The End Goal

The first thing I noticed when we arrived in Morocco was the color. The streets are decorated with every color you could imagine – from the radiant kaftans that the women wear to the bright clothes and trinkets that catch our eyes in the market. The inside of our house, like many others, is lined with carefully painted tiles that reflect all the colors of the rainbow. Even the sea of white buildings visible from the beach has its own color, contrasting so sharply from the bright blue sky that they pop in front of your eyes. The most beautiful parts of Morocco, however, are the kids we get to see every day at school. There are eight kids in the class that Katie and I teach together. They are all bright and full of joy, but each of them has their own unique personality. Ibtissam is the class clown, but she is curious and full of questions, and she brightens our day when she asks them. Mohamed is quiet, shy and is afraid to share his voice, but when we encourage him to participate he always knows the answer. Youssra is also quiet, but she loves to paint, and she dreams of being a doctor. Already, it has been a pleasure to get to know them. They are the most eager learners I have ever worked with. They are always asking questions and excitedly jump in to every game we play. Working with kids like these reminds me how much different students are in the US. At home, I have seen students use their phones as a distraction, wander the hallways so they don’t have to be in class, and pack their bags minutes before the bell rings. I’m guilty of a lot of these things. Here, however, the students stay after class to finish their assignments and ask questions. They bring English games from home to play in class. They know how important it is to learn this language, and they don’t waste a minute of their time with us. It’s a valuable lesson for those of us who take our education for granted. We are so lucky to have been born into an English-speaking country, and to have as many opportunities as we do.

Teaching, as always, has been a challenge, with unforeseen barriers. The kids knew much more English than we anticipated, which was a welcome surprise, but it means that we have to find better ways to challenge them and get them to think critically. Despite being at a level that was higher than expected, the kids have been making noticeable improvements in their grammar and comprehension skills since we have gotten here. As a teacher, when you put in the hours of work at home and hours of trial and error in the classroom, to see student’s ability shift even slightly because of what you are teaching is a breath of fresh air. It is easy to lose confidence when you are teaching. One confused look from a child, and you may think you are failing them. In fact, teaching is allowing yourself and your student to make mistakes over and over again until something clicks between the two of you. And when they finally understand, it reminds you that you can make a difference.

So far, we have built a strong foundation in the classroom. However, teaching nouns and verbs is not enough. Our goal is to leave these kids with not only a better understanding of English, but the ability to use the English that they know to make themselves more successful. We don’t expect to be able to teach them an entire language in the two weeks that we are here, but we hope that we are able to inspire them to continue down that path. When they finally learn, we hope that our students will have the confidence and ability to become anything that they want to be. There will be barriers holding them back, but learning English will no longer be one of them, and they will have proved to themselves that they can break through those barriers. It has been such an honor to teach them thus far, and I am so excited to see them grow both as people and students in the rest of the time I am here.

"How lucky I am to have something that makes me say goodbye so hard." - A.A. Milne

Well, here we are. The very last trip home of my very last adventure with CGA is finally here. It still hasn’t quite registered that next summer I will not be preparing lesson plans, studying a new language, or brainstorming fundraising ideas. At least, not with CGA. It seems like the end of an era, and though I feel a sense of accomplishment wrapping around my heart, this goodbye was the most difficult.

As with all of my CGA trips, I felt myself grow immensely during my time in Nepal. I became not only a better teacher, but someone who is more able to listen to feedback, adapt to unexpected difficulties, and think on my toes. Our last few days at the school were grueling, rewarding, and more challenging than ever before. I have said it more times than I can count and will say it over and over again: teaching is one of the hardest professions on this planet. Standing in front of a classroom made my palms feel like oceans and my heartrate increase to a million beats per minute, but the stress, preparation, and occasional moments of ridiculousness were worth even the hope that I filled a child’s brain with something useful. By our final day at Deeya Shree, I was more confident in my ability as a teacher than I have ever been before, and I got into the van stumbling with exhaustion, but feeling so incredibly successful. There is a special type of satisfaction that comes with pouring your heart and soul into something and seeing results, and I’ve felt this sensation washing over me every moment since my last day in Nepal.

Leaving our friends in Durbar Square was heartbreaking. Even after such a short time, my heart is filled with love for the incredible people who went out of their way to show us kindness. On our last night, they spent hours cooking us dinner and presented us with gifts and notes that said “WE WILL REMEMBER YOU!” Our last morning consisted of teary-eyed hugs goodbye, as well as words of gratitude from us to them for all they had taught us. Sentiments like these are what have made every one of my CGA trips truly special – not the food we ate, the temples we saw, or even the cows in the streets, but the extraordinarily warm hearts of the people we meet and their capacity to give, even during the most difficult of times.

When we sat in the guesthouse together after dinner, reflecting on how the last four years of our lives were about to come to a close, Lisa Marie and Jen asked each of us what Children’s Global Alliance has contributed to our lives. For me, CGA has had such a complex role in my life that it is impossible to explain to anyone who hasn’t been there to witness it. Without being forced to step outside of the world I had known, I would still be the quiet, insecure, ignorant girl that I was before I left for Cambodia. Because I left my comfort zone, because I was exposed to the poverty and kind souls of people around the world, because I made connections with people whose backgrounds were polar opposites of mine, I became an entirely new person. I have learned to stick up for what I believe in, to be grateful for all the luxuries I have, and never to miss an opportunity to help another person. I am certain that I would not have the confidence to do half the things that I am doing now, from applying for a job to earning a varsity position on my soccer team, without the experiences I have had with CGA. This organization holds such a special place in my heart, and if I would have told myself in 2012 that I would travel four times with Lisa Marie and Jen, that I would see things I never could have dreamed of, and that I would learn more from people I met across the world than I ever had in school, I would have stayed up all night trying to paint a picture of all this in my head and still would have fallen short. And though my heart is heavy with the thought that I will never travel with this team again, I know that the rest of my life will be richer because of the incredible journeys that I have made.

I can’t express enough gratitude to CGA for all of the ways they have added meaning to my life, but I can go forward and live gratefully, intentionally, and with drive. At the age of sixteen, I have done more valuable work than many people will in their entire lives, and I have become a better person because of it. With this in mind, I’m moving into the next years of adolescence with love in my heart and passion in my soul. So, my final words on this blog will be these: Goodbye for now, CGA, and hello to the next chapter of my life.

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.