BENEFACTORS, CAREERISTS, PASSIONATE VOLUNTEERS

"Whether one prefers career people to volunteers depends on whether you equate careerism with professionalism, that unquestioned term of praise, or with an unwillingness to 'rock the boat' even when people's well-being is at stake.  The term Benefactor is harder to define.  It is a word that the Vietnamese knew and used, but one from which I shrank, knowing that a Benefactor looks down from above to offer a helping hand.  Passionate volunteer is the closest I can come to coining a phrase which describes the people with whom I worked as colleagues. . . . The stated goals of volunteers and career people are the same:  the good of the refugees.  However, career people can never really be comfortable with volunteers. . . . Over here, the talk is about the needs of the refugees.  Over there, the talk is of not annoying the local authorities. . . . When the career people scold the volunteers or undercut us, the 'host nationals' read the message loud and clear and exploit the situation to their own advantage.  Now I can see how this works.  Then, I was simply a naive passionate volunteer.
     Two other 'Western' volunteers who were my colleagues during most of 1982 and 1983 were Ann and Adrian.  Ann Cusack, an Australian. . . . had blue eyes as bright as headlights, which, as time went on, became sadder. . . . Her command of Vietnamese was her entree to their lives. . . .She suffered each time someone was rejected for resettlement. . . . She taught morning, noon and night and lost her voice for awhile from the dust blowing into her classroom. . . .Although her big family back in Melbourne was her only financial support and she seldom had spending money, she didn't seem to lack for anything.  She would close her hand into a fist, then hold it out and say, 'Here I give you this,' and opening it, make the gesture of pouring her love into it.  Later, after being adopted according to Vietnamese custom, by an older man whom she looked up to as a father, she took a Vietnamese name--An Phuong.
     Adrian Seviour, who arrived in September, 1982, became my ally in the work of the Central Education Office and especially of the public library.  He never for a minute lost his dry, sane sense of humor. . . .  He had studied the teaching of English in England before coming as a BVSO [English volunteer corps] to the VRC. At first he taught only children, who could be naughty and noisy.  I could hear him at 6:30 every morning because his classroom was next to my house.  He sometimes calmed the little beasts with tunes from his flute or ocarina. . . .  Gradually, he endeared himself to the people.  He had a special love for cats, and since there were dozens of strays. he didn't lack for orphans on which to lavish affection. . . .  He, too, learned Vietnamese, and by the time he finally left (unwillingly as all three of us did), he had made an indelible mark on the VRC.
     . . . .  I think, when it comes to having the spirit of the passionate volunteer, the Filipino teachers of the Philippines Cultural Communication Service were mixed.  They were chosen in Manila to come to Palawan, and most of them had studied to be teachers.  Some PCCS teachers fell into the rampant careerist mold to the extent that, as was said of one, 'He'd lick anyone's boots.' Others among whom Toto [Cinco] and Matt were outstanding, wanted to live inside the camp, to play soccer with the Vietnamese teams, to take the little kids to the coffee shop for halo halo, or to drink beer at the canteen with the Vietnamese men, rather then spend all their time in the town.  True passionate volunteers, they thought about the needs of the people they were serving, rather than protecting their own jobs."

   The chapter continues to describe many other people whom I designated as passionate volunteers.  To name a few:  the Dalisays,who represented World Relief; Sisters Imelda, Pascale and Francoise; Sister Tomasa and Dr. Lagrada who ran the children's school; Ineke, the Dutch nurse; two Mormon sisters on a mission; Mr. Pham, a Vietnamese man on vacation from his job as an educational administrator in Oregon; Michael Smith, a Jesuit brother from Melbourne, Australia; French medical duos, Dr. Beatrice and Therese, Martine and Sophie; and countless Rotary doctors and dentists who took a month off from their practices and "often lost their hearts to the charm of the Vietnamese people and the softening influence of tropical days and nights."
     It goes without saying that Bob Groelsema, the UN field officer and my colleague and friend, was a passionate volunteer.  There are many stories about him in NOT ONLY A REFUGEE.

MY OPINION OF AMERICAN MANNNERS

This was the title of one of the essays in the idiom book.  The book had been written for students already in the U.S., but these students only knew the American UNVs and other workers in the camps.  I loved their insights.

"We who were Vietnamese we also held our bowl in our hand to eat.  But there was a person who was so different, he was American who still put his bowl on the table.  In fact he didn't life his bowl from the beginning until the end party.  Why were we so faint about that?  'Because my people is used to holding on their bowl in their hand when they eat.  If someone don't do so, my people think they are impolite. . . .

 By LE THI NGOC HIEN, my 16-year-old girl who was watching us more closely than I realized."

"In the country which have so much liberty as America.  It is difficult to keep a faithful love in the family.  If people only consider materials to be all for their lives, of course love or things for spirits will have no more room in people lives. . . .

By NGUYEN HUU LAI, early 20s."

"Americans are good friends of me and my homeland because many years before 1975, they helped my native land to create the Government of the Republic of Vietnam.  They also took care of protecting my fatherland prevented taking over South Vietnam by the Vietnamese Communists. . . .Americans sacrified [sacrificed] their lives, their property to stand beside the Vietnamese soldiers killing the communists. . . .

Oftentimes when I think of the character of Americans, I want to become an American right away.

By NGUYEN NGON, about 24 years old, in camp with his father, who'd worked with our military during the war."

These young people had amazing vocabularies for the amount of time they had studied English.  They observed and thought and wrote these essays only to me.