“I thought about the people who were left there. Who is going to care for them?’’

In the aftermath of Peace Corps pulling out of Honduras I have noticed two things in the media response: increased emphasis and focus on the violence and drug-trafficking going on in Honduras, and that sentiment countered by articles like the one above, lamenting Peace Corps’ decision and talking about all of the other volunteer organizations still working there.

Firstly, I am glad that there are still organizations working in Honduras in an effort to support the people there. Peace Corps is not the end all, be all of foreign aid to the country.

However, I have a big problem with the quote above. This is the number one problem I see in international volunteering and development practices and it all comes down to one itty-bitty word. Who is going to care “for them”?  It was never the job of a Peace Corps Volunteer, nor any development worker for that matter, to be the caregiver of a community. The Hondurans I know are all very capable and resilient people stuck in an extremely difficult situation with a government and justice system that does not work for them and an aid system that is not doing enough to empower them. (The keyword there is empower.)

The international community should care about what is going on in Honduras (or at least any country affected by the Drug Trade, Honduran emigration, and the resulting human rights issues should care). There is a difference, though, in caring about something and caring for something. The Honduran people need help in a lot of things, but that does not mean that all of the bleeding hearts of the developed world should go down there and hand feed all of the poor people and build houses for them (now, if you change that “for” to “with” and have a capacity-building component, that’s a different story). Doing things “for” people, especially people in a place as broken as Honduras, is hurting them much more than it is helping them. I call it the Charity Curse and Honduras has been a victim of it, in a way, for the past 50 years.

I am not happy about Peace Corps pulling out of Honduras, but considering the policy changes that Peace Corps needs to consider in order to improve operations in the country as a whole, it was the best decision. I am happy that there are organizations and groups that are able to continue their operations in the country and I wish them success, but it breaks my heart to think about how many mission trips and volunteer groups are led by that same sentiment: “who will care for these people?”

Please. Don’t care “for these people,” care “about” them. Teach them, empower them stand on their own two feet, help them demand accountability and transparency from their own government and organizations, but don’t go down there with gifts of food and houses thinking these people will be better off. More gringos will just be back in a year to do the same thing for the same people over and over again and nothing will change. That is the curse of charity; the curse of caring “for” something.

The problems and challenges Honduras faces are things that can only be solved by the Honduran people. They will need support, they may seek guidance, but if anyone tries to do it for them, whatever success is achieved will never last.

Amanda Browne is currently a Municipal Development Advisor for the Peace Corps in Honduras. For more on her experiences, check out her blog. This post is a response to Kate Bennett’s post “To Hell with Good Intentions?” in December, and a complement to Amanda’s recent post “Too Much Charity?” To hear more from Peace Corps Volunteers in Central America and the Caribbean, check out “Forever and a Day: 27 Months Abroad” by Joe Sigrin, “To Kiva Fellow or Not to Kiva Fellow,” by Rob Gradoville, or “The Peace Corps Pulls out of Honduras: The Spectrum of Human Emotion,” also by Amanda. Disclaimer: The contents of this article are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

For the past six years I have become known for my increasing opposition to the presence of any and all North American “dogooders” in Latin America. I am sure you know of my present efforts to obtain the voluntary withdrawal of all North American volunteer armies from Latin America – missionaries, Peace Corps members and groups like yours, a “division” organized for the benevolent invasion of Mexico…

You will not help anybody by your good intentions.

You may be thinking: Kate is a bad person. Also, I’m not in Mexico. But this well-articulated blurb comes not from me (believe it or not!), but from a gentleman by the name of Ivan Illich. In a speech to the Conference on InterAmerican Student Projects (CIASP) in Cuernavaca, Mexico in April 1968, Mr Illich addressed his primary concern for voluntary service activity around the world: the paternalism and condescension which underlies it, and the deleterious affect that our work actually has.

I cannot deny that I have never felt this way about development work. When I was little, my family was fortunate enough to spend several weeks in Mexico every year. I grew up thinking that I wanted “to help the poor people” in Mexico: exactly the sentiment which so sickens Mr. Illich. I think, through years or education or exposure or all three, I have come to abandon this White Man’s Burden mentality.

