First World Guilt

When I was about 14, I had my braces taken off and for the full next week I could not stop passing my tongue over my newly unadorned teeth. Compared to the metallic, pokey surface of my braces, my liberated teeth felt overly smooth and slimy, as if I had a mouth of pure gums rather than modified bone. It may seem like a strange analogy, but this is exactly how visiting Guatemala City felt to me. Leaving the rough, sometimes prickly campo for the shiny and new capital city felt as if I had shed my braces in favor of a fresh, white smile. As we drove through the clean, un-littered streets lined with multi-level buildings, I stared at this brave new world with the same fascination and confusion as 14 year old Alexis compulsively licked her own teeth.   

                                      

Over this past weekend, a group of us volunteers were afforded the opportunity to visit the Forbidden City. (The capital is a Peace Corps red zone for various security reasons.) Armed with private transportation and two certified chaperones, we were graciously allowed to explore designated spots of the city like the true tourists we are. We visited the Popol Vuh and Ixchel museums, the Central Park, and an incredibly bourgie area of town called Cayala. In between destinations we were instructed to roll up the windows and lock the doors - in case a band of criminals decided to embark on a high-speed, cross-vehicle robbery of 10 broke Peace Corps volunteers Fast and Furious style. Based on Peace Corps rhetoric and the strict rules prohibiting us from entering the city, most of us were expecting Gotham. Instead we got a clean, bustling city with the occasional graffiti. But we weren’t brought to the areas that most locals would consider the real Guatemala City, we were brought to Cayala.

  

Walking through the polished streets of Cayala, I felt as if we had been dropped straight into The Truman Show and was physically affected by a feeling most travellers and international workers know well- the inherent pang of first world guilt.  Cayala would outshine the nicest areas of many American cities I’ve visited and the surrounding empty lots give it the creepy feeling of a constructed make-believe world. Looking around at the designer stores and classy restaurants nearly everything stood out in stark contrast from my life back in Itzapa. The cows and horses being led through the streets of Itzapa were replaced by giggly cherubs on bikes, their parents nowhere to be seen because there was nothing to be worried about in this land of perfection. The feces and trash that cake the streets of Itzapa were replaced by perfectly manicured cobblestone. And the hardworking, leathered men and women in Mayan traje were now posh families straight from an LL Bean catalogue. 

     

As I wandered around in complete bewilderment I couldn’t help but wonder what my host mom would make of this place. Would she look at the over-priced restaurants, artisan furniture stores, and boutique olive oil shops with admiration? Or would she spit on the spotless streets as if they personally affronted her and her poverty? Just being in Cayala made me feel guilty as if I was somehow betraying her and the women I work with. I wondered if they’d think less of me for spending what amounts to their monthly salary on two sushi rolls and a Sapporo. First world guilt, or at least my particular brand of it, I think is better characterized as embarrassment. I feel embarrassed by my choices – a 150Q sushi lunch over a 20Q comedor meal- and my ability to make those choices so readily. 

First world guilt, like any guilt derived from privilege, is a curious thing. It can make you stick your head in the sand and completely deny that you benefit from any distorted advantages: “I’ve worked hard for what I have!” (Yes, we know, but that doesn’t negate your privilege.) It can also lead you to do crazy things like become a vegan or give up your life at home for two years in the Guatemalan campo.  So is guilt a pointless, self-destructive emotion or is it an evolutionary psychological mechanism that drives us forward? Either way, I think that staying in touch with our guilt and understanding its roots is an important way to ensure that our actions are motivated by the desire for real progress and aren’t just a way to relieve our sense of embarrassment or shame. Guilt without action is pointless, but action doesn’t necessarily dissipate our guilt leaving us forever stranded on an infinite moving walkway of good deeds and empathy overload.  It’s a fate I feel personally doomed to and even trapped by, but am secretly grateful for the sense of purpose it’s given me.