Message-ID: <32C7711A.B77@uniontel.net> Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 23:36:58 -0800 From: David Johnson <mailto:pinefarm@UNIONTEL.NET> Subject: Escalating philosophising To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
I can't say ,in all honesty, that I am upset with the turn these
simple stories have taken. Its rather flattering to be the catylist of
all of this high flown rhetoric. I didn't really plan it that way, at
most, I hoped that others might relate similiar stories for me to respond
to.
It seems that I may be the only person who worked in third world
countries who came away disappointed in what he was able to accomplish in
the time he was there and puzzled by what he found. I may also be the
only volunteer who was not a resounding success.
Actually, that is a bit ingenuous since most of the volunteers I
know ended up settling for a lot less than they had hoped for. I suppose
that can be attributed to unrealistic expectations. In that respect, we
actually did learn a lot.
My question is, "Did we learn the right thing?". Could we, if
things had been better organized and funded accomplished more and thus
come away with a different lesson?
I mean, just because you learned something isn't really all that
big a deal. I learn things every day.
I didn't find the campesinos I worked with to be the noble types
that others seem to have run across. In many respects, they were
ignorant, sexist, cruel people.
They threw their trash out of every window into the street, they
routinely killed everything they couldn't use. While they loved their
children, they failed to take even simple precautions to protect them.
They were cruel to their animals and completely unfeeling as to their
suffering.
The men impregnated young girls without any thought of
responsibility for the girl or their offspring. Given the choice, they
consistently blew what little money they had on plastic santas and "flesh
colored Christs that glow in the dark" { Bob Dylan's words}.
This is not to say that I didn't like them. I did but, probably
for the wrong reasons. I never really held them to any standards I would
hold the people on this net to. I didn't expect much from them so I
wasn't disappointed.
You may argue with the prejudices you read into the things I
write but, you can't argue with my experiences. That was what I did and
that was what I experienced. I don't argue with your experiences because,
PC is nothing if it is not individual and personal.
Actually this whole posting may be a good argument against
writing anything this time of night after several brandies.
Dave Johnson