I worried over every possible misfortune that could befall my suitcase, which was stuffed for two months. It was my only companion for now, and we were about to fly through the Rockies, across the Atlantic and over the Sahara to South Africa. My mantra went: I just want this to be worth it.
DukeEngage is so endowed and well-assembled; a completely funded summer of service is an incredible opportunity that might never pose itself again. When I hear people speak about their unreplicable experiences—a friend of mine who worked at a hospital in Arusha, Tanzania, fixed shy of 100 pieces of medical equipment—it’s no exaggeration to call it life-changing.
Yet, whose life changes? In the language of the DukeEngage slogan, to “change your world” is not so easy. Change didn’t happen upon my acceptance into the program, nor when I became more knowledgeable of South Africa’s turbulent history, and it certainly wasn’t while I spent eight weeks in a BRICS nation sightseeing and “growing as an individual” before at last returning to the comforts of home.
To those interested in participating in DukeEngage programs this summer, I encourage you. Just don’t consider it a free vacation. Also—perhaps this is more vital—don’t mistake it for “change.”
We are the strangers, but it is so easy and natural for us to become the intruders. Even after the DukeEngage Academy and humanities courses, I admit I didn’t let go of a romanticized South Africa and, yes, I did hope to “make a difference.”
We visited iconic sites like Constitution Hill, Robben Island and Liliesleaf, for academic reasons. But too often does the tourist extract a simplistic take-home message—that “Nelson Mandela was inspiring.” There was the temptation to leave feeling enlightened and privy as insiders to this country, bearing the secrets of why it is that South Africa is called the “rainbow nation.” It was the illusion that we are better people converted anew.
There’s a tendency to use the “inspiring and good” people—which tends to be code for “poor and underprivileged” people—as stories to enhance our own by way of describing their hardships: illustrate perhaps their desolate living conditions, or the story of a death in their family or incidences of physical abuse. There’s an entrenched narrative that these communities need to be saved. It’s a narrative that annuls their humanity.
This phenomenon of exploiting people by commodifying their stories is not limited to service trips: it’s in PSAs distributed by various NGOs, it happens in everyday conversations, it’s what politicians do. It is a way to appear worldly or to give the appearance of persuasive evidence in a discussion or debate, or it is just rooted in naive incredulity. The tactic is to reduce “them” to the horrors of their suffering by describing their experiences because, who knows, you might get a powerful narrative.
Who owns these stories? When I reflected with others about a coworker’s living conditions in a township, when I described the poverty that I saw with my own eyes and the struggles that my coworker lives every day, did I strip the ownership of his story from him? It is so easy for me to distribute his shocking story like pulp—but do I have the right?
Commodifying stories flattens and constrains the communities they’re from. It consistently amazed us that the exchange rate allowed us to dine in upscale restaurants for around $7 U.S. dollars. After we indulged our gluttony, we’d walk home in groups, clutching pepper spray in our pockets. We were tourists informed by the statistics that South Africa has one of the highest unemployment rates and GINI coefficients in the world—this was the hindrance to our strive for community, connection and empathy: how could we possibly see a realistic picture of Cape Town when we spent our time either in excess, or petrified with fear? Safety is important, but by no means can we claim understanding or ownership of Cape Town (although I may sometimes unconsciously be guilty); we existed within the confines of this single story.
Onsite groundwork is a way to expand upon the single stories of suffering prolific in the Western world. But it’s not the mere act of seeing a community for yourself that changes the narrative. As Westerners, university students or DukeEngage participants, the responsibility is, in part, ours to be active and steadfast in trying to redirect the single stories that have been reinforced for years.
There’s also the responsibility to acknowledge that not all stories we hear are ours to tell; for us, it’s easy to come and go, but for the communities we work with, it’s not.
We can leave with their stories. They can’t.
Questions of privilege and ownership are a lifelong, multi-generational conversation much larger and more nuanced than a brief DukeEngage program. While DukeEngage is “problematic” for a host of reasons—even its reactionary inception was unsettling (it was a re-branding effort after the Duke lacrosse scandal)—these questions persist even if you choose to not participate. They are the underlying ethical dilemmas of service—in any form, abroad or here in Durham.
Take advantage of this opportunity, and while you forge relationships and leave tangible pieces of evidence that you indeed helped a community, remember that we are strangers. These places change us—we don’t change them.
As for Cape Town. It doesn’t need me. I remember the last morning before the flight home. A friend and I stood atop the mountainside that we lived on for the last two months, a mountainside we left unexplored. We looked at the swarming city below. People were off to work—just service workers because it was Saturday. The two of us lived the past two months as guests. And life was to go on here. The friend said, “We’re so lucky for this opportunity.”
On the flight, I kept thinking about my gratitude to the city and the people I met for giving me the experiences they did: I am so blessed, I am so blessed, I am so blessed.
Jennifer Zhou is a Trinity junior. Her column, "just like a woman," runs on alternate Thursdays.
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