Where is the Love?

Tonight I had one of the moments I was told to expect. Jude and I were walking through Hain waiting for our TZ (edible millet-based PlayDoh) to be ready. We were stepping over muddy patches on the winding dirt path through the houses; a series of mud and straw huts to our left, remains of a mud-brick house surrounding a crop field to the right. It was almost pitch black since none of the houses around us could afford the electricity offered by the nearby power lines, but even through the darkness I could make out the unmistakable shape of a child rolling an old tire with a stick further down the path. Jude was telling stories and laughing about how life was great and, despite the ‘terrible’ conditions I saw, everyone we passed was invariably in a good mood as they gathered around their fires and rested after the day’s work. I was just considering to myself how cliché of a Hollywood scene it all was when suddenly the Black Eyed Peas’ “Where Is the Love?” came booming through the night from a (very nice) speaker system in one of the houses near the main road.

Now it wasn’t that the sound was unfamiliar or necessarily bad; and certainly no-one around me seemed to notice the music (except Jude, who sang along with me with a mock falsetto that rivals my own). But even while goofing around I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong with this picture. The village is so rich with tradition and the musical culture is such a fundamental part of everyone’s lives.
I mean, I always question the development work we’re doing; I think it’s necessary to constantly be doing so. And yes, sometimes overanalyzing means that I can get worked up over perfectly harmless things. But, as I was warned by former volunteers, there are those moments that just feel unmistakable; those times when you realize that something is going terribly awry in this noble pursuit of justice. And I’m sure that it’s a moment that I won’t ever forget.

What purpose does this all serve? Yes, these people suffer from a lot of disease, malnutrition, and chronic unemployment. Yes, they are actively looking for ways to better the conditions they live in. Yes their complete lack of infrastructure is the result of centuries of oppression by white colonials. And yes we should try to help them, whether driven by good intentions or simple “white guilt.”

But how is this type of development helping to alleviate these oppressive conditions? Pop music hardly cures sickness, and it certainly doesn’t put food on their table. It does, however, undermine the local culture only to promote a more empty and glamorous one. How much culture are we going to bulldoze until we feel these communities are ‘developed’ enough?