Sore Muscles and Full Hearts

It is conventional wisdom that difficult tasks are the most rewarding, but this message has been truly ingrained in my mind during my time in Nepal.

I can't put into words how challenging it is to stand in front of a full room, eyes watching your every move, and try to keep all of them engaged during each lesson of the day. I initially felt this pressure at LOAMO, and I feel it once again at Deeya Shree. Although many lessons have been a struggle, I am seeing more breakthroughs, more laughter, and more excitement about learning with every day that passes. What I can say from this experience is this: the feeling of contributing to the spark of understanding in a child's eyes is indescribable, and my appreciation for all the hard work that my teachers do once a day, every year, grows by the minute.

Our first few days at the school were tough. We faced behavioral issues and the feeling that we had not yet earned the respect of the students, which is enough to make any teacher's job frustrating. On those days, though sometimes I felt my anxieties about teaching taking over, each failure was a lesson about what works and what doesn't work in the classroom. Because of what I learned from failing, the number of successes gradually began to increase until I felt my fear lessen and my confidence go up dramatically. The students in every class love games, and when we play things like Pictionary or Around-the-World, I can feel their energy and see much more understanding than if I had just talked "at" them. The other day, Ava and I were teaching Class Six, an older class where the curriculum is much more difficult to teach and their English comprehension is much lower than I expected. We struggled at first trying to teach things like the responsibilities of a municipality, and saw their eyes glaze over more than once. However, by the end of the day, we realized that relating the lessons to their own lives and coming up with ways that they could get out of their seats made something click. Ava came up with a fantastic game in which they pretended to be rockets flying to the moon. While the kids learned about Apollo 11 and had plenty of laughs doing it, we learned that over-complicating a lesson works against you, but finding a way to get students moving and teaching a single concept makes a much bigger impact.

On Wednesday, we drove over an hour to visit a public school in Kathmandu. Deeya Shree is a private school, and the students' parents pay between four and eleven dollars per month for their children to attend, while also purchasing the uniforms. While an average of seven to eight dollars per month does not sound like much, 800 rupees is a lot of money here. Those who cannot afford this send their children to government-run schools, at no extra cost to them. Unlike Deeya Shree, the English comprehension here was very low, even though they are supposed to be learning the language. Therefore, Ava and I had to be especially creative in the way we were teaching, to avoid the blank stares we received whenever we spoke more than a sentence or two of English. We had them draw pictures, use styrofoam balls to represent prepositions, and act out a plane crash. The effect was unbelievable, and we knew that they were actually learning what we were teaching. When it was time for us to leave, Ava and I looked at each other, grinning from ear to ear, immensely proud of the job we had done despite great challenges.

For the past few days, the team has been helping Puni Ram, the man who drives us to and from the school every day, with demolishing his house. Puni Ram and his family have suffered incredible loss because of the earthquake here. Not only has much of their house collapsed, but most of their chickens were killed, which severely affects their livelihood. Though there is not much we can do for the chickens right now, we've lessened a huge burden for his family by helping demolish the upper two levels of his home. Our work, I believe, has helped the family accomplish a job in a matter of days that would otherwise take at least a week. Though I am proud of all the work we have done, it is incredibly sad to watch a family have to destroy their home like this. As we sorted through the debris, I found artifacts of the lives they have lived for decades in this house - broken cooking pots, math notebooks, empty jars of food. To have to suddenly uproot your life and throw all of this away is a feeling I can't understand and hopefully will never have to. Still, my sore legs and dirty hands at the end of each day remind me of how hard we have worked to ease the burden on someone we all care about.

I have completed some of the hardest work of my entire life in the past two weeks. And though every night my head slams into my pillow and my eyelids are heavy with exhaustion, I know that I have made an impact, and I can't wait to wake up the next morning and do it all over again.

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." - Robert Frost

Among everything else I have learned during my four years with CGA, I have been taught not to go into a country with too many expectations; it’s better to let the culture, scenery, and experience wash over you upon arrival. However, with all of the sensationalized media and fear surrounding Nepal, it was difficult to completely block out images of devastation – rubble everywhere, hungry children, even bodies in streets. I prepared myself for a country in mourning of all they had lost.

But what makes Nepal great is its depth. People here have lost their homes, their livelihoods, and their families, yet beauty is still everywhere. We are greeted with Namastes and smiles, and when we explain that we are here for service, we receive expressions of gratitude in return. Yes, buildings have fallen, people have died, and homes have been destroyed, but there is still love, there is still laughter, there is still hope.

