common denominator. We continually benchmark ourselves against those that seem to be sacrificing more.

Like many previous posts, again I don't have an answer.  Yes, there are poor people in the world.  And yes, we should acknowledge and do something about it. And while it's good that feeling guilt is a symptom of acknowledging the discrepancies of the world, it also doesn't do much for addressing those discrepancies.  Somewhere in there is also a balance, a recognition that the idea of unadulterated happiness is important too.