What I’ve Learned From Indiegogo

I guess a more appropriate title would be what beliefs I had that Indiegogo confirmed. I am a people person. I trust almost everyone at first, I have an easy time brushing off the experiences with bad apples, and I believe more than anything that people are good. We all want to live in peace, be healthy, love someone, be loved, and take care of those around us. Of course watching the news (or reading it online in my case) we would never think this. Instead we think ISIS, suicidal pilots, corrupt politicians, crazy people in Florida, bombings in the Middle East, etc… That list could go on and on. It is a shame that it is so hard to be informed about the world when almost everyone headline is negative because of the actions of a few not so great people out there. But that is not what this is about.

This is about the sixty plus people who have helped make an idea that a Doctor in a village of 3000 people had come to fruition. When we set out for this fundraiser I didn’t know what to expect. I figured my family and close friends would be bulk of donations and we’d maybe get a few from strangers. I could not have been more wrong. 1/3^rd of the current donations have come from people I have never met. 1/3^rd! That has blown me away. Some of these people I haven’t met are Kyrgyz nationals, some of them are returned Peace Corps Volunteers, some are future Peace Corps Volunteers, some are friends of friends, but they are all people that I have never met. I’ve received messages from some of them about how happy they are that we are working to make a difference in their home country, others have talked with me about their Peace Corps experience when they were in Kyrgyzstan fifteen plus years ago and the amazing humanitarian work they have done after, and others I have no idea who they are or how they came across this project. The bottom line is strangers, family, friends, and locals have all put their trust in this project and the impact it will have in a small rural village in a country some of them may have never heard and for people they will probably never meet. If that doesn’t restore or reconfirm your faith in humanity I don’t know what will. 

This is the current donation breakdown! 

Strangers	$1,520	33%
Family	$1,700	37%
Friends	$1,030	22%
Village	$335	7%

There are good and bad days living in Kyrgyzstan. There are days when you get yelled at for being an American, there are nights you are accosted by someone who has had a few too many shots of vodka, there are nights you get kicked out of an apartment at 10 pm because, well I still haven’t figured that one out. Then there are the days a stranger invites you into their home and shares their food and tea with you, there are the mornings you spend at a Kyrgyz relative’s home in the mountains hiding from the hail storm while they give you homemade onion bread, there are the times a student tells you how you have become a brother to them, there are the nights you are given shots of vodka by Kyrgyz military men in a yurt in the mountains, and this list could go on and on. There are about three specific negative events I can recall while being in Kyrgyzstan, but the lists of positives is countless. Even though so often those negative events left a bitter taste in my mouth for weeks after, I strive to forget about them because I have had so many more meaningful positive experiences here. Almost every positive experience here has involved people, being good people just because.

 

The Kyrgyz military defending the fatherland, one shared shot of vodka at a time!

That is the beauty of helping out with this Indiegogo campaign and having the opportunity to live in a foreign country. I’ve always believed in people and in my heart believe that people are good. I will leave Kyrgyzstan in about two and a half months, hopefully with Kyrgyzstan having one more hospital with running water than when I got here, and with a stronger faith in humanity!