People
often asked me why. Why are you going to India? Sometimes it was
enough for them to hear that I'm going to do voluntary service. The
asking stopped right there. Oh, she is one of those globally
conscious and caring ones. Sounds great. Some people asked more; why are you going to do
voluntary service, what got you to make that decision. And I wonder
if some people really answered that question with a “I want to help
poor people”-argument, meaning and believing in it with their whole
heart. My reasons for leaving were many and diverse, but I have to
admit they were mostly egoistic and self-centred. Of course I was
also hoping to help and maybe even make some difference with my stay
in a developed country. I didn't know about the term voluntourism
before I came here. I didn't
know that anything like that existed. Now I know more and at the
moment I'm struggling with conflicting
thoughts about my whole stay and voluntary service in general. Are
volunteers really nothing else but stupid fools in the end?
My
dear friend Lukas made me read a hilarious blog that makes parody on
peoples good will when they go volunteering in developing countries,
mostly on the African continent. I won't make any statement on what I think about this particular blog, but it really woke me up to
a totally new point of view on voluntary service. Is it racial
discrimination to take thousands of pictures with dark coloured
children just to emphasize the social
and economical gap between developed and developing country people?
Is it wrong to share these pictures on facebook and take all the
credit of being such a “good person” when going so far away to
help the poor kids?
I
don't know. I haven't found a clear answer myself. And even I have been
taking those kind of pictures too. In an orphanage of all places (I
will come back to those dreadful orphanages later). The
children love taking pictures, they almost force you, literally, to
take the pictures. I remember my mixed feelings from those moments
with the unknown children I knew I would
never see again. I felt a bit
silly and a bit fake. It is such a cliché to take those pictures,
but at the same time it is
the kind
of pictures everyone expect
from you when you go for a journey like this.
But
there is one thing I totally agree on with the satirical blog. Why do
people have to travel so long distances to help people, why can't
they do it back home? Even worse is the case with people who doesn't
realise how they discriminate people in their everyday life, without
seeing it or thinking about it. It is only small and hardly visible
thinks, connected with certain attitudes towards for example
“different”, “annoying” or “uncool” people. I think that
sometimes many of us fail to see the small things that we have right
in front of us. You want to be a good person and moralize
on all the horrible things that are happening in the world. But in
fact you are no better yourself in your everyday life. And that's
what annoys me. That you go to a poor developing country only because
you can, because you've got the money. And then you stay for a month
or two, not too long, because
you miss your comfortable and luxurious life so badly.
Taking pictures, playing with children, maybe building a new school
to a village that doesn't even need one. And afterwards everybody is
sooo proud of you and all that you achieved back
there. And you did it all for free, not demanding anything for your
good work. You did it all only because you're such a good hearted
person.
Okay
I'm getting pretty cynical here. I might not be any better myself. In
fact I'm not, and that's what horrifies me the most. I'm fearing that
I'm just keeping up some kind of desperate illusion of voluntary service when trying to get things working here. My environmental project is failing and so are many of the other volunteers projects too. Are there any
working or functioning volunteer-projects?
More
about that subject in the next episode. (I have to practise writing
more briefly it seems...)
Oh, I almost forgot. Here is a link to satirical blog if someone is interested:
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