Participants Blog

Teaching in the Domincan Republic

See video of Cynthia and Daniel who spent the summer of 2009 in Consuelo, Dominican Republic teaching in a small rural school for young children.

Visual Storytelling of Time in Bosnia

Brigette DePape, Loran Scholar placed in Bosnia for the summer, sent along the following photos to share with the Intercordia community.  The photos are from the youth centre at carnival day, making pinatas, dance class, movie night and yoga class.

Student Interviews on YouTube

Intercordia alumni talk about their experiences with the program:

Goodbye Ukraine

These last few days have been some of the busiest of my life. Thursday was my last day with my l’Arche workshop, and everyone was very emotional. Firstly, my workshop is moving to a new location because the rent at the current location is too high. And so the last week at the workshop we were moving all of the stuff to the new location. On Thursday morning, we finished that job. In the afternoon we had a barbeque, and it amounted to a typical l’Arche Ukraine party. It was very much in the spirit of l’Arche, with all of us being together, singing together, eating together, etc…. And it was very Ukrainian due to the food we ate. We had kovbasky (sausages), bread, potatoes, tomatoes, and cucumbers. The party was very nice.

Adios FunArte

So its my last day here at FunArte and it feels as though my heart is breaking into a million pieces.

As the Temperature Rises

Dear Readers,

I think today I will share with you an aspect of Ukrainian culture which until this point hasn’t really bothered me that much. But as the temperature rises, this little quirk gets more and more annoying. You see, in Ukraine, everyone over 25 seems to be deathly afraid of wind blowing in their face. They all fear that they will get sick from it somehow. And for some reason, the belief is that women are more likely to get sick from it. So what? I will tell you what.

Grateful to Have Witnessed It

With a little bit over one week to go on my three month stint I´ve a lot to think about. Working day in and day out with the kids has taught me more about myself then I ever thought I would learn here. It is a constant struggle, but a happy struggle.

Two Months Gone By

Two months have gone by, and like many Canadian summers in the past I find myself asking where the time has gone. Though I do keep busy working in a school for impoverished children called Casa Leandra, there is a lot of sitting around with the lopcals, and a lot of domino playing! The kids in my school program are from local barrios (neighbourhoods) that are basically batey´s inside the city limits. Consuelo is a former ingenio town, built approximately 100 years ago around a sugar factory which closed it´s doors and shut down about 5 years ago, leaving many, many people unemployed. Some of those who were hit the hardest by the abrupt stop in the small, country-side city´s economy were the cane cutters living in bateys, which are small little community´s living just on the outskirts of Consuelo, pocketing the nearby land. Many of the sugarcane cutters were Haitians who made it over the border with their families looking for work, or were brought in by ingenio workers for cheap labour, giving the promise for a better life.

Heartbreaking Realizations

My work placement in Tegucigalpa, Honduras involves teaching children in the cities street markets. Though my organization works with women and other target groups I have chosen to focus my attention on the 2-9 age groups. Through my time here I have met children who are unable to receive an education, who do not have enough food to eat, and who work selling things in the markets to help their families survive. Being around these children has taught me so much about the realities of child poverty, and what it means to be a poor person in Honduras.

Impact of Time Away

My work, host family, and other aspects of life here, have impacted me in a number of ways that I feel are very profound. My heart and my eyes have definitely been opened.

Redefining Success

Triumph. Success. Victory. Growth. Achievement. These attributes overwhelming dominate my Western consciousness. In Canada, I have been socialized from a very early age to highly value accomplishment and success. Attaining first place and being ahead of the masses is frequently deemed to be a goal worthy of great sacrifice in my Canadian culture. My peers and I constantly compare our achievements, whether academically, financially, or otherwise, with each other and envy whoever has performed best.

Forever Changed

Last Sunday, I woke up feeling ready to go back to Canada. I will be forever grateful for all that I’ve learned about the injustice, inequality, and the world. But being exposed to the terrifying realities of injustice and neglect has left me feeling heartbroken, useless, and ultimately, burnt out. I woke up and just couldn’t picture myself doing this any longer. The pain that comes from witnessing someone suffer as a result of barriers and inequalities that are so preventable and unnecessary is just debilitating and nearly impossible to cope with. However, although that morning I felt like I had had enough, at the same time, I realized that going home would be incredibly frustrating too. It will be frustrating to process and make sense of what I have lived here, in addition to recognizing that after I leave, it is extremely likely that the injustices that nearly drive me to insanity will still remain.

Anecdote: A few indicators I’m in the right place

• My house is adorned with Jadotica Bobitica (strawberry shortcake in bosnian) paraphernalia, my childhood super hero.

Where is Bosnia’s Nelson Mandela?

A Canadian with a new home in Bosnia on Religious/Ethnic Apartheid in Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje: Where is Bosnia’s Nelson Mandela?

