Beyond Diitabiki

A few weeks before I left for Suriname back in 2008, my father and I took a trip to Washington to visit graduate schools for after my Peace Corps service. By far my favorite school was Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. I knew of Georgetown’s reputation as the elite school for those who want to work oversees, but the students, far from being aloof, were very accessible, collegial, and passionate about engaging where they could help others. Moreover, I was delighted to find that my international experiences and academics were about par with most of the Georgetown students. In my last days in Raleigh, I gathered the information I would need to apply to graduate schools. In Suriname, I worked on my essays for months before applying to five schools in September last year.

On March 17th, at about 8:00 in the morning, my phone rang. My parents called, which is not typical for the middle of the week. Standing in the back of my one room house, I heard that I had been accepted into my dream school. I wandered around my house in a daze, feeling a bit like Rudy getting into Notre Dame. After the Peace Corps I will attend the Master of Science in Foreign Service program at Georgetown, studying International Business and Commerce.

On July 7th, I left Diitabiki, my home of two years. The goodbyes lasted for three days, and they were not easy. The time has come, however, for me to go beyond Diitabiki. The lessons learned were irreplaceable, the challenges monumental, the experiences unforgettable. Along with this chapter of my life, I now bring this journal to a close.

Final Lessons

I entered the Peace Corps without the idealism that is typical of new volunteers. I came here to learn, and learn I did. Before I arrived in Suriname I read The White Man’s Burden, which made me skeptical of development. I wanted to experience what makes development difficult for organizations that genuinely care about helping others. I also wanted to become familiar with a government bureaucracy, as the State Department was my first choice for a future career.

While my projects were very fulfilling, I still believe that the free market is the most effective way to develop a country. If you want to help people in poorer countries to improve their quality of life, do not start an NGO, begin a fair business that meets the needs of people. The greatest development project in Diitabiki, in the two years I lived there, was the cell phone tower. This was not placed by a development agency but by a private company called Digicel. People in my village think of cell phones as vital to their existence. When a lightning strike disabled the tower for less then two days, a lot of people went crazy. Pit toilets, which development organizations have been trying to build for decades, do not catch on, because there is no demand and villagers would just as soon use the river. Cell phones, however, among a culture where talking is life, satisfies a dire need.