Half Alive in America

"I didn't want to go back to the United States where for most of my life, it now seemed apparent, I had been only half-alive."

(Moritz Thomsen. The Saddest Pleasure: A Journey On Two Rivers)

I Can Go Home - Most Can't

"Now, after three years in the Peace Corps, my father's letter had illuminated my real position and Ecuador; I was engaged in the ultimate bourgeois gesture.  I had come to live for a time in a poor village....

When things got too rough: if I got sick or the food became unbearable or if the town for some reason or another should you erupt into drunken violence or if, even, the ambient of the town became too boring, I could simply jump in a canoe for Esmeraldas and catch a bus to Quito. I was the only one in town who could solve his problems by simply going to Quito."

(Moritz Thomsen. The Saddest Pleasure: A Journey On Two Rivers)

Not The Same Me.

"The biggest challenge was reintroducing myself to my family and friends.  I was not the same person as when I left, not by a long shot, but I was treated the same. "

(Returning Peace Corps Volunteer)

Teach Youth Before 12 Years Of Age Or It's Too Late?

(Ramón a black Ecuadorian) he had told me that the Peace Corps would never accomplish a thing in the way of change until it began to work exclusively with the youngest of the nation’s children; by the time a boy was twelve he was set in his ways for life."

(Moritz Thomsen. The Farm On The River of Emeralds)

The "Image" Of Poverty... One Photo Reveals All To A Village

"The incapacity of the poor to see the pattern of their lives is occasionally breached. I took a color photograph of Wai and his family standing in front of their house, and when the people of the town saw it, it had the curious power to make them weep. It was just a picture of a man, like any other in the town, with his eight children formally lined up in ascending order, his pregnant wife, and his mother. But there was something awful in Wai’s rags, in the tilt of his head, in the foolish pride that showed in his mother’s face for the voracious horde of naked kids. The picture summed up his whole life, a symbolic rendering of his past and future. The people would look at it and gasp. “Oh, my God, poor “Wai.” Perhaps for just a moment they saw themselves. Wai, of course, was the poorest, but not by much. You could measure degrees of poverty in Rio Verde with one pot or one woven mat or a dollar's worth of fishhooks."
(Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle. Moritz Thomsen)

Happy With A Biscuit ... Many Don't Have One

"When you sit down to the table and are given three soda biscuits and a cup of instant coffee for supper, you at first want to break down and cry like a baby and later, if you are strong enough, begin stamping your little feet on the floor in baby rage. What stops you is the knowledge that not only in your village but in villages all over the world there are families who are eating less than you, if they are eating at all." (Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle. Moritz Thomsen)

Politics For The Poor... A New Crook?

"The Ecuadorian government, a military junta, fell one day with riots, shooting, and mobs of determined students marching in the streets of the main towns. (The government fell because of these student demonstrations, and the students were furious because they weren’t allowed to run things.) That day I was helping Ramon and Ester split strips of bamboo for a new chicken house about a hundred feet from the ocean in the shade of a large ebony tree. Ramon had his radio outside, and we listened to the birth pangs of the new regime—the patriotic speeches and screeches, and the sound of martial music. But after a while he turned it off. It didn’t seem to have much do with Rio Verde. “Well,” Ramon said, “the old gang made its millions; now a new gang wants to rob us. You know, it will be the same for us whoever wins. We are completely forgotten here in Rio Verde.” (Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle. Moritz Thomsen)

Do The Love Me .... Or My Stuff? :-)

Need a sense of humor while living in the 3rd world.....

“Oh God," Loren Finnell said, “the worst thing about Ecuador is the day you have to leave your town, with everybody hugging you and crying and their faces all screwed up and streaming with tears. I could never go through that again.” “Yes,” another more realistic Volunteer said, “in my town they were crying and wailing, and five minutes later I caught one of my best friends stealing a pair of scissors.” He shook his head, half laughing and half crying as he said it, not quite sure after two years in which world he‘ was living—that familiar Yankee world, where your best friend does not steal your scissors, or the more pragmatic Latin one, where a friend can be equally as heartbroken that you are leaving as that your scissors are leaving."
(Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle. Moritz Thomsen)

Why Do We Scramble Around in Life And Take Pills To Cope With The Stress

"We are aware that some of our attitudes toward life are now in conflict with those of most people around us. We find ourselves rebelling at the pressures created by a society that rules its life by the clock. We can now see how easy it is to make ourselves victims of schedules, at the mercy of a self-imposed routine that keeps us constantly rushing to meet the demands we have placed upon our lives. We are struggling to avoid getting caught up in the frenzied pace of America. Certain phrases from ordinary conversation irritate us now, although previously we have often used them ourselves: Expressions like “I’ve just got to go,” “I only have a minute,” “I’m too busy,” or “I don’t have the time” are evidences of life being reduced to a series of frustrating episodes drained of satisfaction or pleasure. Why do we Americans schedule appointments so close together, or squeeze in a shopping trip during a coffee break? Does what we do in all our rushing and scrambling really contribute to a richer life for us and our children?

