What do you do if for 19 years you have been lovingly indulged by your parents in a cosy town on the Welsh/English border, you have decided to take a year out between school and college and you want to do something to help the world? Rachel Willis, just back from five months in Nicaragua talked to me about her motives for going there and what it was like. "I wanted to experience a completely different way of life and complete poverty..."
Every day heart-breaking images from developing countries flicker across our TV screens as the communication industry informs and assaults us. Does one 'tune in a turn off' or does this urge us to action? In Rachel's case altruism won over inertia but the experience was less than satisfying. I was curious to understand what had happened, what she had learned and what this experience could teach other would-be volunteers.
Rachel, who hopes to do a degree in English and Drama in October, had never heard of
Nicaragua before she found it mentioned in the VSO handbook. A local Volunteer
Organisation whom she contacted agreed that she could go as a volunteer for nine months.
She returned in March, six months earlier than planned.
A school-leaver without specific skills, she was not sponsored under the Voluntary Service Overseas scheme but was told by the organisation she contacted which is linked to the Nicaraguan Solidarity Campaign (NSC) that she could be of use on various projects such as an Iguana Farm, a Shrimp Farm, a pre-school project and could help re-build a dangerous bridge.
Because she knew nothing of Nicaragua, she had a lot to learn in a short time but she was studying Spanish at school. She talked to her geography teacher and read as much as possible about the political and social history, (much of it out of date she later found out). She also met another volunteer who had just come back. After many discussions on the telephone with the man at the link organisation he agreed to send her to Puerto Morizan.
She began saving and friends helped her fund-raise by putting on a play about Central America.
Her parents and friends saw her as brave and adventurous, though many thought she would never actually go. However, one November morning in 1994, they saw her off and she arrived at Leon airport that evening where it was very dark and "The night heat was astounding". She had not prepared as well as she thought, knew nothing about the currency, and found that she couldn't converse properly in Spanish. Moreover, the NSC link person who met her appeared 'grumpy'. She was to stay with him for several days until a family was found for her to live with. Going out into Leon the following day was bewildering. It was hot, noisy and dusty and every street seemed exactly the same; she got lost and felt frightened. Groups of men were "leering on street corners", others lying "drunk on the ground with no shoes on, their feet cut". However all the women were very smart. Not realising the strength of the heat she got sunburned. She felt lost and frightened and wanted to go home but was reassured by one of the women there.
The next day, she was taken to Puerto Morizan where she was to be based, to meet the committee from the pre-school project. This gave a foretaste of what was to come: only one person turned up; everything seemed disorganised. However Donna Coco, a retired nurse and mother figure offered her a bed in her house where most of the internationals stay and she stayed there for the rest of the time. She contributed towards her keep, and was warmly accepted by them. This family was not as poor as most but they were no means well-off. Donna Coco, who treated the local people, had no proper medical supplies or facilities and resorted to using sellotape instead of stitching wounds.
Getting used to the values of a different culture proved shocking for Rachel who was amazed that despite extreme poverty and malnutrition, inadequate sanitation, lack of an education system and no welfare services, there were consumer durables such as TVs and stereos in every home which showed the obvious US influence. Men's attitudes and the ways that women and children suffered were disturbing. For example she found that a man could get a number of women pregnant and then refuse to support her, so the majority of children had to go out to work at a very young age.
For the first two weeks she helped on the pre-school project each morning, but had nothing to do for the rest of the day. Then it closed for the three-month Christmas holiday and she had nothing at all to do. Many promises of work were made but nothing materialised. The people apparently did not want the bridge to be re-built, the iguana farm and the shrimp farm no longer existed.
In January however, Rachel met up with an English teacher and took her to teach English to a class of 30 children in another village for a few weeks. But that work soon ended. She was not used to sitting about and could see no way of taking the initiative. Since there seemed to be nothing she could do to help the people of Nicaragua she spent much of the time sitting in a rocking chair watching T.V. and learning to speak Spanish. Although the people she was living with seemed very happy for her to stay with them, they seemed confused about why she was there, because she didn't seem to have a purpose.
She found herself waiting and waiting for a way to be useful but nothing happened. She told me that she did not like the English people she had met in Leon because "they always seemed to be bitching about someone.". It was the local children with whom she made particular friends and they grew to love her.
But with nothing to do inertia gradually took over; she found that she could not do her creative writing. She missed her family and friends and letters home showed how miserable and isolated she often felt. Although she sometimes wanted to go back home she felt unable to because this would be letting them down.
