-^-for posterity-^-

i'd like to talk a bit more about being famous.

i'm teaching augustine's 'confessions' in my literature class and he said a number of things that stuck close to home. he talked about how he longed to be important; he wanted to be known. he went to law school and decided that he could lie his way to the top. he rebuked christianity because it required him to be humble. he, 'could not bear to be a little one; i was swollen with pride, but to myself i seemed a very big man.'

in a lot of ways that's fairly parallel to our experience here. we're made out to be a lot more important than we really are. we are treated as dignitaries on and off campus. we are always made to sit in the front row and are given the nicest meals. if we need anything we can talk to the department that was specially created to cater to our needs. the 'international relations department' is only a phone call away and any grievance or want we have, they can satiate.

we also lie. no, they're not lies that are truly important, but it's important to realize that they still are lies. we tell people how interesting they are or how nice they look or how much fun we have with them. upon returning home to our foreigner enclave, we bitterly and sarcastically make fun of the same people we were catering to earlier. we definitely lie to move up in our little magic foreign world.

all of the fame goes to your head. all of the people telling you that you are handsome (they tell everyone here that they're either handsome or beautiful) or that you speak vietnamese wonderfully, they all burrow their way into your ego and expand. all the people saying that we're such heroes for coming so far away from home and working as a volunteer to help people have no idea how easy this life really is. they have no idea how much we are getting out of it all, they have no idea how much meaning there is in an experience like this.

i don't think my motivations here are malicious; i don't come here for the fame. i do think that the fame has gotten to me in some regards. i have learned to live with it and appreciate it. i revel in it even though it all seems terribly fake to me. it, however, is not remotely fake to the people who approach us in restaurants. their eyes beam when we speak vietnamese and they're handshakes are warm and sincere. their sincerity has eroded in on our reality. their sincerity has become commonplace. our 'sincerity tolerance' is sky high and, when that happens, sarcasm takes over.