SSssccarrryy Gringos

“to promote a better understanding of the American people on the part of the peoples served.”
Above is the second goal of the Peace Corps and I believe that the following story is relevant.

A couple of weeks ago I was working with my organization, the Colinas Verdes Foundation, in a little town named Chalaca, about an hour south of San Pedro de Vilcabamba. In this small “pueblo” we were putting in one of our “Support Centers” which is part of our initiative to furnish groups of coffee growers with the facilities to wash and dry their coffee as well as to grow new coffee plants. While we were there I noticed how all of the kids were keeping their distance from me. Usually the kids are very curious about the gringo and always come up to me to talk but this instance wasn’t the case. After trying to talk with them a couple of times and the kids running away from me I asked the people we were working with why the kids were so scared of me. That is when they explained to me that someone, most likely their parents, told the kids that if they aren’t good little boys and girls the gringos will come and either cut out their eyes or chop off their arms/legs to sell in the United States or Europe. After we all laughed about the absurdity of this idea I made it my mission to befriend these kids. So for the rest of the day I sat with the kids and we just chatted it up about school, what kinds of games they like to play and any other topic that may be pertinent to a 7 yr old. By the end of the day I had three little boys following me around asking me all kinds of questions and trying to help me with whatever task I was doing at the time. So I think they got over their fear that I was going to rob them of certain body parts.
This past week I went back to the town of Chalaca to show the people there how to compost and make organic fertilizers/pesticides. My new friends finally came around after about an hour and were hilarious in their attempts to help me. Making compost constitutes mixing all kinds of organic material that needs to be finely chopped up with machetes and then put into levels in the designated area. My little new little helpers were basically fighting over who gets to carry the bag of cow manure over to the compost area, something that was cracking all of the grown ups up. One of the little boys even made his shirt into a makeshift basket and filled it with about 30 oranges to give to me.
Well after a couple of hours both the compost piles and organic pesticides were complete and it was time for me to go home. But before I left, I decided to give these sweet, poor little boys a couple of gifts. The first was some coloring books with magic markers that my Mom had sent me from the US. As I pulled them out of my bag their faces immediately lit up and I literally felt like Santa Claus on Christmas morning and I realized how rare it was for these great, sweet, well-mannered little boys to receive a gift, especially something new. My next gift was an old Nerf football that my girlfriend, Katie, had brought from the US and had given to me just before she left. At first these little boys had no idea what it was and thought I was giving them some new type of sponge to wash dishes with, but after a little explanation of “Futbol Americano” and showing them how to throw it they were soon chucking it around the yard and chasing each other in circles.
As I mentioned above the second goal of the Peace Corps is “to promote a better understanding of the American people on the part of the peoples served.” The idea of this is to give the people in the countries we are serving a feel of who Americans are, why we are here and ultimately for us to give them an idea of the culture in which we live. This isn’t done through a class or workshops, it is accomplished by the volunteers living in the communities and interacting with the people on a daily basis. This situation with the children of Chalaca was definitely an extreme example of this but it really made an impression on me how truly uninformed these people really are, especially in the poorer communities, about the world outside of Southern Ecuador.
After this experience in Chalaca I sent the Peace Corps office in Washington DC an email suggesting that they change their second goal to read; “to promote a better understanding that the American people will not cut the arms or legs off of the peoples served…” Just kidding.