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How Tonga Aids New Zealand

A U.S. Peace Corps View

page 23

A U.S. Peace Corps View

FromPacifica, a critical Peace Corpos document given to volunteers.

As teachers, you will have another whole dimension of problems to resolve (that is, if you care at all about your job). Once you get the educational system straight, once the novelty quickly flattens out into routine (take note of that world) will you be the kind of person who will justify – or try to justify – what he is doing as a teacher in Pacifica? Perhaps not, and if not, then you are quite lucky in a way and may enjoy two rewarding years here. Yet if you honestly feel that it is important to know with reasonable certainty that you are doing something worthwile for Pacifica, then you may be heading for some trouble. It is extremely difficult to see a purpose or an end to the educational system here. Are we here as cheap replacements for local and expatriate labour. There are times when that is the only purpose you may see to your job. Are you prepared to teach a class of kids – drill them for exams that 3/4 of them may never get a chance to take, sacrifice 97% for the sake of the 3% (which you might not even have), work for the few who sit the exams, and then ‘dump’ the rest? And those lucky few who go overseas – do you want to be responsible for the high number of cultural misfits that overseas makes out of so many scholarships? Are you willing to spend two years preparing kids for exams they'll never take, jobs they'll never find, opportunities that only exists in the minds of the myth-laden people? Or will your goals be to buck the system, forget the exams and teach the kids to think? Do you really think you can do that? Are you that good at teaching? And can you honestly come face to face with the prospect that even if you do achieve your admirable goal and get the kids to question, reason, think (is that being sensitive to the culture?) and want to know something beyond the sea, beyond their traditions, beyond everyday custom – do you have the guts to face the prospect that most of these kids will then have to go back to the plantation for life. And now, because of you, they know what they're missing. What do you answer a student of yours (like I had to answer one of mine) when he begs you to save him from the plantation next year: ‘I dont't want do die’? What will you say to him? And the more “successful” you are, the more likely this is to happen. In short, will you be satisfied spending your two years creating needs that the country might well not be able to fulfil?

Well, perhaps you'll make the leap of faith, and assure that it is an absolute good to get the kids to question, think for themselves and turn them into good American students (wait until you tryl) and that the country will have to be the better for it. If you can make that leap, and are a real crackerjack teacher, you may well have a good teaching experience. The kids you will be teaching have probably never been taught or allowed to question anything independently in their lives. You can, perhpas, really start something. If you can make the kids think, get them to want to know, and open the world beyond the afternoon tide to them, you may well be on your way to a tough but ultimately re-
warding
teaching experience. And you'll probably see results. But don't expect too
much.

Dont't get me wrong. I think that in some was Pacifica needs the Peace Corps as much as most places in the world. In a way, there is a job here. We are diversity to these people. Whether they like it or not (and they're bound not to like it most of the page 24 time) we will have a great influence here – depite ourselves, our ‘programs’ and our ‘best-laid plans’. If you come, please be sensitive to the fact that it is you who are different here. Try to be tolerant, although that will probably prove much harder than many of you suspect. Your patience, your faith in people, your trust, your love, your tolerance of others, your understanding of even yourself, your notion of what relation-
ships
with others mean, your faith in the equality of all men – all these and others will
be tried to their breaking points. You will probably find yourselves mentally packing your bags at times, and some of you – if you refuse to listen to the advice of others – may actually succeed in completing the packing. You will probably come to realise that understanding the people is not exactly the same thing as being able to live with them. In Pacifica you will come to know the Pacifican way extremely intimately. You will have the opportunity to peak behind the glittering curtain the expatriates have woven in front of paradise. And beyond it, you will come face to face with yourself – your strengths and sometimes surprising victories, your weaknesses and humiliating, debilitating failures. Perhaps you will see many parts of yourself for the first time, and you may well not like what you see. But again, try to understand, and be culturally sensitive – even if that sensitivity is not returned. If you think you really want to come here, try then to understand. The culture needs that.

It also needs you not be too sensitive. Know when to say no. Be polite if you can, but dont’ forget yourself. That, in a way, is how I see our job here. If we throw ourselves headlong into the local way – even when it goes counter to what we are – we are doing the country as disservice. The people know the local way. They have seen it, known it, and been it for 2,000 years. The problem is that most of them know no other, and therefore have no choices. I think our job here is to help sow the seeds of that choice, to show people that their's isn't the only way. We shouldn't present our-
selves
as answers, but the possibility of these answers.

Nuku'alofa Harbour

Nuku'alofa Harbour