But as an editor for a blog dedicated to ongoing conversation of volunteer and development work in Latin America, it’s impossible for me to completely dismiss Illich’s hesitations. Might he have a point? What kind of impact does the average worker have- and is it good or bad? Reading through the questions posed by Illich, my heart most dropped at these lines:

You start on your task without any training. Even the Peace Corps spends around $10,000 (in 1968) on each corps member to help him adapt to his new environment and to guard him against culture shock. How odd that nobody ever thought about spending money to educate poor Mexicans in order to prevent them from the culture shock of meeting you?

In fact, you cannot even meet the majority which you pretend to serve in Latin America – even if you could speak their language, which most of you cannot. You can only dialogue with those like you – Latin American imitations of the North American middle class. There is no way for you to really meet with the underprivileged, since there is no common ground whatsoever for you to meet on.

Suppose you went to a U.S. ghetto this summer and tried to help the poor there “help themselves.” Very soon you would be either spit upon or laughed at. People offended by your pretentiousness would hit or spit. People who understand that your own bad consciences push you to this gesture would laugh condescendingly… If you insist on working with the poor, if this is your vocation, then at least work among the poor who can tell you to go to hell. It is incredibly unfair for you to impose yourselves on a village where you are so linguistically deaf and dumb that you don’t even understand what you are doing, or what people think of you.

Does Mr. Illich have a point? Is his point outdated, or does it endure today? Are good intentions enough, or, as the title of his speech goes, To Hell With Good Intentions?

Before I volunteered as a Kiva Fellow in Sierra Leone (May of 2011) and Bolivia (September 2011), I was living in Santa Barbara, California. Imagine: Santa Barbara beaches saturated with color, mansions with the smell of jasmine twisting through the air, and a pace of life only to be set by the sun. While there, I was working for a de jure artist and took up the ranks as a de facto artist myself. Life was pretty easy, and moving to a developing country and working with microfinance seemed a million miles away. Leaving it all made me wonder why I would forfeit the comfort and normalcy of home for places where it feels like I have to relearn basic parts of life (i.e. restroom, showers, and food).

While volunteering, I was often asked , “Why would you come volunteer in my country?” Each time, I rambled about a desire to foster opportunities in the development of people around the world. But that is just it, how concise can pre-volunteers really be?

Well, the life of a volunteer goes with the wind. Four weeks ago I was living in Sierra Leone and today I am sitting in an office in Bolivia. Obviously, volunteering is not the most advantageous financial move one can make; in fact, while in the States, I qualified for free immunizations before coming to Bolivia because I was “low income”. In all honesty, most volunteers are a footnote to an organization’s real employees, and the “We couldn’t do it without you” speech only gets volunteers high for a split second. So why endure the bucket showers in Sierra Leone and language barriers in South America? Why volunteer?

For me, it has to do with something I encountered as a child while hiking around my home in Washington State. I saw the diverse beauty of nature: cedars, Douglas firs, ferns, and myriad wildflowers. I then thought about the diverse beauty of humanity (although those weren’t my exact thoughts as a child…). What it came down to was that I knew people (and the world) had to be different beyond my hometown population of ninety-something.

I didn’t leave and volunteer to “save the world.” (Do people still do that?) Rather, I had this desire to cease to be dichotomized from the developing world. Volunteering was a means to share life with people and hope to understand why populations live at different standards of living. This, hopefully, is joining in the process of lifting people out of poverty –the more minds and hearts that are included in the “process” (any process or cause you are voluneering for), the more potential there is to yield results and answers.

The wonder in volunteering, I have found, is simply in the interaction between me and a Kiva Borrower (those who recieve loans). In most cases, we each have something to add to the life of the other. With Kiva, microfinance volunteer work is geared to sustainably enable entrepreneurs in developing countries by facilitating capital for their business through loans.

My greatest interest in life was to see this “process,” and I have been so encouraged by what Kiva Borrowers are doing with their loans to better their lives. In reality, when any volunteers collaborate with people in development, we begin to answer for ourselves the questions we could not articulate beforehand. Within it all, volunteers are fortunate to take the time and witness the diverse beauty of humanity.

My bike packed up, ready for an adventure. Bring it on world.

When people ask me why I’m always moving about, I usually respond with some excuse I cook up on the spot. “Oh, well I’m trying to figure out where I want to settle down,” or “I just enjoy the change in scenery.” Both true, but not the ultimate cause responsible for my nomadic tendencies. That would be the Itch. Also known as wanderlust, though I prefer the term ‘itch’ to ‘wanderlust’ as it captures the peculiar tingling or irritating feeling wanderlust induces.

