I wonder...

(Blog post began July 27, 2009)

It’s Monday night at 8 PM, and I feel like I have been both been hit by a truck and slipped a sleeping pill. I don’t recall ever being this tired. But alas, I need to write this blog tonight so that I do not forget any of the happenings or bits of conversation. Sadly, some of it has already escaped from my memory, but I hope to be able to get the gist. It’s a deep one.

Yesterday, I helped the youth leaders at my new agency with conducting a community activity for other youth—the topic was health, so they decided to focus the activity on education about Dengue and H1N1. Both of these are excellent topics, as Dengue has a really high prevalence rate in the areas that we work in, and H1N1 has been all over the news since….well, seems like forever (H1N1 is what the Philippines refers to the Swine Flu, so as not to cause too many misnomers in the media about the piggies). The planning of the session was done completely by the youth—I only helped to give them an idea for one activity and to facilitate it; otherwise, they facilitated and led everything. I was so proud of them, and so excited for what lays ahead for them and the agency. In addition, they are so fun to work with!

The topic that I wanted to write about, though, stems from a conversation I had with two of the youth leaders before the session even began. Somehow, our conversation stumbled upon their futures, politics, and the lack of opportunities for young people like them. They are frustrated young men, and I do not blame them. They have worked hard in school, some of them only to get their scholarships taken away because of the downturn in the economy or unable to enroll for the next school year because their family cannot afford the uniform. They are bright young leaders who have the potential to shine, but who are constantly reminded of what is wrong with their country. If they are lucky enough to get a college degree and find a decent job, their salary will forever be going towards financing the rest of their family to live. That is just the way it works.

The discussion was a bit depressing actually, and while I sit and type this over a month later, some of the same feelings are being stirred inside. What is a Peace Corps Volunteer to say, besides encouraging words? Having gotten to know the system and the realities of the Philippines over the last year, it’s difficult to be as idealistic as I once was. Opportunities are slim, and even then, there are unfortunate consequences. The average Filipino earns about $200 per month, and families are large. Many times, only one parent is working to feed everyone else. Not only this, but oftentimes there are elderly parents, unemployed cousins, and abandoned nieces and nephews to take care of. How does one build equity, or even save for a medical emergency, like this? If a person is lucky enough to find a job outside of the Philippines (called OFWs, overseas Filipino workers), most of their money is sent back home to their immediate family and distant relatives who just keep asking. While working overseas, people have to leave their families and children behind, sometimes for two years, or as long as ten or twenty. But it is what one needs to do in order to secure a good future for their children.

Of course, there are many exceptions to this, just as there are in every developing country. There are many people who are ridiculously rich, with more cars than I have ever dreamed of owning or would ever want. Their houses are as big as hotels and they have traveled all over the world, but they live a strange parallel life with millions of Filipinos who have nothing. It’s a strange dichotomy, but yet it’s reality. They are the ones that are keeping the economy going and funding development of corporations. Oftentimes, they are also the ones funding projects with NGOs and government agencies, through various organizations like Rotary and Lions Club. So they are doing a lot of good.

So, in conversing with these two young men, I asked them, “What can you do? How can we fix it?” We talked for awhile, and we failed to save the Philippines or the world in that conversation. There is obviously no easy solution, and we will not discover it on a Sunday morning. But they are on the right track – they know that it is important for people, and youth especially, to work together in order to improve their communities. They are educating each other, which proves invaluable in the lives of those who do not have the luxury of (or the opportunity to avail of the right to) attending formal education.

As a Peace Corps Volunteer, it may be our reality as a world, but it will never be my reality. Why was I so lucky to have been born into a great family, in a wealthy part of the world? Why me? One year here has taught me a lot about the world and about myself – what I can do and what I can’t. What I can’t do is ever know the feeling of complete hopelessness for my future, of complete worry about not having food, of knowing that the only way to make an adequate salary is to leave everything and everyone I know. Another thing I can’t do is fall short in telling the story about their lives, their almost quashed hopes, and yet their persistence in moving on. Perhaps they are my role models.