Our quarterly report for Peace Corps asks us to share a success story. Maybe it's because I'm about to become a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, or maybe it's because Manuel made an impression on me. In any case, I couldn't justify writing about another student of mine who has gained confidence because of Peace Corps programming (though they exist in full), nor could I write about how PEPFAR's money is being put to good use (even though most of the expenditures make sense).
This is Hannah's "Success Story" for the reporting period April 2014 - September 30, 2014.
The most meaningful story I have at the moment is not a success story. It is a reflection into a very complicated situation and the perspective gained only through the process of leaving a place.
I was in Gurue, a small city near my house. As I was walking to my favorite take-away restaurant, I noticed a very thin man who looked ill. I said hello, but continued into the restaurant. After I ordered, the man also entered the restaurant. He stood in the middle of the room, and looked very confused. I asked him if he was hungry, and he said yes. The restaurant owner then gave him a meat pastry, and I bought an egg sandwich. When I turned around, the man was huddled in the corner eating the pastry the owner had given him. I asked him why he wasn't sitting at the table - his reply: "I don't have money to sit." I told him that he doesn't need money - only food. I invited him to sit at the empty table or at my table, where I was sitting alone. He chose to sit with me, and I shared my lunch with him. From there, we started to talk. His name is Manuel, and he used to live far in the country. He came to Gurue awhile ago, but doesn't have anywhere to sleep. He often sleeps in the forests around Gurue, and works when he can. Parts of this story came out slightly convoluted, and so it was impossible to determine if he was suffering from mental illness, malnutrition, hunger, other illness, or most likely, a combination of everything. I told him parts of my story too, but I mostly just listened. We parted ways with "Até a próxima" or "Until the next."
I do not consider this a success story because humankind and the very systems we have created to help people like Manuel have failed him. He was reduced to standing, waiting for someone to notice him, to give him food. Something had happened to him so that he no longer even asked for food. So often, our reports ask to share success stories. While our work has many successes, and that is why we stay here and enjoy what we do, there are so many failures that we see, and these failures will not be fixed by the status quo. The hegemony of international development has done much good, but has also failed more times than we, as a community, can count. Peace Corps Volunteers are in a unique place to bear witness to these great successes and great failures. It is part of our job to report these failures, understanding as we have come to that our reports of successes and failures in our community will not be put in the next USAID agency-wide memo, nor will these reports necessarily help to better the bigger system that centuries of humans have created. It is not helpful to report one more child who has gained confidence because of a Peace Corps Volunteer. For this child, the volunteer has changed his/her life. But for reporting purposes, we already know that children become empowered through our program. What we don't know, in scientific terms anyway, are the circumstances of the people that every program fails to reach and how we can better design a program for the "unreached." We will not be doing our part as humans, nor as development (semi) professionals if we continue to focus only on our numerous successes. It is important to remember that Manuel, a person who probably had very bad luck, and may never had even had a chance at a different life, is not the only person in the group of people for whom these programs make no difference. These systems are big enough, our collective brains powerful enough, that we should not accept their suffering. Although we may not be able to eliminate it, we have to try.
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