Welcome to the World

Today I am working with the Harvard people who recently joined our organization as interns as well. They often try to avoid having to sit with the rest of us interns by intentionally moving to another room if we enter or by seeking out their own private room. They also refuse to eat lunch with the other interns when we all go out together. Still, I was not prepared for what they said today. We were having a conversation about the Swine Flu in Argentina, and I mentioned that the United States government sent an e-mail out to all Americans in Argentina warning them about the danger of the swine flu. They said they had not received the e-mail, and one of the two of them (the guy) said that must be because Harvard is a different country. The girl laughed at that. Then, to my horror, the guy went on to explain that Harvard has a larger endowment (more money) than many countries, and both of them chuckled aloud as though I wasn’t even in the room…

I am surprised now, looking back at the incident, at how terribly hurt and shocked I felt. I know I would have disapproved of this even before my experiences during my last two summers, but I’m not sure I would have felt the same way as I do hearing it now. I questioned why these two students would come down here to volunteer in Argentina if they really have such a naïve and elitist view of the world. Is this just a résumé-padder for them? What good is a Harvard education if you never learn how to feel? What good is a diploma from a “top” university in the world if you never learn how to be a PART of the world?

Countries such as the ones that the two Harvard students referred to are not abstract places removed from the everyday world. They are the world. They are real. People living in developing countries (of which Argentina is considered one) have hopes and dreams and fears just like all the rest of us. When Americans such as the Harvard students I work with make careless statements like that, they embarrass their school and their country, and, more importantly, they demean human life.