Life in the Navajo Nation: One Incident That Sums It All Up
July 23, 2010Daniel 2 Comments »
I’m back in Singapore– it’s good to be home 
As I mentioned in my previous post, working with the high school students has been very rewarding, but it hasn’t always been easy.
The experience of the past two months has been a lot of good with some not-so-good thrown in. One of my teammates summed it up simply (and well) when she said, “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that doing good things is hard. It’s really hard.”
We came to the Navajo Nation with good intentions and a good (or so we thought) plan. But there’s an Irish saying that goes, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Good intentions and a good plan are necessary but not sufficient conditions to ensure success– especially when it comes to short-term service projects.
We’ve established meaningful friendships with our students and with others in the community, but we’ve also strained other relationships by our “privileged” and “proud” behavior. I think it’s unfortunate and unfair that some of our actions were perceived as such, but I also recognize that we judge others according to their actions, but we judge ourselves according to our intentions.
We took responsibility for our actions, and we extended a few apologies in our last week in the Navajo Nation. I really hope that any damage we’ve done is not irreparable!
One incident that happened two weeks ago encapsulates our DukeEngage experience pretty well.
It was a rainy day. We were driving on a dirt road in our 12-seater (and non-four-wheel drive) van. The road was extremely muddy and it was difficult to control the van.
All of a sudden, we spotted a motorcycle lying in the middle of the road and the rider next to it. The bike was a beautiful Harley Davidson that looked like this:
The rider was a tough-looking guy and was dressed kind of like this:
You kind of get the picture, right?
His bike was stuck in the mud, and it was obvious that he needed help to lift it.
Two of my teammates and I got out of the van to lend him a hand. We assumed lifting position.
“Okay, lift on three. One, two, three!”
“Whoops!” I exclaimed. I had grabbed part of the motorcycle’s seat cushion, and it had come off while I was lifting.
The rider let out a grunt of annoyance and shot me a disapproving look. I apologized, and gripped onto a different part of the bike.
We eventually got the bike upright, and the rider started the engine and rode off.
Interestingly, the rider didn’t thank us for our help– he seemed far more embarrassed that he needed assistance than grateful that we had provided him with some.
One of my teammates who had lent a hand later realized that he had suffered a pretty bad burn because his shin had rubbed against the hot exhaust pipe while we were lifting the bike.
All in all, not the best “helping” experience. But it does represent the not-so-good parts of the last two months quite accurately.
- Our intentions were pure and good, but I still accidentally removed the seat cushion and upset the rider.
–> Sometimes we carry out noble service projects, but we cause unintended harm to the communities we are trying to help. Most of the time, this is due to the fact that we don’t fully understand the “bike”– the culture of the people we’re serving.
- The rider was more embarrassed than thankful.
–> We all have some pride, and we’re not always happy to receive “assistance” or “service” (even assistance or service that we really do need).
- My teammate suffered a bad burn on his shin.
–> In short-term service projects, good actions and intentions are often misconstrued, and volunteers can be “burned” by unfair negative comments.
- We accomplished what we set out to do: we got the motorcycle out of the mud. But no one involved felt happy!
–> Just because you achieve your service goals, it doesn’t mean that all is well. Service, at the end of the day, is about people; we cannot turn people into just another statistic or measurable goal to quantify how successful our service project was.
I’ve learned a lot about service through this DukeEngage program– what service means, the importance of making service sustainable, the danger of attempting to serve a community that you don’t fully understand.
Doing good things is hard. It’s really hard.
But that doesn’t mean we should stop trying.
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:34 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Allie LeCavalier, Daniel Wong. Daniel Wong said: One incident that sums up the DukeEngage experience. Thank you @allielecav for the good quote
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August 15th, 2010 at 9:30 pm
Fantastic post! Getting the bike out of the mud, but no one felt happy…such a great analogy. Helping can be such a thankless job (for everyone involved).