Room of Good Intentions

The last few days here have been one of those weeks that go unmentioned. One of those weeks where things don’t go quite right, when your experiences don’t really add up to that image of a productive international volunteer, smoothly making change for those in need. However, I see a need to share the bad with the good.
On Monday, I walked around town, clothes sticky and sour with sweat, to find different people to talk to, different organizations to share coastal resource management information with. Not many people were available, some told me to come back later in the week when others were there, but the success of the day was talking with Antonio, president of the senior citizens association of Babatngon, a nice guy, agile for a 76-year-old, always willing to dance the Kuratsa for you, or sing a song. He told me that first of all, my 2 paragraph letter detailing why I wanted to share and what the subject would be was too long, one sentence would have sufficed. Secondly, their monthly meeting was on Wednesday, and I was warmly invited. I showed up Wednesday, and shared about the environmental threats to this region, and assistance that was available internationally to deal with the issues. Only my counterpart, the one person here who is supposed to understand my purpose and translate our goals to the community, did not attend. Said that she would come shortly, but then sent someone in her stead to let me know that she would not be attending. Without a community member and visible local support, my words came out, but seemed to fall on deaf ears. If no one from the community is willing to work with me, why should they? ( “This is just one more foreigner, with more ideas, more ‘assistance,’ but still no concern for what we want, where we want to go with this community.”)
I returned to the office, where my supervisor was telling staff her plan finally clean out the ‘back room.’ This is a 20x20 room where stuff is filthy, stuffing the door closed, without order; a place no one goes, except to throw something when its purpose is unknown. The room also smells foul, and in the morning, you can see rats scurry into and out of the room out of the corner of your eye when you’re working at your desk. We began in the afternoon, just moving plastic drums and light material on top of the pile of debris out of the room, and left the real work for Thursday.
Thursday morning I got to the office to find everyone sitting outside, talking about drinking and their lovers like most mornings. I waited for this to end, but after 45 minutes, I walked inside, and called others to follow. Mano Butch was the only person to respond with a nod, the rest of the staff just shot a quizzical glance my way, and went back to their chismis. The Japanese volunteer also came in to help with the cleaning of ‘the room.’
The whole morning, we cautiously brought out handfuls of half-eaten papers, and books, and posters. Everything had rat feces all over it, years of piss and grime, hundreds of copies of the national fisheries code, no doubt meant for dissemination to local fishermen, lists of ordinances, pamphlets and brochures, printed by The German Technical Cooperation, half of which we would keep out of habit, half of which we had no choice but to burn. Then we got to the next level of trash in the room, it consisted of computer monitors donated by Japan, more papers, 50 pound sacks of concrete, hardened from Philippine moisture and heat, taken out one by one, sweat bead by sweat bead, hand over hand. The lone Japanese volunteer, the lone American, and Mano Butch worked, as the rest of the office looked on, no hint of guilt for their laziness could be detected. We finished the day with nostrils burned, shoulders sore, and the room half empty.
Friday, we began again. Now lower in the pile, we found dead festering rats, and huge Philippine cockroaches, and more squalor. We found huge banners that read ‘Welcome World Bank Visitors’ and ‘Welcome Indonesian Aid Visitors’ and hundreds of packs of fertilizers, donated by political parties, meant for dissemination to farmers, to be spread on crops, eventually to help fill the mouths and stomachs of children here. There were pesticides, intended for the same people, and more papers, letters, books, good intentions. We now had another man, Edwin, helping to clean The Room, but still, the office staff sat outside, watching the armfuls come out, the posters dusted, new life being breathed into an old forgotten space. Friday we finally finished, the floor was visible, the worst burned, the remaining repacked, a quarter of the room empty when said and done. Still the office staff said nothing, just came back into the new space, continued conversations at their desks, seemingly oblivious to the effort that had just been given.
I don’t know why gifts are squandered and international aid isn’t appreciated sometimes. Of course people will say that the aid doesn’t ‘address immediate needs in the community’ or ‘isn’t implemented in a sustainable way,’ but some aid, nomatter how well planned, will fray and rip if the commitment of the community is lost. I also don’t know how people can sit around and watch others work, and do nothing, it makes no sense to me. While here, I will try my best to put resources to good use, to teach organization and engender personal responsibility, but I’m fully aware the room might very well fill up again with the same squalor in ten more years. All the oversight and transparency in the world will not ensure that donations and assistance are going to the right place. What I learned this week is that with all of the disappointment and frustration that comes from wasted time and resources, it beats the alternative. A world in which aid is given, and wasted, and then given again is better than a world, xenophobic and afrai to help, where aid is never given at all. Efficiency and progress is good, but love is great.