Life in South America was at the opposite extreme—complete disregard of schedules, utter indulgence in habitual tardiness, and a nonchalant approach to all commitments. We soon adapted to this leisurely mode of life and it has been a bit of a struggle to readapt to the scheduled life of our North American society. There is little in the Latin culture that depends on punctuality—maybe that is one of the reasons why Ecuador is so underdeveloped —but our neighbors there didn’t have to take pills to relieve their nervous tension, ulcers were unheard of, and the frustrated housewife or harried husband were rarities. Parents had time to enjoy their children, and I never met an emotionally disturbed child." (The Barrios Of Manta. Rhoda & Earle Brooks)

Peace Corps Workers Are Just Boozers?

"The things that PCV’s see and work with are the unknown, the unexpected, the unheard-of, the unteachable, and the unrecorded experiences of life of millions of people who have nothing to say about the shaping of their countries. It is my strong hope that the “important” things will be supplemented with the wealth of knowledge stored up by PCV’s returning to the U.S.

A sad, yet humorous, situation often occurs when volunteers go into a larger town to “get away from it all” after many days, weeks, or months in the backlands. Having arrived by truck, broken-down bus, or even on horseback, the PCV looks for good food and a nice place to stay. He might have saved a little money or received ten dollars for his birthday, and he wants to have a little fun. So he is seen by tourists, politicians, visiting professors, consulting experts and advisers, businessmen, and high—level government people, letting off steam and relaxing from pressure. He is rarely seen hard at work because these other people seldom visit the out-of—the-way places where the work is being done. So they say, “They don’t do anything but sit around the street cafes and drink beer.” Or, “They are a bunch of young college kids out to have fun.” One rather outspoken government employee even told me that “they are arrogant and rude. They think we should all run into the streets and love everyone we see; that’s foolish.”
(The Barrios Of Manta. Rhoda & Earle Brooks)

An Untiring Missionary In Ecuador

Peace Corps workers in Ecuador speak about a missionary they got to know who had been serving faithfully for 27 years just five kilometers frim their town.  This was in 1962-1963

"Bill and Alice have an enthusiasm and love for mankind that has endured through more than a quarter of a century of disappointments and setbacks. They have seen countless Americans come and go with ideas and projects. Many of these projects have fizzled and patience has often run out. But Bill Boyes stands high, walks with purpose, has a firm grip on his fellowmen and an enduring faith in God. He is untiring."
(The Barrios Of Manta. Rhoda & Earle Brooks)

How We Live In Foreign Lands

"I cannot make any generalizations about the problems created by our image abroad because North Americans in foreign lands vary from the “let’s-go-native” variety to the “we-live-in-an-ivory-tower” type. Several U.S. Consulate people visited our beach house. They usually brought their own food and ate it exclusively. I saw Embassy people on similar occasions refuse good food carefully prepared by Bob Carpenter’s Ecuadorian wife. The North American’s caution can be extreme and sometimes harmful. We knew North Americans whose overprotective concern for themselves strained their personal relationships with Ecuadorians to the point of little or no social contact. They were too stiff to be able to relax enough to enjoy the simplicity and friendliness of the life around them.

Rhoda told me about the comments of two U.S. government people who came to visit our house. “Do you always have so many people around?” they said, referring to the many, always present, neighbors. “I’ve seen them on the street but they never come into my house.”

“I respect these people for the fine and necessary work they do for the U.S. in Ecuador,” Rhoda said, “but I also feel sorry for many of them because they are missing out on so much fun.
Work is being done by foreign service people, technical assistance personnel, and volunteers in the Peace Corps who live in everything from lean—to shacks to homes swarming with servants. Accomplishments seem to be based on personal associations with the nationals, which in turn is based on appreciation, interest, and respect. Adherence to a specific standard of living is not the most important factor, though it is the feeling of many responsible Peace Corps volunteers that an extremely high standard of living in poor countries almost automatically limits contact with the vast majority of people."
(The Barrios Of Manta. Rhoda & Earle Brooks)