Part I: Introduction

When I wake up each morning, it doesn’t take long for my sleepy eyes to notice that I’m in someone else’s bed; that the blankets, room, and mountains bear hugging me aren’t mine at all. Who’s are they? Gradually, with a cup of Bosnian coffee (so potent I probably only needed a teaspoon) I start to remember.

The room and blankets belong to the Sabic’s, the warm family I will be staying with for the next three months during my work term in Gornji Vakuf-Uskopje (GVU), a town of roughly 4,000 in the Bosnian part of Bosnia-Hercegovina. But to whom the mountains belong is more complicated.

Croatians and Serbians tried to claim Bosnian land (its mountains, rivers, etc.) as their own in 1992, leading to the 3-year war. As a result, today in 2009, Bosnia is divided into three parts; the Republika Serbika (largely Orthodox Serbians), Herzegovina (largely Croatian Christians), and Bosnia (largely Muslim Bosnians).
The room and blankets belong to the Sabic’s, the warm family I will be staying with for the next three months during my work term in Gornji Vakuf-Uskopje (GVU), a town of roughly 4,000 in the Bosnian part of Bosnia-Hercegovina. But to whom the mountains belong is more complicated.

Croatians and Serbians tried to claim Bosnian land (its mountains, rivers, etc.) as their own in 1992, leading to the 3-year war. As a result, today in 2009, Bosnia is divided into three parts; the Republika Serbika (largely Orthodox Serbians), Herzegovina (largely Croatian Christians), and Bosnia (largely Muslim Bosnians).

La Chureca

If you want to know what hell looks like, take a 2.5 hour bus to Managua from Esteli and barter with a bandito, careless taxi driver to La Chureca (the dump.) My wednesday in Managua changed my life. I always knew evil in this world existed but to that degree, never. The weakness of some human beings really baffles me. The ability we have as humans to be so heartless, uncaring, perverted, sick and twisted just breaks my spirit. What reason do we have to be that way? There is no excuse for Daniel Ortega´s actions. He sits there on his high thrown delighted with the rich people of the country riding on the backs of the human recycling factory that is La Chureca. He gives them petty presents of clean water and lunch some days just to keep them grovelling at how wonderful he is to them. They have no education, they do not know their rights as humans, in their minds they deserve this life. Its all they´ve ever known. 400 families live there, in the mounds of garbage. 2000 people a day sift through garbage, spearing what they believe to be worth something. Plastic and metal are among the treasures they desire. The air is simply unbreathable. Smoke and stench toxicate your lungs and burn your eyes. You cough and heave, everyone in La Chureca suffers from respiratory conditions. Fires can start at any time and at any place. Goats, dogs, horses, cows, pigs, vultures and children all compete for the same food source: trash. The children’s bellies are extended, swollen with air from parasites. They have head lice and flees. They sleep on garbage. They sleep ten to one single hut. The girls start prostitution in La Chureca from the age of 5. The truck drivers come each night without fail and pay the girls for their bodies in garbage, not even cordobas (the currency of Nicaragua.)

A thought: The informal ‘you’ vs. the formal ‘You’

Dear Readers,

I had a little bit of an awkward encounter with my host grandmother, and it had to do with a feature of the Ukrainian language which is no longer part of the English language. I don’t think it is a huge deal, but I thought I would write about it anyway.

Each One Teach One and Our Culture Will Grow

I’d just sat down on a park bench to begin writing this response, when I saw the skinny legs of a young boy around the age of 5, a nino, run up to me. I lifted my eyes off the page, half-preparing to deny a request for “monies”, when with a timid smile he asked if I would like some food. “Es libre!” he said beaming, nodding his shaved head and ran off to the three women standing in the shade of a little building in the middle of the park, packing up their Sunday morning food sales, and had made a plate of rice, beans, noodles and fried chicken to welcome me to the community, no charge.

Visits with Gogo in Swaziland

All of my life, I have been the type of person to want to go out and “save” the world. Witnessing injustice has always created a rage inside of me, further motivating me to take action and alleviate the pain caused by the injustice. However, for the first time in my life, the sight of injustice has left me feeling paralyzed, immobile, and hopeless. My host sister, Xolile, is a care giver for SWAPOL, which means that she is responsible for faciliating home visits to sick people in her town. As a volunteer with SWAPOL, I have made it my duty to accompany her whenever she goes out. Although I will try as hard as I can to capture my first home visit in words, no words could ever serve it justice.

Para los Jovenes - Poetry from Siobhan in Nicaragua

Aqui esta tu proteccion contra la violencia
Aqui esta tu espada,
Crees en nuestras vidas,
en el valor de los humanos.
Por nuestro futuro, busca y cultiva,
Si tu tienes que morir,
Pero crece y refuerza.

Michael in Ukraine - Week Four Complete

Dear Readers,

Week four is now complete, and I can’t believe it! They say that the first month of the Intercordia placement is supposed to be long and hard and not too enjoyable, but I have had such an amazing time so far. The time has just flown by!