That said, I was unsure of how many children would be at Deeya Shree, the school we are teaching in, since it re-opened only five days ago and many people are afraid to sleep inside, let alone send their kids into buildings for hours at a time, six days a week. But out of 150 kids, only 25 were absent. Though this is still quite a few, it’s less than I initially would’ve guessed. The kids are all excited and ready to learn, which I witnessed during the entire class period that I taught about US history, answering questions about everything from the Civil War to the space race to Barack Obama. But in a school where the kids are so thirsty for knowledge, it is frustrating to be met with consistent monotony in the way the kids are being taught. We have only been there for one day, but all I have seen so far is students copying from whiteboards and teachers briefly explaining topics without checking for understanding from each student. I have seen a few students looking lost, simply writing what is on the board and drawing a blank when asked to do their homework on their own. While this is a challenge, it is also means that there is a lot of work we can do and a lot of growth we can inspire, and that excites me.

Today, the one day the children have off from school, we performed more manual labor than I have in a long time. Scattered around Durbar Square and the surrounding streets are buildings, hundreds of years old, which are crumbling. Once towering structures are now falling apart, with cracks down their middle and walls that have completely separated from the beams that are meant to hold them together. These are peoples’ homes, and they will have to be destroyed and then rebuilt from the ground up after monsoon season. For hours, we helped one family take down a story of their house.

“This is our kitchen,” one man said to me as he shoveled crumbling stone off of the exposed room and onto the ground below, where it will be picked up by trucks and transported away.

The fear that comes with experiencing two earthquakes is traumatizing enough, but these people also have to pull apart their homes, brick by brick. Generations of families have lived in these buildings, leading up to the lives that this generation has lived, the years that they have spent growing up in these houses, and now they have to dismantle them. I can’t imagine what that’s like, to be so shaken by a natural disaster and have to take down the place where you grew up while still trying to recover from it. There are so many families like the one that we helped today, and with no outside assistance, who knows how long it could take to bring down every building that is unsalvageable?

Before we left, I was afraid that our efforts would be lost among thousands of volunteers flooding in with good intentions but no plan. But during my time here, I have not seen a single other foreign volunteer in Bhaktapur who is helping with relief. We lessened the workload of one family today, but there are many others just like them who need support. So many people are donating and sending supplies, but they all are left on the tarmac of the airport because they are being heavily taxed. Peoples’ hearts are in the right places, but I would like to see organized relief crews, both employing those whose places of business have been ruined as well as encouraging volunteers to fly in and lend a hand.

There has been devastation, but Nepal has not been destroyed. There is a lot to recover from, but pride in their country resonates within every Nepali citizen, and I know they can restore this beautiful nation. They will need more manpower, but they have hope and strength like I have never seen before. Every day I am more convinced that we are doing something great here, and I can’t wait for tomorrow.

Poverty and Generosity

            Every day, I spend money carelessly: a dollar for a pack of Reese’s, ten for trinkets at the Bookworm, twenty for a new shirt. I am extremely fortunate not to have to worry about how much I need to save to feed my family or where the next dollar will come from, if at all. As much as my experiences volunteering in developing countries and experiencing poverty first-hand have enlightened me and made me grateful for everything I have, it’s still difficult to remember every day that each dollar in my wallet is a luxury, especially in a place like Vail. But when I watched a documentary called “Living on One Dollar”, I was once again exposed to the extreme poverty that some people live in, and I was also reminded of my own privilege. The film follows four young men, Zach, Ryan, Chris, and Sean, to Peña Blanca, a rural village in Guatemala, where seven out of ten people live under the poverty line. The men chronicle their experience as they face hunger, illness, demanding physical labor, and the reality that sometimes there are no easy choices.

            The four men quickly befriend their neighbors, two of whom are a boy named Chino and a man named Anthony. Chino is only twelve years old and has dropped out of school to work and support his family. Anthony has a cleaning job, so he can rely on a fixed income, but he still struggles tremendously to support a household of eight. But even with this enormous economic strain, Anthony’s generosity is made incredibly clear throughout the film. Upon the arrival of the four foreigners, Anthony immediately invites them into his home and cooks them Pulique, a traditional Guatemalan dish that is only served on special occasions. I remember this kind of caring and unselfishness from my trips. It always has a profound impact on me to see someone in extreme poverty scrape together whatever they can to show compassion to someone else. Furthermore, Anthony helped Chino’s family immensely, most likely saving Chino’s mother’s life. Before the filming of this documentary, Chino’s mother fell suddenly ill, but his family had no money to pay for medicine. So Anthony lent them the money. Although medicine in Guatemala costs a fraction of what it does in the United States, it is an astronomical cost to families living below the poverty line there. Although Anthony has a more stable income than Chino’s father, this loan still put a great amount of pressure on him. I thought it was incredibly heartwarming to see that someone with so little could sacrifice so much to help another person.

