The Violet Shyness of their Eyes

While we were in Kombo last week, I picked up a book at the Peace Corps office entitled "The Violet Shyness of their Eyes: Notes from Nepal" (by Barbara J. Scot, published in 1993). I have read quite a few Peace Corps memoirs, but all of them have been written by people who served in Africa, so I figured it would be interesting to read a volunteer memoir (Scot was taught English for a year in Nepal when she was in her late 40s...she never actually says she was a Peace Corps Volunteer, but it certainly sounds like she was) about a completely different region and culture.

Once I got into the book, however, I was surprised to find that many of the challenges Scot describes sound very familiar. Some of these challenges I knew were common to almost any Peace Corps-type experience (culture shock, wild fluxuations between euphoria one moment and feeling completely helpless and incompetent the next, isolation, constant scrutany, self-reflection, questioning what you are doing there, frustration with gender roles and the treatment of women, etc), but there are others which I naively thought were specific to Africa, or even West Africa. A few examples include, in no particular order: students "learning" by rote memorization in a language they barely understand; the pervasive belief that anything Western is better than anything non-Western; the intense desire of young adults, especially educated ones, to go to the West to "make their fortunes;" a lack of value placed on personal privacy and personal possessions ("in Nepal it is considered selfish not to share"); and the frequent wearing of white clothes in a dusty, dirty environment (and people's mysterious ability to somehow keep their white clothes clean). Very interesting.

Scot also spends quite a bit of time discussing her evolving opinions on the ethics of development, which is something most Peace Corps-type volunteers grapple with at one point or another. I don't agree with everything she says by a long shot (and to be perfectly honest, I actually wouldn't recommend the book at all) but she does raise some important and difficult questions. Here are a few good quotes:

"What do you do as a culturally sensitive development worker when elements of the system you are trying to be sensitive to are basically abhorrent to your own values?...The women in this group make no bones whatsoever about their intentions to enlighten Nepali women to the possibilities of change from their present subordinate status. It seems easy. We're right and they're wrong. But what what if the Nepalis came over to the US and started telling Iowa beef farmers that it was wrong to kill cows. Or what if the Saudi Arabians came and told women in New York that it was wrong for them to drive cars? Is that what is meant by cultural imperialism? A 'culturally sensitive' development worker is beginning to seem like a contradiction in terms."

"Saturday is a bidhaa, a holiday, in Nepal, and little clusters of men gathered lazily under the chautaara, the resting tree, with its gnarly roots. Little boys tossed a ball made from old socks back and forth to each other. The women at the water tap, in their wonderful wildflower shades of clothes, stood talking with their golden water urns glowing in the sun. Four little girls played a complicated jump rope game. Could I honestly say these people's lives would have been improved if they had spent their bidhaa at the mall?"

"So much development aid has been pouring into Nepal - an inundation of mostly good intentions - and much of it has run off like the early spring thundershowers, noisy and colorful, but with little substance. The positive aspects of modernization that will really grow and flourish here will have to come from [Nepalis]. And their society will be so much richer for finding ways to modernize that are compatible with their indigenous traditions."

"Nepal is not 'behind' the West. It's just a different place. And it has much that the West is crying for: stable families that guide children into solid identification with their society as a whole; a spirituality that pervades their daily life; and a blend between work (that's still mostly honest physical labor) and play that validates the importance of enjoying life. We should be studying them to see how we can compensate for what we've lost before they've modernized so much that they have little left to teach."

"I, for one, am not about to give them much advice on women's equality until we have worked things out a little better at home. For just a generation ago, I was taught as surely as any village Nepali girl-child that I was a second-class citizen at best, and that I was not worth very much without a man. I, like them, knew it was my duty to get married and have sons, even though my grandmother talked about preserving family names instead of religious duties to release the father's soul to the next reincarnation."

The issues Scot is getting at in the quotes above are just a few of the many issues we are struggling to come to terms with here. Given that I intend to pursue a career in international public health and development, this ongoing struggle that is absolutely critical both in terms of my personal and professional development. As they say here...it's not easy de!