On Western Guilt

Welcome to crazytown, population me. As I'm sure you've no doubt figured out, Peace Corps is one hell of a mind blowing experience. You'd think you'd get used to it, and you do. To a point. For the most part you get by. You learn a lot about the culture, so that gets easier. They prepare you with language really well, so while frustrating, you are not crippled. And you have your distractions: reading, music, crafts, etc. But nothing changes the fact that you are living in a completely different world from your home.

A couple of weeks ago most of us from the Tillaberi region (Say, Gotheye, and Balleyara) were in Niamey for a bike stage so we could better learn to care for our bikes in this harsh climate. While we were in Niamey, two pcvs and a pct went home. One Close of Service, and two Early terminations. I think this was the even that flipped the switch as it were, especially considering the two PCV's were friends of mine who I was sad to see go.

Shortly after I began to feel rather homesick. This is perfectly normal. I feel homesick about once a week. It happens. Usually I just take a nap or spend a whole day reading some sci-fi or fantasy novel and when I'm done, the homesickness is gone for another few days. This time however, it stayed around. And lingered. And festered.

I started working harder than usual in my fields, cause if I exhausted myself physically, I was too tired to feel unhappy. It worked for the most part. I even felt happy afterward sometimes. But it was still always there, waiting to pop back up.

My usual escapes offered little relief. Reading didn't help as I ended up just staring at pages and thinking about home and all the things I would do. Playing music was an instant cure...but only as long as I was still playing.

You learn to accept ups and downs here. It's part of existing in a different and sometimes uncomfortable place. You play all kinds of psychological games with yourself to get through the downs. You tell yourself things like "well I'll just stick around till swear in." or "if I can last another 4 months I can say I was here for a year." What get's scary is when you start setting conditions under which you will call it quits. "If this down cycle lasts a week I'll go home." That's what I told myself at one point.

Needless to say it lasted more than a week. I had quite a few conversations with my parents back home about my thoughts and the possibility of going home, and their support helped immensely. But the realy thing that was bothering me is that I would think about going home, and then I would get these sort of anxiety attacks. And from there I would follow a whole slew of emotional turmoil until I ended up back at just homesick. The cycle would start again from there.

For about two weeks there was not a day that went by that I didn't hit everything from homesick, to anxious, to elated, to tears, to angry. It was pretty unpleasant let me tell you. And it was scary, cause I knew this wasn't me. So I finally bit the bullet and went and had a long chat with my Medical Officer, I needed help.

Through the course of the conversation we managed to get to the bottom of the anxiety, which was the real source of all the ups and downs. Basically my problem was this:

I joined the Peace Corps to do something real. My goals were more about self exploration and expansion than anything else. Doing good things in the world was a nice idea, but wasn't what got me excited or anything. But now that I am here I see people who not only don't have all the luxuries we have, but will cannot even fathom many of the things we take for granted. For example the fact that I can just pop over here and type up a blog post that many of you may read tomorrow morning over breakfast or while at work.

We have so much that they will never have. The balance of resources and advantages is so staggeringly skewed it boggles the mind. It is one thing to sit in America and say that people over here have to live on $2 a day, it is another thing to live here and see what that really means. When I thought about going home, I would think about the fact that I was here and had seen all of this and would be turning my back on it. This is what then led to the anxiety attacks.

Are not the Haves obligated to share with the Havenots. Isn't it a moral obligation to seek equality. If that is the case should we not be willing to give up as much as necessary to achieve that equality. Thus if I am turning my back on these people just because I miss being able to have my own computer, play games with my friends, and go and see a movie aren't I a horrible person. These are the thoughts that would fill my mind when I thought of going home. These kinds of thoughts can tear a person apart. They nearly did me.

I wanted so desperately to go home and not be faced with this world. And yet I could not bring myself to do it for paralyzing fear of the condemnation of the people around me and more so my own conscience.

In my talk with my doctor, though, I learned an important lesson. These are different worlds, and they do not meld easily. It is not a simple case of there is more in one and less in another. One cannot simply transfer money or goods and balance it out. The ways of life are completely different and cannot be viewed through the same lens.

This is the poorest country in the world, and yes it is good that those of us with the means do what we can to help aleviate suffering and bring this country up to a higher standard of living. There are reasons, however, that this is the poorest country. Not to say that one lifestyle is good and another bad, but the ethos here simply does not lead to rapid industrial and economic devolpement, and thus western values and lifestyles. When money comes in it is nice and it buys a couple of extra meals. But it doesn't change anything.

My point, and what I had to realize, is that when someone tells you of the horrible imbalances in the world and that you should give up xyz to help, think a minute. Yes we should help. Yes I could sacrifice a lot more than I have already and give more to help the people here. But we can only help so much so fast with any efficacy. Am I doing all that I can to help these people? No. But I am doing more than will actually make a difference. And that is enough.

Yes we have all these gadgets and technologies that allow us nigh on infinite ways to spend our liesure time, we are also slaves to many of those same technologies. If the wrong computers die, our world collapses. If the power goes out, life practically stops. Here, none of that is the case. On the other hand they have to worry about getting enough rain to grow enough food.

But my point is that while we are all human and need to help eachother, we are also from different worlds that can only help eachother so much if we do not help ourselves. So do not feel guilty for what we have and what they don't. If you liquidated your net worth and distributed the total to enough people that you all were now even, it would not change their lives any more than yours. They would buy food for a while, and a lot of random gadgets they thought they need, until it was gone and they would go back to subsistance farming, because that is their way of life. You would find ways to invest what you had left, or start a business, or some other way to make more sustainably, because that is how your world works.

Do not try and bear the burden for the world's unfortunate differences. The world is how it is. Do not feel guilty for being different. It will drive you mad.