            I doubt that I could survive in the conditions that these people struggle through every day. Every moment is a game of chance – will I find a job today? Will there be enough food for my children? Will I get injured working, and not be able to earn a living? The mere weight of every uncertainty, every added stress, would crush me, and yet these people live through them each day. For me, what would be hardest about living in poverty is the near certainty that I would be trapped in it forever. When Chris asked Chino what he wanted to be when he grew up, he immediately said “I’m going to be a farmer,” not because he wanted to (he actually wants to be a professional soccer player), but because he knew that the opportunities to be something more weren’t available to him. Rosa, a woman living in the village, is a living representation of this tragic dilemma. She had to drop out of school in 6^th grade because her parents couldn’t afford to send her any more, and although her dream is to become a nurse, she could never afford her studies. What would I do if I had a dream like that – something so achievable in the US, but seemingly impossible in a place like Peña Blanca? I have always known that I’d be able to get an education somewhere, and the answer to that question is unimaginable.

            The culture of the Guatemalans in the documentary reminded me of what I have seen in Nicaragua, Cambodia, and Tanzania. They value family more than anything because, sometimes, family is all you have. While I love my parents and my sister, I have never been as family-oriented as some of the people I have met. But I also saw a value of community, and of friendship, which is something I hold close to my heart. When Anthony was so welcoming to Chris, Ryan, Sean, and Zach, I felt like we were similar, and the only difference between us was that I have been blessed to live in a place like Vail and he has not.

            Though I have visited some of the poorest places in Tanzania, Cambodia, and Nicaragua, I have never seen poverty at the level that this documentary showed. When I go to Nepal, the reality that every family is struggling to get by, day by day, will always be in the back of my mind, and will fuel my drive to make as big of an impact as I possibly can.

"In My Heart is the Memory, and There You Will Always Be"

This is my third time saying goodbye to kids who have found their way into the deepest part of my heart, and I still do not know how to make the farewells any easier. Our last day was filled with goodbyes – little arms wrapping around me, hands stuffing notes into my fingers, voices saying, “I’ll miss you!” We had to leave after lunchtime, and when they rang the school bell, the students ran back inside as we made our way back to our cars. There was a finality to it, which made it easier and more difficult at the same time. We left without the pain of feeling little fingers slip through ours, but we had to say goodbye earlier, and we pulled away from the school alone. The kids at LOAMO, especially the younger ones whom I taught, made such an impact on my life, and it is heartbreaking that I will probably never see them again. Our goodbyes were so chaotic that although I said “I’ll miss you,” and “I love you,” more times than I could count, I was too overwhelmed to process the fact that we were leaving until after we left. The kids know that I love them and will always remember them, and I know that they feel the same about me, but I wish that we had gotten to say a proper goodbye. All the same, I am so grateful for every hug, every kiss, and every note that we exchanged. The kids taught me so much about happiness and selflessness, and I am honored to have been their teacher, even if it was for a short time.

However, we did get another chance to say goodbye to the Class VI and Class VII students, as well as the LOAMO staff, at the dance Friday night. We spent hours preparing, but it was so worth it to see their smiling faces when they ran inside. The kids and teachers danced their hearts out, and it was truly amazing to see how happy and excited they all were. Everyone was dressed to the nines, and the effort they put in to look nice reminded me of how much our work meant to them. At the end of the dance, Loserian and Nicodemus thanked us for our work at the school, and presented all the students with gifts. Mr. Kimaro even pulled me aside to thank me for all we had done for him. These moments, making me realize just how grateful they were for our hard work, almost brought me to tears. I am so thankful that I have had the opportunity to know these people, because they have most certainly had a bigger impact on my life than I have had on theirs. This trip has reminded me that I am so, so blessed to have a family, a house, and food to eat. I will always be grateful to each and every one of the students and teachers here, and I have no words to express how glad I honored I feel to have known them. 

Love and Loss

Yesterday and today were our last two days teaching at LOAMO. I have to say, being here, teaching thirty-some restless kids, has really given me a new perspective on teaching. I never realized how difficult it is to plan a new lesson every day, stand up in front of a class to teach, and make material exciting and interesting. This experience has made me appreciate my teachers so much more, as well as allowed me to admire the staff at LOAMO and how hard they work.

