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Newsletter # 7 June 2010
Greetings from Intercordia! It has been a while since we sent you our Newsletter and we hope this one finds you well. Our 2009/10 Intercordians have been in placement for 6 weeks in Bosnia, Ukraine, Ghana, Nicaragua, Honduras and Ecuador and I have, with their permission, excerpted parts of their ongoing reflections to give you a taste of what they are experiencing and learning. Enjoy! (You can read more reflections on our website under Participant or Staff Blog http://www.intercordiacanada.org)
“The first journal entry I wrote after arriving at my host family’s house ended with ¨This experience is going to be much harder than I thought¨. As much as I thought I was prepared to come here and to live this, there’s nothing that could have fully prepared me for the culture shock I felt when I arrived in this small community. After getting through the first few days though, I already felt that this is where I’m supposed to be!” (Ecuador)
“There is a staggering amount of work that I see done by these women everyday. They do it whether they are in their fifties (or more), whether they are twelve, or whether they are nineteen and pregnant. (Ecuador)”
“The overflowing generosity of family and friends got me here and now that I am here I have been rendered all but completely helpless by not having any directional bearings and no prior knowledge of the language. I have become so dependant that it has been my host family and the community that has done all of the helping since I’ve been here. It has been extremely frustrating and challenging and sometimes I just don’t want to get up and play what has become a never-ending game of charades. But I do!” (Bosnia)
“Once I was shown my room and some of the essentials, Katie left. As soon as the door shut I started to panic a little. I felt so incredibly alone and scared and overwhelmed. I started to cry and my host mother asked me why I was crying. I told her it was because I missed my family. She pulled my head into her and told me not to cry, that she would be my new “black grandmother”. In those few words I immediately felt so comforted and so loved. I could not understand how she could be so loving to a complete stranger, and still have a hard time understanding it.” (Nicaragua)
“I struggle to know how my presence in the community is affecting those that I am around. To be honest, I feel a lot of guilt being here at times for one reason specifically; my skin color.” (Ghana)
“What an experience it is to come to a place without an understanding of oneself within the new community. It’s easy to question what you are meant to be doing and much easier to challenge time. “Hurry up! Make me belong faster! “This has been a challenge for me, the challenge of patience. I have come here without expectations and with an open mind, heart and spirit but constantly find myself creating expectations. Jean Vanier’s words have never meant so much. ‘Through times of loneliness, uncertainty, and challenges we recognize what it means to be human’ and in times when you feel so far away from others, it’s beautiful to hold on to the commonalities we all share in being human. (Nicaragua)”
“The main reason why I don’t provide change is because it is not needed in Peguche, where I am living. Everyone here takes care of each other. My community has got advocacy down, I’m just here to help-out.”(Ecuador)
“We live fast paced lives and never have the time to just sit and notice the beauty in imperfection and are quick to point out the beast in the beauty as opposed to noticing the beauty in the beast. (Ukraine)”
“The other day, on my own initiative, I began to clear out a salón I knew was going to be used for an event the next day. As I began to lug out chairs one by one, I found myself sneaking peaks at others, wondering if they had noticed what a hard worker I was! I laughed to myself as I came to the realization that the grand part of my motivation to help out, was to be recognized and valued by others. This humbling experience has opened my eyes to what service really is. Service is quiet acts of kindness founded on love for others and the world around us. I had to learn how to dispose of my own egotism and commit to what service really means.” (Nicaragua)
“Our time here is our parenthesis in this chaos of life; it is our time to be free. Free of judgments, free of homework and tasks, and schedules and labels and society. Here, in this island, we just have us. And although that can be terrifying at times…it is good to know and feel, that a place to live like this really exists, and that we are fortunate to have the chance to experience life lived this way. (Ghana)”
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