“I’m going to Argentina to do community service.” -Craig Joiner

Since having the title of Loewenstern Fellow bestowed upon me, I have been eager to hit the fields of Salta and get to work! I am excited to experience the world renowned culture of Argentina, and even more so to start my journey towards making a change in this world. The Loewenstern fellowship is a chance for more to give back; a chance to help those who are not as fortunate as I. This summer will represent an opportunity of unprecedented magnitude for me to apply my heretofore acquired knowledge of engineering and language, to a truly worthy situation. As I declared in my application; I refuse to use my gifts to serve those who already have and simply want, instead of those who truly need.  Although I have yet to be told with which specific organization I will be working, I continue to maintain enthusiasm and an open mind that wherever I am needed, that’s where I will go. I’m excited to help.

-Arrogance.

From the training with AMIGOS de las Americas, I was confronted with a lot of misconceptions that I admittedly possessed about capacity for foreign service. To put it bluntly, it was a punch to my pretentious ego. Through each of the activities, much more so than the power point presentations or videos really, I identified a new fault in my mindset towards the upcoming summer. With the Jah and Kay role-play (one, highly affluent and powerful world leading, yet misinformed country, felt bad an went to aide a newly developing, yet self sufficient, country.) I was placed in the Kay, affluent country. Like before the seminar, when I, as a citizen of Kay, prepared to travel to the country of Jah, I packed all of my knowledge and supplies that I knew a developing country would need. I prepared to shower them in gifts that were sure to improve their way of life. Subconsciously, I was preparing to make their country more like mine. Arriving to Jah (walking to a different room) was the second greatest moment of realization during my time at Rice (The first being that I don’t want to be a industrial engineer). The shear dumbfounded-ness as I, with all of my ideas and tools for improvement, had become an intruder. An unwelcomed outsider with the audacity to impose my will upon those whom I’d never met, I was an invader, really. I was never asked to help, yet I still offered it. Is this wrong? What is help? What does it mean to help? Is there a difference?

To offer help is arrogance. It is the assumption of the existence of disparity between you and the recipient. It is to assume a superiority in your capacity in comparison to theirs. To offer help is to say “I recognize that you’re currently struggling, let me help you get to where you need to be.” Who says where another “needs to be?” Certainly not me. It’s Kay to Jah. Who am I to categorize another as “developing” or “underprivileged?” I have no basis for such subjective judgments, and only by anchoring them to my own standards do I coop.

-Ignorance.

To ask for help is a submission of pride. It too is the recognition of an inequality in ability to make changes.However, to ask for help is not the submission of will, nor the submission of equality of existence. To ask for help is to ask another to assist you achieve a goal within the limitations you’ve set for yourself. When one asks for help, they do not request cultural displacement in order to reach the goal.  Those who ask continue to exist, equally. As the “helper” we can not forsake the will and limitations of a counterparts. To serve as a volunteer is not go “help.” No, instead it is to go and be an instrument to be used for any purpose deemed fit by those who seek to achieve their own self-set goals.

“Each of us lives… dependent and bound by our individual knowledge and our awareness. All that is what we call reality. However both knowledge and awareness are equivocal. One’s reality might be anothers illusion. We all live inside our own fantasies” -Masashi Kishimoto