The true gifts

Stollen, Gluehwein, Raeuchermaennchen—the essentials of the German Festive Season! It’s been four years since I was last home to celebrate the Holiday Season with my family. And although I manage to get my hands on all of the above even in Manila, it’s still not the same. Simply because there is more to the Holiday Season than tastes and smells.

It is spending time with family and friends, baking cookies, wrapping gifts, and strolling over the town’s x-mas markets to find that good old Gluehwein booth again. I did all of the above and loved it, despite the lack of snow and the mild temperatures in Chemnitz.

Christmas Eve was special for various reasons. For one, we celebrated a day early since Glenn and I had a plane ticket for the US on the 24^th. Second, Glenn was there for the first time, experiencing my family’s traditions. Third, this time we were on the broadcasting side of the Skype-chat, sharing our Santa Claus visit with Glenn’s family in the US.

After our traditional potato salad and sausage dinner (the vegetarian seems to miss out on Saxon food traditions…) Santa Claus made his appearance with three loud knocks on the door. Selina (5) was all excited and ready to recite her songs and poems in order to get her gifts. She's got the routine down! Samira (2), on the other hand, just cried and hid! Coming to think of it, Santa Claus is a rather creepy figure…

Once Santa had left Selina and Samira turned into Santa’s helpers and started distributing all the gifts piled up under the (fake) tree. For the next hours, we were busy unwrapping, laughing, thanking, hugging, and gathering our loot. A nice gift indeed, to spend these hours with my family!

Volunteerims?

I was registered at the Volunteering Expo in Manila, as a 'conference delegate'. That's what my name tag said. I had no idea what it meant. A delegate for what? Volunteerism?

I'm always surprised how the concept of volunteerism and that of development work is used almost interchangeably. To me there is a big difference between the short term need of volunteers in the face of natural disasters or humanitarian crisis (such as relief efforts of the Red Cross) and the long term strategic efforts of development workers to take on developmental issues (such as my organization does).

If I had it my way, all of the development efforts would focus on economic development. Because even the conflicts dubbed 'religious' are at their core nothing else but peoples' inability or insecurity on how to feed their families.

Anyway, so here I was, a development worker for economic development, signed up for a whole day event to learn about volunteerism. The list of resource speakers starred prestigious names. (Former) political and public figures. Many of them used this platform to brag about their achievements during their administration or to do some personal PR.

I often wondered if the speakers had been briefed properly. This event was supposed to promote 21st century volunteerism in the Philippines to local and foreign practitioners and potential volunteers.

What we listened to was a lesson on Philippine history, most of which was delivered in Tagalog. Apparently, volunteers "turned the revolution around".

Besides the heroic act of dying for a better cause I learned that the essence of a volunteer is that (s)he:

• stands fast
• sacrifices much
• suffers long for a worthy cause
• possesses a strong sense of self worth

Huh? All of a sudden I wasn't sure if I had entered the right conference room. Is this a lecture on Catholicism or did I end up in the Philippine Army's recruitment office?

Sentences like "... for the greater good of the country and, of course, the greater glory of God" or "The youth is a potent weapon for change" fit both scenarios.

The resource speaker who was supposed to talk about the 'Business Culture of Caring and Sharing' started his speech with "remember 1946!" Gee! The average age of the audience was probably around 28! He kept on talking about how, back in the days, he was fascinated with the communist movement. Now I was the one fascinated to see how he was going to bridge communism to volunteerism!

He kept on reminiscing how he had organized student 'cells' wherein one student leads 10 others. I left the room when he exclaimed that 'the students died freely'! I'm all for freedom of speech but that doesn't mean I have to listen to it.

One of the speakers allowed himself a Freudian slip when he said 'we are forcing volunteerism...' to quickly correct himself saying 'what I meant to say is you have to ascertain your vision.' I see. What's the vision again? Who's vision?

I left the whole conference ahead of time when he seriously pronounced: 'Don't fix the problem, fix the blame!'

To me, this summed up the importance and impact of volunteerism in the context of development work. Zero.