In my previous update on my personal blog, I mentioned that the itch that began growing in Ecuador expected something more than a change from now familiar surroundings. In addition to the tingling sense telling me to move on, another tingling required adventure. It is difficult to describe, but I knew simply jumping across borders would not satisfy this compulsion.

“This is going to be awesome!” I thought to myself. “I am going to do something legendary, and have great stories when it’s over.”

And so I set out preparing an adventure. It was more impulse than careful consideration that ended in my choosing bicycle touring—long distance cycling—through South America as a great adventure. What could be more adventurous than powering myself, with my own two legs, through foreign lands, my ‘saddlebags’ packed full of my worldly possessions, prepared to handle whatever nature throws my way? I envisioned myself the next Amelia Earhart, Captain James Cook, or Lewis and Clark.

The exhilaration of summiting an 11,000-foot pass: something not sold in stores. Crazed look optional.

In the midst of my preparations (gear lists, spreadsheet budgets, route maps, etc.), that annoying side of my brain—you know, the one that pestered me into a Philosophy major—suddenly perked up with a perturbing question that stopped my planning cold:

“But Casey, what is adventure?”

Such a question might sound silly, but those who know the overly-analytical me well also know that I have to answer these types of questions. After all, if I’m planning an adventure, I better have some inkling of what an adventure looks like.

The dictionary is always a good place to start when you want to know what something is:

adventure: [...] 3. a bold, usually risky undertaking; hazardous action of uncertain outcome.

Seems to be pretty intuitive, no? An adventure isn’t just a risky undertaking, it is a bold risky undertaking, otherwise we wouldn’t admire it as an adventure, but, rather, disdain it as a foolish or reckless undertaking. The second part of the definition also has a certain semantic charm, for who would describe a hazardous action of known outcome as adventurous? Walking in front of a bus is by most accounts hazardous, but hardly an adventure.

So, we have a simple rubric to determine if an activity can be considered an adventure or not:

1. Is it bold?
2. Is it risky?
3. Is it of uncertain outcome?

Huzzah! My bicycle touring plans surely satisfied these three criteria, which should have satisfied that pesky brain. I should have been able to return to the fun questions, such as, “how much water should I carry?” or “should I pack instant coffee or a portable coffee maker?” Unfortunately, that was not the end of my ruminations over adventure.

There I was, surrounded on one metaphorical side by route maps, budget spreadsheets, guidebooks, and bicycle touring blogs, while on the other side loomed the image of adventure placed upon a pedestal, casting its disapproving shadow over the whole lot. How could I possibly claim to be planning an adventure, when every minutiae was carefully considered?

Once you've seen the end of the world, what else is there to see? (Petra, Jordan 2009)

Every centimeter of our little blue-green ball has been scanned and photographed by metal marvels in space. That footage has been analyzed and dumped into your cellphone. Your universally accepted plastic card is a key usable in one of those magic street-side contraptions that spits out money wherever you are (unless it is Discover). Pervasive global communication has annihilated the concept of distance. Using Skype you can wish your dear mum in Boston happy birthday no matter if you’re in Buffalo, Bangalore, or Beijing.

Not to mention those packaged guidebooks detailing every conceivable tourist destination, with precise street maps, and convenient accommodation reviews in three lines or less. Gone are the days of loading out your dog sled train with salt pork, a bushel of apples, and a cask of ale, then heading out into the great white unknown. Between books, e-books, blogs, travel websites, travel magazines, podcasts, and Internet forums, nearly everything you could want to do has not only been done, but been documented in detail online.

All these sources remove the boldness and uncertainty from the equation. You can learn everything there is to know about a trip or destination by reading what others have done without even leaving your home. Moreover, the mere fact that countless people before you have trekked that trail, seen those ruins, or ridden through that country and then blogged about it, makes that undertaking decidedly less bold.

You’re left, then, with just a risky undertaking, but even the risk is tempered by the torrent of information available on the Internet and in books. Every potential mishap can be identified and countered. All that remains is an undertaking, and there’s nothing particularly meaningful or exciting about undertakings. Popping down the street to buy some milk is an undertaking. Hopping onto a plane to the Pyramids is an undertaking. In this light, how is independent travel all that different from mainstream packaged tours? Is travel ever really an adventure in this modern era?

