Thoughts from Brazil - 2005

Also just stumbled across this - from a journal I kept when i was volunteering with street children in Brazil (with YWAM in Belo Horizonte), as part of an internship for my undergrad degree in international development.

Jul 02, 2005; Somewhere above the Amazon Forest

Gliding over the jungles of Brazil and a carpet of spun gold, with a magnificent sunset over my shoulder. As it darkens, the forests are a sea of darkness below me, with entire cities reduced to no more than a few scattered splashes of tiny glittering orange-blue lights, nested in the vast black arms of the forests – scattered pockets of civilizations with nothing in between, cut off from each other, entire worlds unto themselves. Seeing entire lives and worlds from way up here, reduced to insignificant dots, definitely alters your perspective.

And so I return to my native land. Aptly enough, it happens to be within days of the first time I flew into Brazil, exactly twenty-one years ago – July 6, 1984, about a week before I was born. It's been 10 years since I was last here, and this seems an appropriate landmark to be making my return – on the threshold of adulthood, coming to discover my vocation in a way, to get away from civilization, from everyone I know and any sort of life I'm used to, to something completely different, cut off, giving of myself to something so small yet so much bigger than myself.

I still don't know where I stand in relation to this country. Some part of me has missed this place so much, has longed to return – it resurfaces for a brief instant every time I stumble upon a piece of Brazilian culture, food, language – on some level this is like coming home, my childhood, a sea of buried memories, hints of another life that I can hardly believe was mine. It's all so far away, and every once in a while I experience a hint of nostalgia, for a certain street, a certain…sense, feeling, orientation – it's hard to explain, but it involves rain and cobbled streets and brown old office buildings and an orangey cloudy sky … or I get certain flashbacks, or nostalgia for a smell, a sensation, a place…I don't know whether the place I'm yearning to revisit is actually in this country or somewhere in the forgotten nether regions of my childhood. I am really looking forward to seeing Santos again. I expect it to stir some sharp memories, but I don't really know whether it will – it's weird having lived your entire early childhood in a single place, and then never going back to revisit it for over 10 years. 8 years is a long time with enough room to have created plenty of memories here…but 10 years is even longer, long enough to be replaced by an entirely new person.

I tell people I was born in Brazil, and they say, "Ah, entao você é Brasileira!" (Ah, so you're a Brazilian!) – but I somehow feel like an impostor. Earlier in this flight the attendant was handing out immigration forms for Brazilian passengers, and he gave me one in Spanish for some reason. I called him back and asked for one in English, and he stared at me blankly and asked confusedly, "You're Brazilian, right?" I don't really know…

I never realized how much of Brazilian culture I still have in me. Even more than the fact that I love the food and music and scenery - I even love the rice and beans everyday... But I think it's more of a general 'hot climate' culture that I identify with. In this cultural orientation session we had, I heard this talk on the differences between 'cold climates' like North America and northern Europe - more individualistic, task-oriented, direct, punctual, efficient places - versus 'hot climates' like Latin America and some Asian countries like India - more laidback, relaxed, relationship-oriented - more concerned with building relationships than accomplishing tasks; more round-about -- never wanting to offend people, and so not saying things directly to people's faces, and things like that. Of course, these are gross generalizations, but from what I've seen there is some truth to these trends, and I'm finding a lot more 'hot climate' in me that the other way round. As much as I like living in Canada, I think I've never fully identified with the culture there because of this reason. And more than that, people here somehow seem to be happier. They may not have much, but they seem somehow more at rest, not rushing to get anywhere or do things, but just willing to enjoy the moment, to sit around after lunch and just enjoy a cup of coffee and each other's company, whiling away the hours…I love it!