Once again, I am so blown away by the kind hearts and positive energy of the people here. A perfect example of this is the Class I teacher, Madame Lillian. From the moment I walked into her classroom, she made an effort to make me feel welcome. When she gets up to teach, the students are so excited, and she has a talent for engaging the students and helping them learn. The other day she said to me: “Nicole, have you ever considered being a teacher? You have so many great ideas, and you are really talented in the classroom.” When she said this, especially since I was already nervous about teaching and how well I was doing in the classrooms, I felt a huge wave of relief wash over me. Her words not only reminded me that our work here really is making an impact, but they also helped me be more confident in myself and my abilities. This is something I have seen consistently while here in Tanzania – the compassion that people demonstrate and the way that they strive to make you feel good is really heart-warming. It is a quality I wish I saw in people back home.

Today, Tate, Evan, Krissy, and I visited the home of Miguel and Meejooly, two brothers who attend LOAMO. Their mother, Rachel, invited us in, and we sat down in a living room that was the size of our bathroom here in the guesthouse. Immediately, I could feel how cozy the home was. Miguel hopped up onto his mother’s lap, and she tenderly combed his hair as she spoke with us. Miguel was shy, but Meejooly was excited to tell me about his interests, talking about how he loves science and math and wants to be a pilot when he grows up. Rachel, very openly, explained to us that her husband had passed away a year ago, and that it was now very difficult for her to support herself and her children. She works as a restaurant supervisor in a hotel in Arusha, and spends most of her salary paying rent. The rest she uses for school fees for her children, paying their housekeeper, and other things that they need to survive. She works extremely hard to make sure that her kids have the opportunities that they deserve, and that kind of drive and devotion to family was inspiring to see.

Going on home visits like this is always humbling. Like Lisa Marie said to us last night, it really reminds you of how much you actually need. Although Rachel lost her husband not so long ago, she somehow motivates herself to push through the pain that I’m sure she feels every day, and works hard for her family. I witness the same thing in Krissy, who, even though she rides an emotional roller coaster on a daily basis, she still has an incredible passion for sharing her love and beautiful self. What selfless, caring women! It was truly inspiring to meet Rachel and to see the kind of compassion, drive, and kindness she has, even after going through something so heart-wrenching. Her story helped me remember that family is more important than anything, and if she can find a way to keep her family alive after the loss of her husband, then I can find a way to push through the struggles in my life, too.

Life is a Blessing

Every day in Tanzania is mind-blowing, but this weekend I felt an overwhelming mix of emotions. The work that we did on Saturday and Sunday was more than worthwhile, but one left me feeling proud, and one left me with a pang in my heart.

On Saturday, we were lucky enough to be able to sleep in for an hour, and we left for the school at 8:00 am, knowing that although there were no kids at the school, we had a lot of work to do. The teachers, along with our three chaperones, all met in the office for a team-building seminar while we brought out cleaning supplies, divided them up, and began cleaning the classrooms. There was a lot of work to be done. Though my room may have been cleaner than many of the others, cleaning it was still a grueling task. I spent endless hours cleaning the walls alone, scrubbing off dirt and pencil marks until my arms were sore. At times, I was even frustrated with the way the dirt refused to come off the wall. It made me angry that these kids didn’t have a cleaner school. The cleaning ladies work very hard, and LOAMO is much nicer than many other schools in Tanzania, but the kids deserve a facility (and materials) as nice as those in the Vail Valley. Everyone at LOAMO works so incredibly hard, and it is difficult to watch children be set back by lack of materials or a nice space to learn in. Because of this, I loved being able to improve the conditions of the school and lighten the load put on the cleaning ladies. It was extremely satisfying to, at the end of the day, look at the result of my sweaty forehead and tired arms and know that I had done a good thing. There were two occasions where I felt an intense sense of pride:

1) At around 1 o’clock, when we were still hard at work, several of the ladies from the kitchen came into each of our rooms to offer us tea. Politely, we refused, saying that we had to get back to work. However, it seemed that their offer had not been a request, but a demand, and they literally dragged us into the kitchen, pushed us into a sitting position on plastic chairs, and gave us tea and bread. Though I was laughing at the time, their generosity and insistence that we rest for even just five minutes warmed my heart and showed me how much our work meant to them.