"There's no adventure left in the world! It's all used up!" cries the old grizzly man.

Where does that leave us wanna-be adventurers? Compared to the famous explorers and adventurers, we’re hardly doing anything more exciting than visiting a neighboring town that is more or less the same as ours. Thank you globalization!

Just how much good ol’ adventure is left in the world? If there is any, where and what is it?

This sort of thought isn’t healthy, and I don’t buy into these conclusions. I need to stop these romantic comparisons to famous explorers; it is unfair to ourselves and even disrespectful to their legacy. Adventure still abounds. Achieving it just might take a bit more effort, particularly when it comes to ignoring those modern conveniences that can spoil our adventure with foreknowledge.

There is also something to be said for personal adventure, that is adventure framed in your own personal experience. If you’ve never left your home country, then taking a packaged tour or cruise is definitely an adventure. Hell, for me, navigating the mall during the holiday season can be as much an adventure as climbing volcanoes in the Andes.

Adventure is everywhere, but recognizing it requires a shift in perspective. The English writer G.K. Chesterton eloquently puts this sentiment into words:

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
—G.K. Chesterton

Take that pesky brain! Adventure is that which puts me outside my comfort zone. It doesn’t matter if I’ve got a cellphone in my pocket, a guidebook in my pack, and a credit card in my wallet, if I’m pumping 60lbs of bike and gear up an Andean slope, or through a Peruvian desert, by golly, I’m having an adventure.

I encourage you to find your adventure wherever it may be.

For more on Casey’s  experiences and reflections on the road, check out his travel chronicle Elusive Truth. You can also check out posts from past La Vida Idealist writers on biking and adventure in Latin America.

What this means is that families do not need to be religious to receive the NGO’s services nor do volunteers have to be religious to work for the organization.  I was informed in my volunteer interview that volunteers should support the NGO’s values and every week the national office had a team meeting to discuss a passage from the Bible and how to best put our ‘faith in action’. Since I can count the times I have been to church on one hand, this was an unfamiliar experience. I have never read the Bible and it’s not exactly on my reading list. But over time, I found these discussions refreshing as they generally focused on topics such as being humble, listening to others, peace and serving the poor. For me, it was motivating to discuss my personal philosophies regarding fighting poverty with my coworkers. Whether you call it charity, Tzedakah, Zakah or Dana, helping the less fortunate is part of all the world’s major religions. And while I may not agree with all of their principles, I can certainly agree with this one.

Still it was a leap of faith (figuratively) to sign up to volunteer with a faith based NGO. Why? I think for many of us without religious affiliation, there is a stereotype that faith based organizations inherently seeks to evangelize, and this is an especially sensitive topic when applied to international development work in Latin America. Perhaps this depends on the organization, but my experience volunteering has allowed me to make space in my world view to incorporate faith based volunteering.  It has been an absolute honor to work with people who are extremely passionate about what they do and who are committed to serving others. If someone has a religious motivation to do the work that they do, than that is ok with me, because lord knows they ain’t in it for the money. Multiply this sentiment by four when you consider a salary in Argentine pesos. Everyone has their own personal reasons for working in non-profits. Given that money isn’t the main motivating factor, there has to be something else. And through my volunteer work, I have gained a wider perspective and respect for those who work every day to put their faith in action.

Megan Kaseburg is currently the International Volunteer Coordinator with Habitat for Humanity Argentina. To hear more about her experiences, check out her blog.

Everywhere you look, every product you pick up, whether it be an agricultural good, a piece of clothing, or a new bit of technology, it is stained with the sweat of exploitation and big business. The ignorant proletariat masses spend their minimum wages on cigarettes and Victory gin, supporting the institutions that keep them suppressed. In this chaotic backwards global environment, the people who produce the food for the rest of us are starving. The irony tastes like rice and beans.

Pedro is a farmer who speaks plainly and directly about the progressive impoverishment of the community in which he lives, Los Chiles, located in the heart of Central America in Northern Costa Rica. Pedro and his fellow farmers earn a living by producing the foods for consumption by families in Europe and North America.

