Rant

I’m going to rant about work here, just this once. For a young idealist, development work seems just about perfect. You’re helping change the world a little at the time, travel, and experience new cultures. In reality, the travel and culture are certainties, but the changing the world is anything but.
Let me demonstrate with a small, seemingly inconsequential episode. A Peruvian NGO approached me earlier this week about helping set up a workshop they had planned. They had all the details of the workshop planned out on their end, but needed me to recruit interested young people to take part and make sure they got to the regional capital for the event. Just about every expense was covered and the information looked good with potential to spark some change on important issues. They just forgot one little detail, and one little detail is all that it takes to tank a development project.
That small detail was the lack of funds to cover transportation to the regional capital. We’re only talking 8 soles roundtrip, or a little less than 3 bucks. The young folks that were interested in the workshop weren’t interested enough to pay to go, and the NGO was too dumb or stubborn to provide the funds themselves. I wasn’t too surprised, so I asked the municipality for the funds, which was truly small change for them. Unfortunately, they had to sign it off with the mayor, and since he’s never in town… I had to go to the municipality every night of the week to get the runaround I knew was coming, and, of course, nobody went to the workshop.
It really was no big deal, but it demonstrates the fundamental problems with each of the major players of the development game: the NGOs, the local government, and the people themselves. NGOs just offer workshop after workshop, with little to no follow-up. They never get to know the people enough to cover the small details that sink projects, and their hand-out attitude often spoils the people for anybody that is really interested in affecting change.
The local government, like all politicians, has its sights set on first staying in power and only secondly accomplishing things. That’s the bane of democracy; elected officials always have to look over their backs and that can get in the way of performance. This automatically puts the focus on the short-term win over any long-term project which limits the effect you can have.
Finally, you have the people. Since the default setting for people anywhere is complacency, getting them moving towards anything is a Herculean task. Not that there aren’t motivated individuals in town, there just aren’t enough, and eventually they fall under the influence of the others or cut loose from a sinking ship and seek their own fortunes in bigger ponds. You can’t give them an excuse to not try (like not paying for their ride into town) or they just won’t.
So, I’ll probably walk out of here after two years without having anything concrete to point to as an accomplishment, or even a tiny footstep towards that “changing the world”. And that’s development work… beating your head against the wall and hoping that there’s not just more brick on the other side. I have some time yet, but I can tell you now that I won’t regret my time here. The last two goals of Peace Corps, learning something from other cultures and teaching them that Americans don’t eat babies, will be accomplished, and I will have gained great relationships and stories from these two years. I will certainly continue to make project plans with the few folks that are interested in change, and maybe that mythical successful project will come down the pipe, but I’m not holding my breath.