2) At the end of the day, when we were all sitting together, completely wiped out, Loserian (the husband of Maria, LOAMO’s founder) addressed us all and thanked us for our hard work. “When I heard that you wanted to clean the school, I thought, Can they really do it?” he said. “But you have done it beautifully.” I was so glad to hear him say that, not only because I knew that we had done well, but also because it meant that he, as one of the directors of LOAMO, appreciated the work that we had done and welcomed us in his school. I was incredibly proud of our group, and myself, and I am beyond happy that we have been successful on this trip so far.

Sunday was a new experience altogether. At around 1 o’clock, we went to the Save Africa orphanage about thirty minutes from our guesthouse. The orphanage, just like everything I have seen here, was nothing like I expected. It was very small, with only about thirty kids, one main building about 3/4ths the size of our house, a small chicken coop, and a large field outside holding a few cows. The children were skinny, dirty, and ate food out of buckets with their hands. Lunch was made by cooking rice and eating every part of the bird, including the feet and intestines. The kids would constantly be asking for something, anything that they could have – bracelets, sunglasses, just something. We gave them all the love we could, but it was not enough to fill their bellies and bandage their scraped knees. It was difficult to see that they really did have nothing, even though we earned their love very quickly, and spent most of the day cuddling and playing. I let the orphanage feeling grateful for my food, my shelter, and my family, but also feeling angry that some people have to live like this. Everyone deserves a warm place to sleep at night and enough food to satisfy them, yet it seems so hard to give this to everyone. I felt almost helpless, not knowing what I could do to give people in that situation what they deserve, but my passion for volunteering only increased.

Today we started our second, and also our last, week at the school. And though I did switch from Class V to Class I, I saw the same drive I have always seen in these students – a drive to work hard, to learn, and to love. I am sad that we are leaving so soon, but I am proud of all that we have accomplished here. As I was reading stories to the kids and laughing as we acted out jumping jacks, I felt an enormous amount of love in my heart. The connection I have made with all of them in just one short week is why I love working with CGA – the lifelong bond you make with each one of them is something that changes you forever. I am so glad that I have found that with these kids, and I hope to continue changing their lives in the week to come.

On Selflessness

It has been one week since I arrived in Tanzania, and words cannot express how much I have learned from the students and teachers already. The energy and excitement here is truly incredible. Every day that I go to the school, I feel invigorated, and I am filled with a drive to work harder, appreciate more, and be as selfless as possible.

Yesterday AJ, Keelin, Evan, Nikko, and Lisa Marie went to visit the home of Benard, a twelve-year-old who is in Class Four at LOAMO. When we discussed their visit later that night, I was inspired beyond words.

Benard grew up in or around Arusha. He lived with his parents when he was very little, until his father passed away. His mother, for a reason unknown to the home visit group, was not able to care for him, and he was passed into the care of his aunt. While living with her, he attended a basic primary school in the village, but he spent most of his time doing manual labor at a local university, bringing home money to provide for himself and his aunt. Richard, a teacher at the university, saw him working and took an interest in him. Benard made him question why the students at the university were able to be educated, but Benard was not. Selflessly, he took Benard in, got him a scholarship to an excellent private school, and now Benard attends LOAMO.

What is amazing about Benard’s story is that he was separated from his parents, given a minimal education, and required to work to support himself at a young age, and now, due to one family’s selflessness, he was given a chance. Since Richard took him in, he has learned to speak partially fluent English and has not only academically caught up to the others in his class, but he is the best out of all of them at math.

The group’s amazement at his hard work has excited and inspired me. His dedication to learning and to working hard to help himself and others is an extremely welcome change from what I am used to seeing in the United States. There are so many twelve-year-olds that I know who have never given a thought to anyone but themselves, yet here Benard is, waking up early in the morning to milk the five cows that they have, and staying up late at night to finish his homework. It warms my heart, but at the same time it frustrates me that children his age in America are so selfish.

Every day, I have been growing closer and closer to the children at LOAMO. I didn't realize how big of an impact our short time there was until the end of today, when I was walking Janeth, a sweetheart in Class One, to her bus. I leaned down to kiss her cheek good-bye, and after she reciprocated, she said to me, “I love you so much, Teacher!” and ran off. Six words had my feet glued to the dirt in amazement. I felt warmth spread throughout my whole body, and for the rest of the day I had an enormous grin on my face. What we’re doing here is so important, whether it is teaching, helping the teachers in the classroom, or just giving love to the students. Janeth today reminded me of how much we mean to the people at LOAMO, and I am so excited to give my all at the school next week.