She continued to hope that work would be found for her to do. The people of Puerto Morizan, being used to a different pace of life did not understand that she was itching to do something, whilst she could not understand the way they were happy to be relaxed. Sometimes she entertained them by acting short comic dramas when there was a power cut which they enjoyed.
Eventually Rachel accepted that no work would be found for her; she decided to take the initiative by promising to run a two-week English class since people had been urging her to do this. First she had to leave the country briefly to renew her visa and decided to go to Guatemala for two weeks. Before going she put up notices advertising the classes in the local villages.
In Guatemala she met some friendly Americans and discovered that there were numerous projects such as re-building a school and teaching which she could have even been paid for had she known about them. She found that it was personal contacts on the ground which led to information about what is needed and where. However, because she had promised to run the English classes she went back to Puerto Morizan.
These were not wholly successful: a power cut on the first evening may have driven away the only adults who turned up; the two women did not return. But the children came and enjoyed playing with Rachel and pretending to learn English.
Then several events made Rachel suddenly decide to return home: an old woman stole ú20 from her whilst she was on a bus, a man tried to assault her and then she had a nose bleed and heard about an incurable disease which is carried by mosquitos and from which people bleed to death from the eyes, mouth, nose and ears. She remembered that when she had first arrived and had gone to the Doctor with a touch of Malaria he had said, jokingly she now thinks, that she would suffer horribly later on. She rang her parents and took the first plane home.
The family were very sorry, that she was going; they even seemed offended she thought. However, they threw party for her and she has kept in touch with them.
What has Rachel learned from going to Nicaragua and what can others learn from her experience? She cautions other 'year-outers' to be more careful if they want to do volunteering although she does not want to put any blame on the organisation which helped her go, acknowledging that perhaps someone with more initiative could have done more. Her rather idealistic desire to help others less fortunate than herself was not fulfilled. "It was all rather a waste really.", she says.
Instead she gained a lot from living with "...poor people who are so lovely and hospitable......". She learned that she could survive. "Now I know how easy it is to travel, how to budget, eat cheaply and how to be open to other people. It made me think that you can live off your own initiative.".
Coming back home the contrast from a warm Latin-American society was disorienting. "Noticing how people aren't very friendly, people don't smile very much, I couldn't stand it at first. (England is) a cold society but it is my society and I belong here.".
An NSC spokesperson was concerned about Rachel's experience. They usually send groups of people who have been thoroughly briefed to specific organised projects. Lone volunteers, she said need a) a high degree of self-knowledge, b) they must ask numerous questions before going and c) it is vital that they ascertain what back-up and support will be available where they are going. She was extremely interested in Rachel's story and said that this information is immensely useful for the organisers at this end. Rachel herself begged me not to use the name of the organisation which sent her out and did not want to blame the man who had been "very nice". However, she was resentful particularly about the unfriendly way she was received by the NSC representative in Leon.
What effect will this experience have on the way she lives her life in the future and will she go on to do something to help the Nicaraguans? "What they really need is more money, and techniques of being self-sufficient. Even though they are working hard there's a lot of people who are sucking the money from them....some women have a terrible time....the men just drink all the money...there's got to be a way of getting a more equal share for people who can't work.". One day, when she has left Drama College Rachel may go out to see some Women's Projects in Nicaragua. Maybe one day she will do something there involving sociodrama which can help challenge patriarchal attitudes.
Perhaps it takes a more sophisticated understanding of the economic relationship between Western countries and Developing countries, an appreciation of how different societal, cultural and religious values effect people's lives and the importance of understanding the complexity of people's reaction to political and societal turmoil and personal tragedy. Those living in a stable society cannot appreciate how living in a society torn apart by war, environmental disasters, societal and economic devastation effects people. What is salutary is that Donna Coco and her family accepted a young woman into their home, and were happy for her to stay there with no expectation that she should contribute anything apart from the small amount for her keep.
Rachel's story must surely make those who long to help others less fortunate than themselves think hard about how they act on altruistic urges. That she seemed ill-informed and ill- prepared surely demands answers from an organisation which sent a naive young woman into a different culture where there appeared to be no work and no support. That Rachel appears to have been helped far more by the people of Nicaragua than vice versa is yet another irony in the continuing saga of the relationship between the Developing world and ourselves.
Copyright © 1995 The International Communique Ltd