And now we have to clean up their mess…
When Americans decide to be charitable, it’s much like Odie wanting to play with an M&M dispenser. It’s all seemingly harmless, but when vacuous minds come in possession of… well, just about anything; the results are catastrophic!
I discovered how Odie-like American are, when I was sent off to Trinco to write about the USS Pearl Harbor (LSD- 52) that docked at the Trinco harbour to carry out some charity work. Packed with US military of about 450 Marines and 350 sailors, the monster of a ship was also transporting several humvees, tanks and other gigantic war vehicles.
The 800 US troops were dispatched around Trinco on July 14 to help improve the war affected area. On their 3 day charity stint in Sri Lanka, they worked on 3 projects which involved a school and an orphanage in Trinco, and a hospital in Mutur.
Heading over the school on a sweltering morning in Trinco, I wasn’t really sure as to what to expect. Though I figured it should be something interesting. So you can understand why I was slightly nonplussed when I saw the American military painting the school!
US soldier engrossed in painting a see-saw
Now, Sri Lanka might be a developing country but manpower is not something that’s in dearth here. What we could use is resources. But hey, last least they meant well, right? Except… I think their well meant effort was more destructive than helpful.
This was apparent with their bizarre idea of turning the school’s recreation room into a computer room. Now a computer room would be brilliant as it would help improve computer literacy in the area. Only, it turned out they had no intention of actually providing the school with…wait for it… computers!
Yeah, shifting a few tables around, calling the class a ‘computer room’ and leaving… might have been their idea of building up hope for the children for when they finally do receive computers; whenever that might be.
The children of Trinco who now have, what Americans call, a 'computer room'
The orphanage wasn’t any different. They painted the building bright orange, fixed a few shower heads and moved some logs. Thankfully, they didn’t deprive the orphans of a recreation area by turning it into a “computer room”.
Of course nothing was more destructive than them giving the student of the school a tour of the USS Pearl Harbour. Taking the kids around the warship, showing them how to use the machine guns, allowing them to handle to weapons and getting them excited about the tanks, wouldn’t be the most advisable thing to do. Especially considering all these kids have known in their young lives is war.
Students climbing into a humvee
What really struck me as how obscenely stupid Americans are, is what a female Naval officer asked the children at the end of the tour.
Turning to a group of 14 year old girls, she asked “So what do you want to do now?”. The girls excitedly responded that they wanted to see more of the machine guns.
Naval officer replies “Yeah! We love guns, don’t we?”
And the girls chorus “YEAH!” and eagerly trail after her.
That’s a humvee, not a tank.
Also, it all reeks of one of those “token appearances”, where they just come over, paint a few pebbles and leave. It all just seems entirely pointless :/
oh thats cold.. cold…!
i think i get what ur talking about, and i understand the frustration… but i guess u must know that we’re not exactly on good terms with America, n they’re not exactly gnna send over aid and resources considering our frosty relationship with them..
painting a school and general ‘good will’ is prob all we can expect, given the current political climate..
its not an excuse for their “we love guns!” nonsense, but.. u get what i mean?
what?! can’t believe they said that o.O
@Jerry- Corrected! Yeah, but even a token appearance thing is fine as long as they didn’t make things worse.
@Gehan- Yeah, and that’s why I say it’s fine that they meant well, but they’ve done is far from help Sri Lanka. Of course I understand that none of it was intentional. But they really have to be a little more aware of how to do these things and what to be sensitive about.
@Dee- They should train the soldiers before sending them on these charity missions.
Americans as we all know are utter drats. nuff said
We love guns? :S Gosh!
The government is really fast to make relationships with anti American movements and governments. At least the US is trying.
Got me thinking
Cheers!
Comes across as well meaning but rather stupid. There must be some plan to provide computers, perhaps the embassy will send them around or something, they could’nt possibly be THAT stupid surely?
Hey Pupps, this is about people from my second magerata (damn is it the third?) you talking about. It is just that they get orders to go and do something, they go and do it. If you expect them to think, sorry, you got to speak to Hilary. I wonder if she does that either, better ask Sarah Palin. But make sure you don’t ask anything like how to raise kids.
About them guns, try walking in to a gameshop and buy a game, 90% are one or other shooting games, These games brought in $4.9 Billion to the GDP. So guns and Americans go a long way.
But I am thankful for the gesture, that allow those soldiers go home and say “Oh we saved Sri Lankas too” in the same breath they speak of Afgans. I also hear that they contributed a lot for certain development programs too. On the other hand, if you ever visit here, you will find many of them to be very nice and rational. But of course we too have advanced versions of Mervin and his thugs too. Be good.
I read in India that they teach this ‘No 10 rule’ to all their BPO and call center workers; the ones who cater to Americans, that is.
The rule is that the average American adult has the IQ of an Indian 10 year old and so to deal with them like that
@GGPurple- Well, some
@Me-Shak- But if this it what their charity is like, it’d be a lot more helpful if they just didn’t…
@JackPoint- Well, the day before I left I spoke to a lady at the embassy who’d got the media down, and she wasn’t aware of what exactly the projects were
@Magerata- Yes, in fact the soldiers were very nice and as I’ve said, I know they meant well. But they really should go through some training before being sent out on these missions. Or at least brief them on what to be sensitive about before they set out to do charity work in a foreign country. Also they should have some sense to refrain from doing pointless things like setting up a computer room if there’s no way it’s going to be equipped with computers anytime soon.
@Tulie- Taking the opportunity to promote your people, eh?
Kidding!