Day Five

“[Deo] had left Columbia believing that misery had not been the sole cause of the mayhem [the Rwandan genocide], but a primary cause, a precondition too often neglected by scholars: little or no education for most and, for those who did get it, lessons in brutality; toil and deprivation, hunger and disease and untimely death, including rampant infant mortality, which justified all-but-perpetual pregnancy for women until menopause.” – Tracy Kidder, Strength in What Remains

“Any person who is outside any country of such person's nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, is outside any country in which such person last habitually resided, and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” – US Immigration and Nationality Act

The residents of Ancopacho, the community in which we work each day, too clearly demonstrate the plight of have-nots: living in land no others wanted, their homes in the floodplain were destroyed by torrential downpours, first in 1998 and then again this winter; politically without voice, they were “relocated” to dilapidated homes on an isolated compound “gifted” to them by the residents of Ollantaytambo; many of them Quechuan, or Incan Indian, they lack the Spanish to include them in Peruvian culture, let alone Peruvian economy. In many ways, those in Ancopacha are refugees in their own country.

We spent this evening speaking about this notion, about whether or not the term “refugee” applied to those amongst whom we work each day and if so, why the legal definition might not include those left homeless by natural disaster. Using Tracy Kidder’s Strength in What Remains and Primo Levi’s essays about the Holocaust as springboards, we discussed the creators and characteristics of refugees: anger, despair, separateness, and, in the best cases, hope. All these feelings we would experience were we to lose our homes, and all emotions felt in varying degrees by those in the century’s worst—and most violent—refugee situations. As a group, we decided that poverty and bigotry all too frequently prove both pre-conditions to and perpetuators of the most enduring type of homelessness.

Nancy, Craig and I spent a lot of time discussing curriculum before our trip began, each having a goal in mind for our group’s conversations. Nancy’s to insure understanding of our surroundings’ history and culture, and, with Novogratz’s The Blue Sweater as inspiration, to encourage us all to listen harder and, through doing so, to become more conscious. Craig’s to help students to know themselves as leaders, collaborators, and followers, because, only through knowledge of the self, can one truly lead. And mine, represented in many ways through my presence here as an alumna (form of 2004), to help students to transition their learning home by showing them that the conditions we see here in Peru exist in ways in our own countries, making the service we do domestically equally important to the service we do abroad. As such, atop Pinkuylluna near the old Incan granaries, situated high above Ollantay, Nancy spoke with us about connectedness, listening across a language barrier, and how we might become more aware from the work we do each day. Our second day in Peru, Craig led us through the completion of Myers-Briggs personality tests, grouping us by personality type (there are a lot of “J”s, or doers, on this trip) to discuss our contributions and challenges in cooperative settings. And I, eager to plant some ideas before I leave Sunday to return to my life in New York, ended our evening’s conversation about refugees with discussion of the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

In September 2005, a lot of controversy surrounded the term “refugee” in the context of Hurricane Katrina survivors. Led by Al Sharpton, many were angered by the term’s suggestion that the victims in New Orleans were nation-less. Jennie and Nancy suggested that the US government might dislike the term because “refugee” suggested that politicians had not been quick to serve their citizens as citizens deserved. Di offered that New Orleans residents might not like the suggestion that they were not American. Following Dilong’s suggestion, we recognized that "outside of one’s country" doesn't necessarily mean physically outside but also outside of its rights, services, and opportunities. In this way, the legal definition, if interpreted more loosely, might indeed apply to those in Katrina and to those in Ancopacho, though those who write the laws certainly might not like the implication that citizens can indeed be treated as aliens. We concluded that refugees’ exclusion is not only caused by genocide and political strife (as in the Holocaust or Rwanda) but seems also to be deeply connected to poverty or race. Because of the ubiquitous nature of poverty, our consciousness of inequity and ensuing desires to serve can't end when we leave Peru but rather must continue when we return home to the US, Korea and China.

What a privilege for me to engage with such thoughtful, curious and compassionate students, qualities that typified my peers at Groton but that still astound me. I hope that these conversations – and the recurring themes to which they allude– will help to fill some of the holes I felt in the fabric of my own Groton experience. By getting outside of the Groton “bubble," realizing its privilege and its apartness, by seeing more of the Other, by deliberately living the tenet “Cui Servire Est Regnare," and by thinking outside of the days scheduled for them, students will, I hope, not only realize the breadth of the world and their connection to and disconnection from it, but also gain true understanding of servant leadership. Through so doing, they will realize, I hope, the best an education can offer: understanding of the self that allows them to live in and contribute to the world in the manner they find, individually, to be most fulfilling.

- Lilah Hume, Form of 2004