Want

The feeling of people always wanting some material good from you and having that run out and then possessing nothing to provide but what’s inside. The exhaustion of want, not need.
Want

A variety of things I have been asked for by children and parents: socks, pens, crayons, markers, money, the exchange of foreign bills such as euro and yen, yogurt, a sharp kitchen knife, old things that I don’t want, jewelry, animal masks, bracelets, my sandals to wear in the city, toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, American cookies and chocolate, yarn, a bicycle pump, a glass of water, sunglasses, to use my toilet.

I am telling you all of this not because I want you to send me anything but because I need to express how taxed I feel having these things. People come to my door, say the polite hello and then ask me for things. Once I say I don’t have it or it’s all gone the conversation is done and they go their way. I feel used; there is always a catch, someone always wanting a material object from me, and not actually any part of me or who I am. It is a lonely feeling; like I am an old forgotten candy dispenser in a VCR rental shop that if you shake enough maybe something will fall out. But most of the times my candy stash is all out.

As a volunteer I am living as a local. I am sure that I probably have more money at the end of the month then a typical family but I am also living alone, getting charged double for things as a foreigner, not buying a satellite, fancy cell phones or washers. I am not the American I believe many expect me to be. I am not the girl on Orange County, or any MTV program for that matter, nor am I a femme fatale from one of the many American action movies played on TV. I am a young American girl, giving two year of her life to volunteer and live in another country with a stagnant pile of student loans anticipating her arrival at home. I have no home besides that of my parents, I sold my car to pay my bills, currently no money in the bank, not making any for my time here and returning home to an economic crisis some say could be the next great depression, amidst the potential crumbling of our nation to other world leaders such as China.

The extent of this would be difficult to describe to people in my village. I can’t imagine the look on their face when I told them exactly how much in school loans I owe when exchanged into the local currency. But still, I do have opportunity and freedom, plinths of the American dream.

I had a bag of 10 little school kits for the kids; ruler, pencil, sharpener, eraser. I gave them out to the first kids who came to my door asking me for things. (In the thesaurus, things is synonymous with obsession, fixation, mania, craze, entity, phenomenon, gadget) They were gone in two days just as the secret was let out in the classroom. This causes stress as I want but can’t provide for all of the children. Desperation. As soon as one knows something went through my front door the entire village knows and I have children and or parents ardently banging on my metal door at intervals of 5 minutes, calling my name and beating until I come to answer. Children who already had received something even come around a second time, bringing either younger siblings, friends , parents or cousins to see if I can give them one more of whatever it is they are asking for. Then later they come back asking if I have something else to dispense; as if I had just received a new shipment of goods through some secret portal to whole sale America that I have hidden in my house.

In retrospect I know that I do technically have a larger accumulation of material goods but I don’t like to relate to those things. This is not the kind of aid that I am looking to provide to people. I am not here to give them more plastic junk to pollute their ecological and cultural systems. I don’t want to be seen as a free garage sale or aid delivery truck. I want to be seen as a person, one with valuable skills, ideas, warmth. I know most of the time it is just kids asking me for things and they don’t know better but it is exhausting and I am left not knowing what to do. The thing that I fear is that I am now hesitant to have anything to give. If I do, within minutes the throbbing sound of fists on my door will begin, and will not stop until repeatedly telling people that I am sorry, I have nothing to give you, it is all gone.
I have nothing to give you.