At the moment, farmers in Los Chiles are struggling to produce hot peppers which they sell to a Spanish exporting company at 177 colones (35 cents) per kilogram. After all the costs are accounted for (transportation=100, labor= 40), this price leaves 37 colones (7.5 cents) per kilo for the farmer.  My visit to Los Chiles made me realize how dependent the livelihood of farmers is on the weather. Speaking about a bacteria which killed a portion of his crops he said, ¨Against nature there’s not a lot you can do.¨

In my interview with Pedro, he scolded me.

¨For you people who come from the outside, you should know that companies like Tico Fruit, Dole and Del Monte are not creating jobs; they are impoverishing the area further. The jobs created are short term contracts which pay low wages (less than two dollars per day) and some days for example, orange pickers get no pay because the collection trucks have already been filled. The companies come in, buy the land from the local farmers at prices above the market value, and poor farmers accept because they’ve never seen that kind of money. The companies don’t care about people, all they care about is making a profit. We are the losers,¨ he said.

Pedro is obviously deeply troubled by the situation in Los Chiles. He is a proud farmer who has held out, refusing offers to sell his land (Tico Fruit owns a large orange plantation on the neighboring property) while watching his neighbors sell and move to the cities.

Pedro has stood his ground and continued to produce on his own. He is a member of a group of producers who have banded together to share methods and ideas in order to be more productive. I asked him what outside help the producers had received.

¨The main obstacle is money. Organizations that give loans or grants help a lot,¨ he said.

Sebastian Kindsvater is currently living in San Jose, Costa and is the Kiva Coordinator/Loan Officer for Fundacíon Mujer. To contribute to the livelihood of Costa Rican farmers, check out Pedro’s loan on Kiva.

The people: Argentines are some of the warmest people I have ever met. Whether you are lost on the street, confused about the subway, or even need a place to sleep I have found most of the people in Buenos Aires to be helpful, accommodating, and very friendly. I think that the reputation of porteños being stuck up is wrongly deserved and misrepresents some really amazing people.

The food: If you like steak, empanadas, and sweet things there is no better place to live in the world than Buenos Aires. The best part is that its all dirt cheap. Most people from the States can’t imagine getting a pound of rib eye for under ten dollars. Here you get it with eight side dishes and a bottle of wine.

The Bad

Diaper pants

Petty crime: While most big cities have problems with crime, I think that the occurrence of theft in BA is unusually high. In the past month I know three friends who have either been pick-pocketed on the subway or someone attempted to do so. When on the subway or bus always keep your bag in front of you, and keep all of your valuables in tight pockets.

Dog poop and garbage: For some reason most people refuse to pick up after their dog in Buenos Aires resulting in stinky landmines all over the sidewalk. Be sure to keep one eye on the ground whenever walking the streets of BA. Another problem here is that there is no infrastructure for waste disposal. In the U.S. we take things like dumpsters and trash cans for granted, but in BA they are almost nonexistent. Most of the time, bags of overflowing trash are put on the street for pickup.

The Ugly

Mullets: The 80’s are alive and well in Buenos Aires. There are tons of people rollerblading in the parks, punk rock clubs are abundant, and 80’s synthesizer pop blares out of black and yellow taxis. While I enjoy these 80’s throwbacks, the mullets I have seen here can only be described as gloriously horrifying.

Diaper pants: A picture is worth 1,000 words.

Noah Sidman-Gale just recently moved from California to Buenos Aires and is volunteering at El Sol de San Telmo newspaper.

Let me explain. Cheese man  — from here on out referred to as, we’ll say, Hurley — runs a successful farm and tourist attraction in Acul, El Quiche, Guatemala. Often referred to as the Swiss Alps of Guatemala, Hurley greets dozens of hiker-happy tourists each week in his humble abode with tortillas con queso and tasty lunches (I don’t work for the Quiche Tourism Board, I swear). As a result, Hurley comes to know many of the long-term gringa development workers, and is able to sit back as they literally hike hours to see him. A stereotypical Latino man in his desires, he was nearly groveling at my feet due to my blatant disinterest and general disregard for his come-ons (though I was thrilled when the courting process progressed to free wheels of cheese and gallons of milk. Hey, I’m a Midwest girl after all). Like I said, the lack of romantic options can grate on you, and in the end my Spanish has never been better.

