Global Action El Salvador - College Essay

With this mature and thoughtful essay by Global Action El Salvador 2006 participant Becca Hornthal, we are pleased to inaugurate the new College Essays portion of our website, where we showcase writing inspired by experiences on Putney Programs.

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For more information about the Global Action El Salvador program click here

Becca Hornthal - Global Action El Salvador 2006

This summer I traveled to El Salvador on a "Global Awareness in Action" program. I came home with an unconventional understanding of the time I had spent abroad.
 

When the trip began, I remember thinking I was going to really make a difference in the village of Santa Marta.   Indeed, in the first two weeks I assisted in the local kindergarten, helped create a database at Santa Marta's health clinic, and walked from village to village performing community outreach.
 

Then, one evening our group leaders handed us the article  'To Hell with Good Intentions' by Ivan Illich. Suddenly, I felt like a complete failure. Illich's thesis was that foreign countries do not need American volunteers to "fix" impoverished villages. The article concluded, "I am here to entreat you to use your money, your status and your education to travel in Latin America. Come to look, come to climb our mountains, to enjoy our flowers. Come to study. But do not come to help." I was speechless.
 

For the first time, I realized that our three-week stay would not bring about any real change for the community. Why had I thought that Santa Marta needed to change? We all recalled our first night in the village. After only eight hours "on the ground," many of us had noticed copious amounts of garbage lying around, and decided to work on what we deemed to be their trash "problem".
 

After reading the article, we realized that the people of Santa Marta would not benefit from a group of Americans walking around their community with trash bags, cleaning up after them. In fact, it could be detrimental to the way they viewed their community and the way they viewed us. We didn't have the right to create a hierarchy where they were the" slobs" and we were there to pick up after them. We began to realize that our initial idea was an arrogant, condescending view, a tourist's view. The purpose of the trip was to experience the view of a global traveler, someone interested in gaining perspective and making connections. As the conversation continued, we ultimately concluded that we were not about to create tangible change in the community.
 

That night, as I lay under my mosquito net, I continued to struggle to understand my purpose in the village. "Why was I there?" The answer finally came to me on our very last night when I asked Elmer, a 17-year-old from the village, why he wasn't smiling. He responded, "estoy triste" (I'm sad). He told me that he was afraid we were going to return to the US and forget about him. Suddenly, I got it; I understood why I had come to El Salvador. My purpose was to build meaningful connections with the community and learn about myself while learning about the people, and their way of life.
 

Santa Marta doesn't have a new school or a new home that 1 had a hand in creating. However, there are enduring friendships and understandings that will remain with me far into the future. I did not create a change Santa Marta, but Santa Marta definitely created a change in me. I've learned to acknowledge the fact that when I look at a situation, I am looking at it with privileged eyes, eyes that have no right to judge or impose. In my future travels, I refuse to be just a tourist; I want to strive to be a global traveler.