Berkley Center

My childhood self loved the computer game Amazon Trail. Sure, I preferred playing outside, but sometimes the virtual vegetation really was greener. After all, I grew up in suburbia, not Amazonia. When I heard my program at La Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) sponsored a trip to the rainforest, I signed up for the first weekend possible. We visited Tiputini, a biodiversity research station run by USFQ and Boston University.

Forty-nine percent of Ecuador is Amazonia, but Ecuador contains only 7 percent of Amazonia. Furthermore, only 3 percent of Ecuadorians live in el Oriente, the region that contains the rainforest. Tiputini borders Yasuni National Park, which is the most biodiverse area in the world. Unfortunately, Yasuni also lies on top of 20 percent of Ecuador's oil.

The Ecuadorian government has agreed not to drill in Yasuni for 10 years, in exchange for the United Nations paying Ecuador 3.6 billion dollars. Eager to drill, oil companies willingly exploit indigenous Ecuadorians. Some indigenous communities do not comprehend the threat oil companies pose to them and their future. My program director was once speaking to an indigenous woman about her community's dealings with oil companies when he asked her, "What about the future? What will you do in 20 years, when the oil is gone?" His interpreter struggled to translate the question, then finally turned to him and said that the woman's language had no concept of future. She didn't have the words to worry about 20 years later. She only had today.

Not all of Yasuni's indigenous residents willingly deal with outsiders. During a talk about Yasuni's geography, a Tiputini researcher pointed to an area on the map and said, "This is the intangible zone. We do not go there, and if you do go there, they [the indigenous people] will kill you." People laughed, but he wasn't joking. The government created the zone to protect tribes who wish to live without outside contact. The Tagaeri and Taromenane tribes have fought with loggers who violated the zone, and the Taromenane speared to death a logger in 2006. One Ecuadorian told my group about the Tagaeri's clashes with missionaries.

In 1987, helicopters dropped off a Spanish bishop and Colombian nun in a Taegeri community. When the helicopters returned a few days later, they found only the missionaries' corpses. Our storyteller said that the Tagaeri killed the missionaries, then disappeared into the forest. I detected a note of scorn in his voice when he described the missionaries to us, saying, "Of course, this is a man of God, he thinks the Indians need religion," and he admitted to being biased against religion. His story launched me into deeper reflections about missionaries. I understand some missionaries have damaged cultures they purported to be evangelizing, and I do not condone such destruction. I don't want to be a missionary, though my great-uncle was a Jesuit missionary, so perhaps I am biased.

Furthermore, I know some critics think missionaries should practice cultural relativism, rather than imposing their own religion upon others. However, critics who dismiss missionaries as lacking cultural relativism show a lack of cultural relativism toward evangelizing religions. I don't know how a cultural relativist could decide whose culture deserves more respect—a missionary whose evangelizing religion compels her to preach to people of a different culture, or a Tagaeri whose culture compels her to avoid all outsiders. I am not trying to say missionaries are perfect. However, I do think they have become an unfairly easy target among international development enthusiasts.

I fear that international development aficionados who criticize missionaries forget to examine their own motivations and actions. A missionary who teaches someone a new religion will change how that person views his world and culture. Similarly, a college student who volunteers teaching English in a foreign country will change how that person describes her world and culture, including her religion. People in non-English speaking countries may be eager to learn English, but after attending a few services, they may also be eager to join a new religion. Perhaps preaching and teaching aren't so different. Too bad deciding what's right isn't as easy as a computer game.