Fresh cheese in Acul, Guatemala. Photo from Flickr user Larry Bird's Mustache.

So back to my hypocrisy. Hurley invited me to his cousin’s farm with him one Sunday after he finished playing a soccer game. I had a vague idea of where the farm might be located, but otherwise was completely in the dark. He only told me to bring a bathing suit because of an alleged pool and hot tub, but being skeptical, I didn’t expect much. This is Guatemala after all.

I started getting suspicious when we passed a hydroelectric dam. Having studied Environmental Science, I immediately asked if we could get out and look. “Oh don’t worry, it’s on my cousin’s land. We’ll look at it once we get there.” I’m sorry, what Hurley? Your cousin owns a dam? A dam that ruins ecosystems, creates lakes where rivers should be, and sells electricity to the cities while the community members alongside suffer in adobe homes? “Please don’t ask him any questions. My cousin and his wife are good people, and I am certain you will like them. But don’t ask questions.”

First of all, this is always a bad sign. Second of all, please never tell an outspoken, precocious, little redhead to not ask questions. It’s generally not good for anyone involved.

It turns out, dude’s cousin is a Brol, an extremely powerful, wealthy, and infamous family in Guatemala. Their participation in the 36-year armed conflict made them many enemies, and they lost three family members to guerrilla attacks. (On this particular farm to which we were going, Finca San Francisco, the Brols allegedly sought revenge on a guerrilla and put him through the coffee drying machine alive. This wasn’t a part of the tour.) We roll up to San Francisco, and pass into a mini-village. Enrique Brol provides houses, an industrial kitchen, public pilas, schools, two churches, shops… basically an entire village for the 100 families that live and work on the plantation. Over 700 people.

Having spent the past seven months enjoying tortillas and tamales in one-room adobe homes, a two-story Spanish colonial style home surrounding a 20′ x 20′ inner courtyard with pool and hot tub was a bit much for me to handle. After being served fruit and fresh coffee, we toured the caged animals, including deer, hedgehogs, some mysterious Central American carnivorous rodent, and a a spider monkey. Environmentally destructive engineered construction? Check. Domesticated wild animals? Check.

After visiting the animals, we went on four-wheelers, dirt bikes, and an off-road 6-person golf cart to one of the waterfalls on the grounds (Gas-guzzling recreational vehicles? Check). I took this opportunity to ask Quique the questions Hurley said I wasn’t allowed to ask. Who cares for the dam? Who is the contract between? How are you making up for the environmental damages? Is your coffee organic? Do you steep slope farm? Who do you sell it to? Who is that lady? The answers were brief, but seemed to be genuine. I imagine he wasn’t so accustomed to Hurley’s guests interrogating him. Following our gourmet dinner at the 20-person dining room table, we warmed up in the hot tub, played pool, and slept in our overstuffed, down comforter beds.

I knew that as I was being served lemonade in the hot tub, people just outside these fenced-in walls were bucket bathing with cold water. We all miss the comforts that we have at home: we might not all have hot tubs, but we don’t refuse to enjoy them. I spend weeks trying to find sponsors to provide our students with Q75 a month to pay for their schooling, but I don’t shy from buying a Q60 bottle of wine. Clearly my experience with the Brols is a bit dramatic, but how far is too far in terms of hypocrisy? As we all try to integrate ourselves into the cultures and communities of the developing world, do we leave behind the luxuries of our own culture? Is it wrong for me to be upset over having spilled water on my Macbook?

Bridget Barry is currently a Program Associate with Limitless Horizons Ixil in Chajul, Guatemala. To read more about Bridget’s time abroad with limited economic means, check out her past entries.  Or peruse posts by other La Vida Idealist bloggers to learn more about Guatemala.

Reality is complex to define. While in South America, I was often subjected to conversations with friends back home who knew nothing of my reality and thus dismissed my volunteering as a cheeky avoidance of reality- an extended spring break of sorts if you will. What I have seen in my time back in the United States is at once simple and complex: the world is limitless with definitions of reality, each one different, real, and wholly unique from the other, and each equally important to understand.

