The Ethical Playpen
Xela, Guatemala is the place to learn the trouble with being Good
In a chilly highland town in Guatemala, young Westerners are learning to save the world. Would you like to join them ?
Arrive in Xela and immediately you will see, if not understand, the difference. This highland city, called by its official, gobstopper title, Quetzaltenango, only once in a harvest moon, is not your average backpackers' pitstop.
The extranjeros (foreigners) here are a different breed altogether and the common mounuments to travel culture are refreshingly deleted. The lip sevice 'Che' logo, the pyschedlic hostel signs, the gringo stuffed discos are all absent. In their place you'll find a working city, free of the streethawkers and cheesy tourist stalls that plague nearby Antigua and Lake Atitlan. About the only commotion here is the flutter of acronymed leaflets on every door.
The city itself is not a blessed with civic beauty, instead you'll find a plain collection of narrow, cracked pavements and single story concrete. Stand anywhere in Xela and you'll eyes will be drawn above the basic architecture to the ring of green mountains that encircles it. In the shadow of dormant Santa Maria, sits nearby Santaguito volcano, puffing ominous commas into the sky. That ash is a constant here, falling invisibly, clogging the city's gutters like funereal confetti.
But this sleepy, dreamlke feeling, entrenched somehow by that sublime fence of moutains and volcanoes, masks the extraordinary human project afoot here. A unique culture thrives in Xela, the city functioning as a sort of collecting pool for foreign goodwill.
Xela is, in fact, where the young Westerners come to perpetrate 'Good'.
No one knows quite how it happened but sometime after the official peace accord was signed in 1996, ending two decades of civil war, the city took up a new identity. Cheap rent bought a host of spanish schools and emerging, well organised groups formed to to represent the local Mayan population. Somewhere along the line the schools and organisations teamed up to offer tours and volunteer trips, selling the 'real' Guatemala to a different kind of visitor.
The culture of 'volun-tourism' was founded and Xela's journey to becoming a living social experiment had begun.
Modern day Xela is cluttered with foreign and local NGOs, all working in the name of that impoverished Mayan population scattered in the surrounding highlands. Every second person you talk to will be a nascent PHD poking around in the stew of sweet intentions, every volunteer will have a viewpoint on 'Development'.
For those intersted Xela is the ideal starting point to flesh out those armchair ethics. Whether you want to build stoves in indigenous communities, facilitate women's workshops, or work on a local coffee finca (plantation) the opportunities are all here.
A great place to start your ethical 'adventure' is www.entremundos.org
Entre Mundos (translation 'Between Worlds') is an non profit orginisation that exists, amongst other things, to connect volunteers with the hundreds of local projects. For a small fee they will pick you up from the airport, reserve your volunteer placement and even book you five hours a day at one of the local Spanish schools. Click here to find out more.
Whatever your slant on Development and all the torturous issues that surround it, Xela is a fascinating place. Spend some time here and questions simply materialise from the air. You will wonder at how effective all this 'third sector' activity is ('third sector' being the trendy, Orwellian label for NGOs and their like).
You'll wonder if the Xela experiment of poor meets rich, Global North meets Global South is weighted in the favour of all the well meaning gringos.
Isn't it all just an excuse to get off on your own charity? Are we doing nothing more than consuming poverty?
The answer to both questions may very well be yes, especially if you listen to some of the longterm 'Xela-teers' that prowl the streets in beards and goretex. Even so despite the surface cynicism you encounter (and be prepared there is a lot of that emotion in Xela) you get the feeling that they would not be here if the moral balance sheet wasn't ultimately in their favour.
So even if the spectre of effectiveness hangs over the Xela project like a big, grey question mark it does serve one function. If something in you yearns to start the learning process surrounding the theoretical and practical complexities of development and Development, even of doing 'Good' there surely are few better places.
At least in that respect, Xela the ethical playpen, the place to toddle towards a better life is a good thing, probably a great thing and a place most of us should visit.
