Ethics

I have spent the past 13 years of my life sitting in classrooms, thinking theoretically. In September, I am going to start a block of at least four more years of intellectual existence (Parents, do not worry, I am not on the five-plus year plan. I am just leaving room for grad school.). In class, when teachers proposed moral dilemnas, I always said that I would take the high road. I said that I would intervene if I saw a man beating his wife, but that I would also try to respect the autonomy of foreign cultures. I wanted everyone to think that I was a hip, enlightened liberal.

Now, I am working in a developing country with people who live on less than one dollar per day and am having to accept that there often is not a clear, moral answer. Four of my students have reported being physically abused by their parents. I am confident that at least two of them are being habitually abused for reasons that exceed castigation. Teenage parents living below the poverty line do not always handle their emotions well. Each time, I have told the social worker at my organization what the children have said; each time, the social worker has spoken to the parents; and each time the parents have claimed that they have not layed a finger on their children, prompting the social worker to do nothing. Apparently three-year-olds who do not know how to imagine magical pairs of shoes can fabricate elaborate stories about their parents pouring boiling water on them and hitting them until they bleed. I asked my boss if Ecuador had a system for intervening in domestic abuse: foster care, counseling, anything. I was told that child abuse is illegal in Ecuador, but that I would be invited to leave the country if I were to report anything to the police.

Normally, when I face a problem or obstacle, I put it on my check-list, deal with it, and then cross it off. Now, I am in the midst of one of the most emotionally painful experiences of my life, and there is absolutely nothing that I, the ultimate get-it-doner, can do. The only solution is to change the system and the culture´s tacit acceptance of domestic violence. But let's be honest: I am a gringa hanging out in Ecuador for six months. The mob will not listen to me.

Feeling powerless in the face of injustice sucks.