Walking on the road to Chaquijyá, Guatemala

This year, in order to further our understanding of global hunger, the Program Directors at all three MPI sites participated in the 30-hour fast organized by World Vision International. Though allowed to consume fruit juice, we were highly encouraged to not consume solid foods or coffee (eek!) from 1:00pm this past Thursday until 7:00pm the following Friday. In addition to the fast, PD’s also participated in service activities organized through their respective sites, and discussions concerning our personal sentiments regarding the fast. In Guatemala, we began our fast with an hour of service at a local feeding program and then conducted dialogues in house and with the Ecuador PDs via Skype. The fast was both physically and emotionally taxing, but we all persevered and I believed that we learned a great deal from the experience.

To be honest, when I first learned about the fast, I was not crazy about it for numerous reasons. Primarily, any given day, I probably spend more time eating than not, and I was not sold on the idea of forgoing food for an entire 30 hours. Additionally, I felt several moral qualms on the matter. Who were we to expect that a mere day-long fast would allow us to empathize with the suffering and turmoil of hunger victims? Watching movies on laptops, drinking clean water, and cozily sitting in our warm beds, we would be surrounded by numerous luxuries and we would have a kitchen stocked with food in case of emergency. We would begin the fast with the assurance of copious amounts of food in 30 hours and we would never suffer the anxiety of wondering the source of our next meal.

The fast also did not touch me initially at a personal level, as our physical experience of hunger could never resemble the experiences of the hungry in Chaquijyá. Many residents of Chaquijyá suffer from chronic hunger. While many of them may only eat one meal a day, they do eat. Our experience would more closely resemble the acute hunger of victims of natural disasters or war, whose food sources become cut off very suddenly. Like I said, there were numerous reasons. Overall, it seemed to me that our experience would not remotely resemble those lived by the impoverished, and I was hesitant to believe that the fast would affect my perspectives in working with the community members of Chaquijyá.

Having successfully completed the fast, I cannot say if the experience will affect how I make my lesson plans or teach my classes in Chaquijyá, but I can say that the fast did prove to be more enlightening than I had expected. Namely, even if the fast did not radically change my thoughts on world hunger, the experience did stimulate me to think. Though the fast was not “authentic” per say, hunger dominated my thoughts for 30 hours and compelled me to ask to ask more profound questions about myself and the larger issue. Indeed, I realized that is impossible for me to fathom the experience of chronic hunger. This realization excited in me both a rush of gratitude for the numerous blessings I am fortunate to enjoy, and also a larger appreciation for the resilience of people suffering from hunger. All over the world, people who survive on minimal food still work and struggle to support families. Often the most impoverished people possess the most physically taxing jobs, and millions of hungry people toil each day all the while still nourishing love for their families, religious beliefs, and/or inner determination.

I am so grateful for the smack-in-face, out-of-the-comfort-zone experience that was the fast. Sometimes I need a shock to my system to make me open my eyes and see the world around me more clearly. Global hunger is truly a world issue that cannot be fixed in a flash by one organization or government. Whether through monetary donations, volunteering, or spreading awareness, all of us must find our own ways to contribute to the struggle to insure food security for our fellow humans.

Ginny just finished a thirteen-month commitment as Program Director with Manna Project International-Guatemala and is returning to Guatemala to seek out other opportunities. For more on Ginny’s experiences in Guatemala, check out her blog.

This past year, I had the great fortune to help found MPI’s third site in Guatemala. Collaborating and living with five other recent college graduates like myself, I helped to create a site-specific mission/vision statement, initiated education, health, and environmental programs in two neighborhoods of our community, and most importantly, established an extensive network of relationships from which MPI-Guatemala can continue to grow.

Our numerous American friends (mostly Peace Corps volunteers and other NGO employees) have maintained a running joke, in which they compare MPI-Guatemala to the MTV show “The Real World.” And frankly, they have a point. Six strangers, live together, work together, and have their lives taped. Well, our lives were not recorded, nor did we vent our deepest emotions in “confessionals” that would be shown to millions of viewers. We did however, live and work together. For a year, we shared cooking and cleaning duties, clothes and books, lesson planning and blog writing. We shared in each others’ successes, frustrations, and laughter. In many ways, the “Real World” is an apt title for this past year’s experience. Between the programs, the lessons about development, and the friendships, this past year was the most “real,” the most demanding yet fulfilling experience of my life.

Now with three weeks remaining in my term with MPI, I am faced with the daunting prospect of entering the actual real world. As if I were a senior in college, both friends and family constantly bombard me with the age-old question: “What are you doing next?” Fifteen months have passed since I graduated, yet I still do not have a clear answer. Similar to many other people who have studied or worked abroad, I finish my thirteen-month term with a renewed energy to continue in the field in which I have been focusing. So, what do I do with this energy? I would love to stay in Central America, and I would like more field experience in international development before attending a graduate school, but where do I start? In this blog, I hope to relate my experiences in searching for the next step and expound the options for the people who simply have not kicked the travel bug, or for people who are high-on-life after an experience abroad and now seek a way to sustain that enthusiasm. There are so many possibilities for our lives, and I cannot wait to share my journey of exploring them.

This is Ginny Savage’s first post with La Vida Idealist. Ginny is in the last stage of her thirteen-month commitment as a Program Director with Manna Project International-Guatemala. For more on Ginny’s experiences in Guatemala, check out her personal blog. To learn a little more about Manna Project, check out the MPI Guatemala blog, “Talking (Or Not) About Your Time Abroad” by Andrew Preston or “All That Glitters is Not Gold (Sometimes It’s Recycled Bottles)” by Kate Bennett.

My friend Preston and I went to a restaurant in Nashville last week, where a decidedly bored waitress decided to liven up her evening by flirting aggressively with the both of us. At some point Preston (always the wingman) tossed me a lob. “You know,” he said to the waitress, “My friend Mark just came back from two years in Ecuador.”

“Ecuador, wow…” she said. “How was that?”

I blanked. In this particular setup, my answer was supposed to be something smarmy and sensitive: “It was heartbreaking to see children in such poverty, but rewarding, too. I know that I made a difference even if I couldn’t adopt them all.” But – sorry Preston – I just couldn’t do it. How in hell do you package two years of life into an elevator pitch or cocktail conversation piece? You don’t, obviously. But here are some tips to talking about your abroad with whoever asks about it.

Write about it first. If you can find some outlet through which to digest your experiences on a personal level, it takes some of the pressure off of those conversations. You won’t feel as much need to say something profound, witty or engaging.

Be true. People can sniff out false modesty pretty quickly and know when you’re bragging about how well traveled you are. Don’t overplay or understate your experience, just say it like it is.

Pay attention! In the first few seconds of talking about your experience, you can pick out whether somebody takes interest in what you have to say. The odds are, frankly, that they don’t. But you can pick out which parts they might be interested in. Do they teach in an elementary school? Maybe they’d be curious about how classrooms work in Uganda. Are they sports fans? Maybe they’d appreciate a (short) story about your nearly getting arrested at a soccer game in Madrid.

Practice makes perfect. I learned quickly which statements or questions really drive me up the wall. So when somebody comes at me with, “You know, those people are poor but they’re so happy, aren’t they?” I’ve got a measured response at the ready. I’m also beginning put together a mental list of lighter stories so that I have some available when people are looking for ‘fun’ rather than ‘serious.’

Good luck!