In 2007, our teenage son Benjamin, his friend Andrew and I were guests of Save the Children in Bolivia where we visited their programs over a four day period. When we arrived at the La Paz regional airport in El Alto, elevation about 13,300 feet, Benjamin almost fell out of the plane and had to be supported to the terminal. By the time we had descended the thousand feet to La Paz, he had recovered.
About the third morning of the trip, we visited a school on the outskirts of La Paz. Perhaps five hundred children from grade school through high school were lined up before a reception stand to be addressed by the head of school and local dignitaries. We assumed it was a local or national holiday. As guests, we were offered seats on the reception stand, which enabled us to view the youngsters dressed in school uniforms and orderly grouped by their grade in school.
I could only understand a few words of Spanish, and so was surprised and taken aback when I was asked to come to the rostrum and, to my surprise and frankly delight, I was given an ensemble of traditional Bolivian outer garments to put on over my clothes and then a lady placed a large garland of flowers around my neck. We had made available a relatively modest donation to purchase PVC water mains for the community, and they were honoring us to express their appreciation. Bringing public water to their community was very a very big deal for them.
The relationship between Bolivia and the United has long been strained. We were and are perceived as the imperialist from north. In introducing us, not a word was said about our nationality.
I asked that my response be interpreted and purposefully spoke slowly, halting after each phrase, so that it could be simultaneously rendered into Spanish. I told the students that we were honored to be their guests, to visit their impressive school and a view the student body. I said I was certain that the students would provide future leadership that would continue Bolivia’s economic progress. My sentiments obviously pleased the interpreter, the faculty, local officials, and especially the students.
Then I said that the water mains were gift from the people of the United States to the people of Bolivia as a gesture of respect and friendship.
The interpreter must have choked on the words. Certain the faces of the children indicated astonishment. These were the first good words they had ever heard about the scapegoat USA.
Benjamin and Andrew struck up conversations with a few of the teenagers after the event and disappeared with half a dozen boys and girls for the afternoon. Two years later Benjamin spent a summer as a young intern for Save the Children in an even more isolated and impoverished Bolivian city. The circumstances were not easy, but what did not kill him made him stronger.
We never know what effect a small and unexpected gesture or action can have on others in a foreign country. One of the boys in the school
may indeed become a future leader or opinion maker.
I remember the amazement of the East German interpreters at my treatment by our delegation when the first American group ever came to their foreign ministry after we had decided to lay the groundwork for opening our first embassy in East Berlin. Everybody in the American delegation treated me as an equal, I was seated to the right of our chairperson, during coffee breaks and caucuses I sat with our delegates. I was not treated as an inferior person as all of the East German interpreters were. It may have been their first exposure to the difference between a free society and their own police state. It must have washed some of their government’s vilification image of the United States out of their mind.
EDITOR: The above is from the former head of the Foreign Language Division of the United States Department of State, a long time and dear friend.