I'm not exactly sure what to expect from this YWAM placement. It's a bit intimidating going into this completely new world of which I know nothing and no one. But at the same time I'm excited. I remember the first time I heard about this project that Johan and Jeanette Lukasse started with the street kids in Belo Horizonte, from my mom who spent a day there 2 years ago, and I remember that as she described the place and the children she saw there my eyes stung and my heart hurt. And I thought I would like to go see it someday, perhaps to be a part of it. I'm not sure how much use I'll be really… In a way I feel like this may not be exactly the kind of 'development' experience that I feel is expected of me from my university …But it should be interesting even to observe how this whole project started from just a few people's visions and grew to what it is today. It should be interesting to work with a Christian development organization, and see how their worldview of development compares with the development worldviews I have encountered in my secular university studies. I am still looking for some way to integrate my faith with my views on development (and with some of the things I've studied about some of the negative aspects of the past work of missionaries in developing countries). Let’s see if this helps!

UN Reflections

Just came across these old reflections I wrote while working at the UN in Fall 07, which I somehow never got around to posting here. Not sure if anyone even visits this site anymore (since I myself barely do!), but - here it is!

Written on October 17, 2007

I've been sitting in on the UN General Assembly sessions for the last two weeks, watching the UN do its business, hearing statement after statement by country leaders and diplomats on issues like human rights, social development, ensuring the rights of women and children and minorities, ensuring the participation of youth in development… Honestly, after a while I can pretty much predict what they're going to say: most of the time each country basically reads out a pre-prepared 2-page speech on how they're all for development and human rights, listing all the great actions their country has undertaken to promote these issues, and noting how much progress still needs to be made. It really would save a whole lot of time if the Chairman dude were to just ask everyone at the beginning of the session, "So, who here is for promoting the rights and welfare of people with disabilities? Anyone have anything to say against people with disabilities? No? So we all agree we need to get our act together and do more stuff? Great! Next topic?"

It may sound a bit cynical, but I have to admit that watching the activities of the UN firsthand has made me a tad disillusioned. I can't help feeling that so much of this is simply self-important people getting all dressed up in fancy clothes and getting together and reading out fancy reports to each other full of lofty language and empty rhetoric. You have countries like Myanmar and Iran all read out pretty speeches about how much they're doing for human rights and how they are fully committed to the cause, without saying a word about all the human rights violations going on in their own countries. And so much for international dialogue – most of the time there's very little true dialogue that takes place, since most countries just read out their pre-prepared statements, and listen or doze of while other countries read theirs. And once in a while when people do address each other directly it's in order to debate on a point of order or to accuse some other country of getting something wrong or doing something wrong.

One of my friends was joking about how UN actually stands for 'Useless Nations'. You know, I'm starting to wonder if he's not too far off.

And then, just once in a while, you get presentations like this afternoon, in the Third Committee session on the rights of children in conflict situations, where they invited Ishmael Beah to address the General Assembly. Ishmael is a boy from Sierra Leone who lost his parents and most of his family to the war when he was about 11, and who was then taken and put to work as a child soldier. He was rescued a few years later by a UNICEF team, and has since then written a book about his experiences and speaks about it in various venues across the world. It was amazing to get to hear him address international leaders about the reality of the horrors of the war, and the fact that there simply is no time left for empty talk and rhetoric – his life attests to that. The clarity of his voice, the depth of suffering hidden in his eyes, the articulateness of his speech, and the compelling nature of his message, all sent shivers down my spine, and filled me with this urge to run out of that UN hall and flee to go work among children like him torn by the ravages of war. Instead I settled for leaving the hall and fleeing to a bookstore to eagerly flip through the pages of his bestselling narrative.

I realize more and more how stories and relationships can be some of the most powerful tools in development work. Often it seems like people at places like the UN are rather disconnected from the reality of the situation on the ground; they barely know about the people they are supposedly trying to help. They sit in marble halls holding round tables and drafting reports that attempt to fix the problems of poverty, without ever having stepped into that reality. And it’s so easy in that environment for development to become more about an ego-driven career-building endeavour that eases people’s consciences while allowing them to retain their prestigious lifestyles from the comforts of the West. But it’s when you step outside that bubble and actually meet someone from that world of suffering, when you see it in their eyes and feel in their hands and enter into their world and build a real relationship with them, that true solidarity can be born. And I feel that it is such true solidarity and deep empathy that gives rise to transformative development, where you’re not simply trying to fix some abstract theoretical problem in your mind, but are partnering with a friend in order to put an end to their situation of oppression.