Thanksgiving 2008

Dia de los Difuntos (Muertos)

November 2, 2008

Development

''If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.''

-Aboriginal Activist Group, Queensland, 1970's

Technically, Peace Corps is a development organization. In reality it is much more (and much less) than a traditional development organization, but nonetheless, the work can be classified under the surprisingly broad term ‘development.’

I’ve been doing a lot of reading and thinking about what exactly development is and what it should be and it has been somewhat depressing. Mostly I come across methods of development that I think are terrible. I have yet to come across a development theory or practice that I am 100% comfortable with. More and more it seems to me that development is not something that can be done from the outside (rich countries helping poor countries), but rather something that needs to be homegrown. But the idea of not doing anything is also uncomfortable to me.

The first problem I have with development is the word itself. To me, it implies a sense of superiority. The development organization from the rich country is going to develop the backward ways of the poor. We are developed and we know what that means and we are going to show you (or make you) like us. It is worrisome that a word so widely used is so rarely defined. MORE ON THIS…NOT YET CONVINCING

It seems to me that development is too often something that is done to or for a community rather than something that is done by or with the community itself. A perfect example of this happened in my community yesterday.

WorldVision is a global development organization that works a lot in my municipality. I admittedly don’t know much about their funding or their goals or mission, but in my community they work mostly on projects with youth and with small-scale farmers.

So yesterday I was playing dominos with a couple of my neighbors when a guy from my community came by to tell me that there were a bunch of Koreans at Chepe Malo’s house. Foreigners (and Koreans at that) are a very rare thing for a small Salvadoran community, so like my neighbors, I had to go check it out. Turns out, a group of young-adult Koreans were bringing my community silos to store grain. Apparently the silos had to be painted to help prevent rust, and this is what was going on at Chepe Malo’s house.

So this is a good thing right? I’m not so sure. First off, there was absolutely no interaction between Koreans and Salvadorans. When I showed up, a few of the Koreans were interested in talking English with me, but I didn’t see any trying to converse with Salvos. How might a Salvadoran see this? I’m guessing they would see that people from rich, powerful countries really only care to interact with each other. I’m also guessing that this sounds absurd to some of you reading this, but I promise you, the inferiority complex here in El Salvador runs deeper than we can imagine. There was a language barrier for sure, but a smile or nod or any sort of non-verbal communication that expresses interest and friendship would have really went a long way. I saw none of that. There were about 10 silos, 2 of which were being painted by groups of 10 Koreans laughing and talking amongst themselves and 8 of which were being painted by Salvadorans working quietly. And not just quietly, but shyly—in their own community. Doesn’t seem right to me.

Another problem. The Koreans came with a police escort. There are 6 police officers in my entire municipality, I can count the number of times I have seen police in my community on one hand, and this group brought 2 officers for security. What sort of message does this send to a community that prides itself on being calm and safe? I had 3 people ask me why they had security with them. It’s a good question and I really had no answer.

Who were these Koreans? A Salvadoran representative from WorldVision told me that they were children of donors to WorldVision. So, in order to please the donors, WorldVision El Salvador has to escort donors’ children and show them all the people they are helping (developing? saving? converting?). Also, the silos. Where they really needed? They were and are appreciated, but I bet, if it were really researched within my community, people would have preferred the money to go to other projects. So then it seems to me, that in this example of development, more concern was placed on the ‘developers’ than the ‘developees.’ I think that his visit had the potential to do more harm than good. Maybe it did. And I’m not so sure this is an isolated incident in the world of development.

Also, this same day, I had a conversation with a Salvadoran who works for WorldVision. He asked me what sort of projects I’m doing in my community. I told him that I work in the school and that I helped start a bakery, and I mentioned a few other things. He immediately honed in on the bakery and asked me how many beneficiaries. This is very popular development jargon. Essentially, it is believed that the more beneficiaries, the better the project it. It is complete BS. If I buy a bag of Skittles and give one apiece to 50 people, I can claim that there were 50 beneficiaries. I can publish that result in a newsletter to donors. Donors can see that by only spending 1 dollar, I have helped 50 people. My organization must be well-run and deserves their donations.

The system is broken. I am nowhere close to a solution (nor are people a lot smarter than me). But it seems to me that the biggest problem is one of priorities. Development agencies aim to please their donors. I’m not saying that they don’t truly wish to help the poor, but their first concern is funding. I don’t know if agencies can be faulted for that. Without funding, they can’t exist. However, how can we expect… and I don’t know where to go from here—will probably just keep going in circles—but I’ve been meaning to put a blog post up for a while now and this is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’m planning on keeping a running dialogue (with myself or with my huge audience on the World Wide Web) on my thoughts about this topic. Cheers, and enjoy the pictures below. Actually, no pictures below...just realized I didn't put them on my