Think Big… or Think Small?
The last four months have been a seemingly never-ending series of ups and downs, highs and lows, good and bad, small and big. Things are certainly taking better shape for us as we start to understand better what’s going on around us and how do we fit in the whole picture. There are project ideas for us everywhere and we are “researching” everything and not really committing to anything yet. Mainly because we like everything that has been put in front of us in terms of work and it’s been hard to decide what to focus on.
The main dilemma is defining our strategy. There are some pretty big projects offered to us, like managing a project to get a water system for the school, re-design the whole production line for the wood artisan organization, MaderaVerde, or design a marketing campaign to generate funds to guarantee the self-sustainability of the vocational center. These are really cool projects that would impact a lot of people, but would keep us in an office and dealing with the bureaucrats of the development world. Last week, for instance, I attended a lunch party hosted by a new NGO from the Netherlands. Everybody who’s anybody in development was invited. I went to try to make contacts for some projects in the school. Everybody was dressed in their nice clothes, the women had a lot of jewelry and make-up, the guys had neck-ties; the tables had white tablecloths and beautiful flowers in the centerpieces. We had wine and cheese, toasted to the “beginning of great projects”, and had a delicious meal. Like during my old GE days, I spent my time trying to make contacts and build a network of people that could later help me with what I want to do. Like those days too, there was people that completely ignored me because I am not a prominent member of the community, people that talked to me because I am a young promising new face in town, and people that sincerely cared about what I had to say. The experience was interesting and fun and it was actually a comfortable familiar environment to me (especially after the glass of wine). Later that evening, I wondered if that is what I want to spend my next two years doing. Same candy… different wrapping. The truth is that it is work that needs to be done, and the poor people in the groups I represent need someone to do the dirty work for them.
There are also the small things, the kind of projects Peace Corps volunteers usually work on. They are usually hands-on work; grassroots efforts to improve small things, working, living, breathing with the people you are helping… none of the bullshit bureaucracy involved. I was contacted by the teacher of a kindergarten in one of the communities where we work to see if I could help them finish building a fence for the school, we could teach computers to the students that live in the keys, or work with a few of the wood artisans to improve the quality of their furniture. A lot less people would be impacted, but we would spend the time necessary to make sure these are long lasting changes, to make close relationships and really get to know how they live and work. A lot of our time would be spent having coffee with people, holding kids, talking to young mothers about their hopes and dreams and then trying to work on some of those projects… probably the ones that require very little or no money. With this approach we would spend most of our time with the people we are helping instead of the highly educated people in the city, enjoy the fulfillment of seeing the happy faces of the people we’ve impacted, and experience the huge frustration of seeing immense amount of need and having very little or no resources to improve much.
The main dilemma is defining our strategy. There are some pretty big projects offered to us, like managing a project to get a water system for the school, re-design the whole production line for the wood artisan organization, MaderaVerde, or design a marketing campaign to generate funds to guarantee the self-sustainability of the vocational center. These are really cool projects that would impact a lot of people, but would keep us in an office and dealing with the bureaucrats of the development world. Last week, for instance, I attended a lunch party hosted by a new NGO from the Netherlands. Everybody who’s anybody in development was invited. I went to try to make contacts for some projects in the school. Everybody was dressed in their nice clothes, the women had a lot of jewelry and make-up, the guys had neck-ties; the tables had white tablecloths and beautiful flowers in the centerpieces. We had wine and cheese, toasted to the “beginning of great projects”, and had a delicious meal. Like during my old GE days, I spent my time trying to make contacts and build a network of people that could later help me with what I want to do. Like those days too, there was people that completely ignored me because I am not a prominent member of the community, people that talked to me because I am a young promising new face in town, and people that sincerely cared about what I had to say. The experience was interesting and fun and it was actually a comfortable familiar environment to me (especially after the glass of wine). Later that evening, I wondered if that is what I want to spend my next two years doing. Same candy… different wrapping. The truth is that it is work that needs to be done, and the poor people in the groups I represent need someone to do the dirty work for them.
There are also the small things, the kind of projects Peace Corps volunteers usually work on. They are usually hands-on work; grassroots efforts to improve small things, working, living, breathing with the people you are helping… none of the bullshit bureaucracy involved. I was contacted by the teacher of a kindergarten in one of the communities where we work to see if I could help them finish building a fence for the school, we could teach computers to the students that live in the keys, or work with a few of the wood artisans to improve the quality of their furniture. A lot less people would be impacted, but we would spend the time necessary to make sure these are long lasting changes, to make close relationships and really get to know how they live and work. A lot of our time would be spent having coffee with people, holding kids, talking to young mothers about their hopes and dreams and then trying to work on some of those projects… probably the ones that require very little or no money. With this approach we would spend most of our time with the people we are helping instead of the highly educated people in the city, enjoy the fulfillment of seeing the happy faces of the people we’ve impacted, and experience the huge frustration of seeing immense amount of need and having very little or no resources to improve much.
There are a lot of good exciting prospects with each alternative, and there are also drawbacks to each. For now we are doing a little bit of both, defining a long term strategy for the school and spending our weekends living and talking to the people we help. This might sound like the best of both worlds, but it also means we are not giving our entire energy and attention to one effort and that might be the worst approach of all. And so the big question remains: Think Big… or Think Small? Hopefully time will tell…
posted by Lynnette @ 5:53 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Think percentage. 4x100/24 = 16.7% of your time there is already gone!
Follow your gut and get going.
Thank you anonymous reader, your point is well received. Many volunteers have said to us as their second year was winding down that they spent their first year worrying about the fact that they couldn't figure out what to do. After that, they got into the swing of things and just as they were really getting started, they realized there wasn't enough time to get done what they wanted to. From the people we've talked to, it seems to be a pretty common situation for volunteers. The other common situation is one in which the volunteer never gets anything started and spends two years frustrated and bored.
As a correction that does not detract at all from that point is that we are only 1.75 months through our actual service (the first three months or so was training, and does not count towards the two year commitment), so the equation should actually read 1.75x100/24=7.3%.
Anonymous coward again. 7.3% is a very reasonable overhead for a brand new situation.
Kapla!
I am a Returned PCV Honduras 1996-98 and I think that the question of what should I do for two years that you are asking is really important and demonstrates some deep thinking as opposed to simply going with the flow or chasing every oppotunity that is out there.
The way that I answered the question was this:
What projects or work wouldn't get done if I wasn't here? If it was a project from some big foundation that would get done anyways then I wouldn't touch it. I did mostly small grass roots stuff that wouldn't have gotten done. No huge earth shaking impact but important to the community. I would think small.
I ran into your blog by way of a random Technorati search. Take it from an expat Honduran now in Boston: the country is up to its eyeballs in development bureacrats with all sorts of education, and the big projects are mired in political wrangling. Peace Corp is great, and I thank you for being down there. There are couple of alternative ways you can get involved: Rotary International is strictly volunteer and the members act as VCs for current of start up projects. Usually, they are well connected and eager to start projects. Depending on who's leading the project (and that's where people like you come in), they can end up in very nice Kodak moments, or can have enduring effect. They're great and some smart people down there are part of Rotary.
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