From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Fri Mar 21 2003 - 22:39:25 MST
Lee Corbin wrote:
> Well, I should mention a teenager I know who went to Honduras last
> summer, as a part of a high school program. Being quite curious
> about far away places, so long as I don't need to get very far away
> from my books and my refrigerator, I invited him over one night to
> debrief him...
My first serious girlfriend was from a missionary
family that spent 8 years in Africa. Both of her
parents were doctors. They could regale one for
hours with their experiences. A few of the highlights:
The missionary group was from Loma Linda California,
attached to the medical school there. American
doctors spend their careers mostly examining perfectly
healthy bodies, but the medical school convinces the
students that an African tour of duty is their one
chance to save lives, to make a real difference.
The parents graduated in 1965, at which time my girl
had just finished first grade. She had a four month
old sister when the family left for the mission,
intending a two-year hitch.
The highlights:
They were based in Rhodesia but worked in other
countries as well.
They would go into the smaller villages and if
it looked like a good place to set up shop, they
would appeal to the states for funding, ship in
materials for the locals to build a school and
clinic.
Results were mixed. Often much of the building
material would not make it to the back country,
being lost or stolen in route. The civil war
in Rhodesia was getting started by that time.
The locals often turned out to be unsuitable
construction workers: they had a far too casual
outlook on life, wouldn't show up on time, wouldn't
show up consistently, would wander off the job in
the middle of the day, wouldn't build to any
semblance of the plan, didn't understand the
english measurement system, etc.
Cement was one material that was notoriously
difficult to get delivered. One church was
planned in which most of the blocks made it,
some of the glass, a little of the cement and none
of the wire. The locals cheerfully proceeded to
build the block walls with one part cement to
5 parts sand and 10 parts mud. Rains came, locals
took refuge in church, church collapsed. Injuries
taken in stride, locals cheerfully restacked blocks,
ready to repeat the experiment.
There was one case where a clinic was built by a
group of students. They left, returning four
years later. The building was gone, not a trace
of it remaining where it had once stood. It is
still unclear if the building was stolen without
a trace or if they just couldn't find the site for
some reason.
Baby formula classic example. This scenario played
out countless times: American student goes into
Africa with a camera, takes photos of starving babies,
shows the photos in a big wealthy church, mothers cry,
throw large sums into the offering plate, bottles and
formula are purchased, sent to Africa, mixed with the
local water, the babies with insufficiently developed
immune systems devour the formula, get amoebic disentery,
perish of diarrhea-induced dehydration.
Those that survive that get a second hit. What should
have been a year's supply of baby formula lasts only
a few weeks. Perhaps some of the young mothers were
devouring the baby formula. Under the circumstances
I suppose one could scarcely blame them. Perhaps some
of the formula was stolen and traded for tobacco, rum,
bullets. The young African mothers stop lactating as
they switch to formula. Formula runs out, babies starve.
The idealistic young medical students are driven to a
nervous breakdown, because they cannot seem to get
the locals to MOVE! The locals won't jump to a clock
over there. Pretty soon the students beg for a work
crew to come over and BUILD something, before their
hitch is over. Often the result is much mutual
frustration.
The only ones who do any good at all are those who
can get over the culture shock, and even that minority
sometimes get a fresh shock. Case in point: my girl
was 6 when they went to Rhodesia, infant sister, two
more sisters born in Africa. The two-year hitch stretched
to 8 years, and the civil war was getting hot, so it
looked like they would need to vacate. It came to a
head when a neighboring white rancher and his teenage
son came to visit. His father took her father aside and
asked if his daughter could be engaged to the rancher's
son. At this suggestion, the missionary was nearly
speechless. "BETROTHED?!" he sputtered, "She's FOURTEEN!"
Upon hearing this, the rancher immediately apologized
and withdrew the suggestion. Upon leaving, the three
younger sisters were playing beside the house. The
rancher looked at them and commented "I am surprised,
Doctor. She certainly doesn't look fourteen." It wasn't
until that moment that the girls' father realized that
the man was asking for the hand of his *second* daughter,
then only eight years old. The fourteen year old was
too old. They vacated within two weeks, enduring
a new round of culture shock upon landing in 1973
California.
But I digress. spike
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