In his speech, “To Hell with Good Intentions”, Ivan Illich addresses American students at the Conference on InterAmerican Student Projects (CIASP) in an effort to convince them that their service is not only unwanted but also offensive. Illich points out that Americans have the power to impose their culture on Latin Americans, while Latin Americans are powerless to stop American students from coming in as “salesmen” of the middle-class American Way of Life. Illich claims that Americans, in all their good intentions, do not understand that their culture and the privileges that they enjoy in the United States only causes disorder in Latin American countries that, unlike the United States, have a middle class minority and are in the process of industrialization. The heart of Illich’s argument is that Americans, in all their good intentions, are creating more problems than they are solving by imposing their culture on a region that does not want or is incompatible with the American Way of Life. Most interestingly, Illich points out that American student volunteers are unaware of how they are failing, because most of the time, these volunteers do not even speak the same language as the population they are trying to help. In addition, those who can speak the language can really only converse with those of equal middle-class status and will never meet the truly underprivileged that they are under the illusion of helping.  From my experience on my Global Brigades medical mission to Panama, I think there is evidence to support Illich’s claims, because the power we had to impose our culture, unconsciously or consciously, on the community we visited was not contingent on having a relationship with the community members in a way that we truly understood the larger political, economic, and social structure of their community.

                In my last reflection, I came to the conclusion that the service we did on our medical mission trip in the community of Sagrejá, Panama was good. But, I am usually reluctant to make this statement, because I know the service we provided truly would have been better if we had a relationship with or understood the community as a structural whole before going.  In the essay Starfish Hurling and Community Service, Keith Morton discusses the efficacy of service. He dissects a common story about a young person throwing starfish back into the ocean. The person is criticized for not really making a difference, since he or she could not possibly put all the starfish back in the ocean, but the person replies that a difference is made for each individual starfish, no matter how small it may be. Morton explains how this story is misapplied to community service, since helping starfish does not have the same dimensions as helping people.  And, “In most of the situations where this story is told, service is about people working with people: people with histories, voices, opinions, judgment, more or less power” (Morton, 1). I think it is easy for me to think that our service trip was a good thing, because even though we were only there for a week, our small impact was still an impact. However, after reading Ivan Illich’s speech, I am more prepared to agree with my initial inclinations about Global Brigades. Before, during, and after our trip to Panama, I recognized that there is a narcissistic side to American student mission trips. In a way, we were cultural tourists taking “selfies” with the poor indigenous that we knew nothing about and had no training to truly help. Illich states the idea well when he comments that “’Mission-vacations’ among poor Mexicans were ‘the thing’ to do for well-off U.S. students earlier in this decade: sentimental concern for newly-discovered poverty south of the border combined with total blindness to much worse poverty at home justified such benevolent excursions” (Illich, 2). To be honest, we didn’t even know what part of the country we were going to until we got there (we were preparing to go to eastern Panama, but we ended up going to a community in western Panama), we didn’t know what diseases were prevalent in the areas we were serving, and we definitely did not have the medicines that would have been most beneficial for the community. We were completely clueless.

                If anything I learned what knowledge I want to gain before going back, and to be completely honest, I do not think I would go back with the Global Brigades organization, since they do not consider it important to teach students about the area they are going to before they go in trying to help people. It is reckless, and Illich is correct when he argues that the damage we create is not justified by the knowledge we gain from the experience. I am so ignorant about the area we helped that I cannot even imagine the effects we created after we left. Although, we justify our actions by claiming that we have helped a community that would not otherwise have had access to medical care and other college students will be coming into the community after us to continue care, I know that we have unnaturally produced a system that is dependent on Americans and their money. Evidence of this was that the current health care system in the area was a singular doctor that could see only eight patients a day for a one-dollar consultation fee (with the cost of medicine not included). This is why I disagree with Illich when he claims Americans can never meet the truly underprivileged that they are trying to help. The community had a poor health system, but that is not to say it could not grow. The changes we created greatly stifled the development of an independent health care system within the community. I struggle with this, because I know that some good was done. But, I cannot come to the conclusion that it was attributable to my own presence. Without medical training, I was just a mere observer of the productiveness of the doctors that were really providing what the community needed.

                I think that Illich speech is unsatisfying because it offers no solution for students. Do we ignore poverty in other nations? Should we continue to blindly live our privileged middle-class lives?  At the end of Illich’s speech, he concludes, “I am here to entreat you to use your money, your status and your education to travel in Latin America. Come to look, come to climb our mountains, to enjoy our flowers. Come to study. But do not come to help” (Illich, 8). I think this statement leaves us feeling helpless to do anything, but really I think Illich is telling Americans to stay out as long as they cannot understand the community they are affecting, which we may or may not be able to do at all.

                This makes me question what do I do now? Is there nothing I can do to make a stable positive impact on an international level?  Right now, I cannot answer this question, but I know that I do not want to give up trying to find the answer. Illich suggests, “If you have any sense of responsibility at all, stay with your riots here at home. Work for the coming elections: You will know what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how to communicate with those to whom you speak. And you will know when you fail…It is incredibly unfair for you to impose yourselves on a village where you are so linguistically deaf and dumb that you don’t even understand what you are doing, or what people think of you” (8). Although Illich comes across as harsh, I find his advice to be sound. We cannot begin to understand the problems in other parts of the world if we do not even understand our own. The point Illich is making is that you cannot help someone you do not have a clear relationship with, otherwise your interactions become increasingly one-sided in terms of power. This is what I experienced on my brigade, because I was never sure if the community really appreciated us taking their height, weight, and temperature or if they were just following the directions of the young American students that had the power and medicine they needed. Morton, also, gives good advice when he states, “Don't go charging out to help. Talk, listen, build relationships, know your self, your environment; work with others where they and the situation itself can teach you how to act with more and more knowledge and effectiveness. Stop hurling starfish” (2). Students considering going on mission trips similar to the one I went on should consider what skills can they bring to an area and what impacts their actions will make in the long run. In the future, I hope to not be as naïve to think that I can throw starfish into the sea and not worry about if the birds will starve because of my actions.