And so I live the reality of a man who has not just seen developing world poverty but lived amongst it and attempted in a rather amateur way to repair it or at least heal some of the wounds that develop as a result of it. And now I am a mid 20-something, surrounded by a haunting reality of a world I can’t and don’t want to forget. And yet I am increasingly entrenched in a world where like it or not your bank statement and your 401K mean something- not so much in terms of competition or prestige but in the simple matter of being able to provide for yourself. Suddenly, the question “What do you want to do with your life?” weighs heavy upon my shoulders.

Photo via Creative Commons by Flickr user borman818

Living in debt sucks. I know this first hand because it is perhaps the greatest characteristic of my time back in the United States. Working for little pay, I have found myself with a monthly credit card statement that can’t always be paid off on time. And my digs have ranged from a former convent in South Los Angeles where my room was the size of a closet to an apartment in a freshman dorm at my alma mater. In that capacity I try, sometimes with limited success, to expose freshman to the challenge and opportunity that is discovering the poverty that lurks in our midst and what we all can and should be doing to respond to it. Life giving as this role is for me, I am faced with the realization that one can only be a coupon whore and live gratis in church attics and dorms for so long.

And all this has me thinking, or more accurately said, worrying, about what my future contains. This I know, I am happiest when directing my energy towards making the world a better place. But at what cost? I attended a conference of nonprofit leaders in Los Angeles last year where the keynote speaker lamented about one of the greatest problems in the nonprofit sector: how are we to eliminate poverty in this world if we entrap our employees within it?

And so dear reader, now 18 months back home, I find myself adjusting to the world that I imagine many if not all returned volunteers face: how to live with the urgency to expend every ounce of your talent towards fighting against a reality you were exposed to that is poverty, that you know is unjust and in need of repair. And how to do that while juxtaposing it with a sincere and indeed acceptable desire to make enough money so that an unplanned expense such as a root canal doesn’t bring the prospect of financial misery for many more months to come.

I wish I had an answer, but more often then not I find myself overly obsessed with a most frightening question: what if you are fairly certain of the career path that would bring you the greatest satisfaction and horribly uncertain if it can provide for a modest but comfortable lifestyle?

For more on the dilemma of making profit while working in the nonprofit world, check out Kimberly Friedland’s “The Well-Planned Life or Summoned Self?“

The first is the Well-Planned Life. Those who favor it think that young people should determine a clear life purpose early on, and then make life decisions based on these goals to follow a pre-determined life trajectory. The other way can be called the Summoned Self. Here, “Life isn’t a project to be completed, it is an unknowable landscape to be explored.” In this view young people aren’t yet capable of knowing their life purpose. Circumstances such as economic and family obligations should dictate life choices, and a sense of purpose will only emerge over time as knowledge and experience are gained.

To which of these camps I fall into, it’s hard to tell. I haven’t quite figured out a life plan or goal, but I have discovered a few elements necessary for me to be happy in my future work. Helping people in some form or another, doing socially impactful work, and intellectual stimulation are a few. These don’t constitute a Well-Planned life purpose in and of themselves, but I see them as a start.

These goals may seem grand, but reality soon sets in. In just four days I return home, in search of work and with little savings. The job market remains tight and the economy slumped. After cultivating my independence for the past five years I will regress to move back under my parents’ roof and into my childhood bedroom. To avoid this becoming my permanent reality, economic necessity may dictate that I forfeit my work goals and take on a more menial job: one that will send me on a quicker path to financial independence.

Many socially minded young people face this same dilemma: How does one reconcile the desire to do socially impactful work with the economic necessity of securing a livable income?

The Summoned Self creeps in and asks: can I be sure that the goals I deem worthy now will produce happiness in the future? At 23 years old, maybe I’m not capable of knowing. Perhaps sacrificing my idealism for economic security is the right and inevitable thing to do, so I shouldn’t worry so much about values in choosing a job.

Maybe next year, I can take on an unpaid internship that allows me to perform interesting and significant work, and a second job that will pay the bills. Then the paths of the Well-Planned Life and the Summoned Self wouldn’t seem so mutually exclusive.

I don’t know whether I’ll figure out my life purpose in six months or twenty years, but for now I’ll just hope that meaning will emerge somewhere down the line, and pray that I won’t be living with my parents for the rest of my life.

Kimberly is currently serving as Program Manager for GirlSportWorks, a US-based NGO that seeks to enhance the lives of Peruvian girls through athletics. For more musings on life post-experience, check out “Homecoming” by Lizzie LaCroix.