ResearchGoddess

I realize that I’m a bit late in posting this, as I visited Nicaragua nearly a month ago. But with the launch of AT&T’s college recruiting Facebook Fan Page and my 2,600 mile trek across the country to move to Bellingham WA, I’ve been a little busy over the past several weeks

The experience with Amigos for Christ in Nicaragua was, in a word, incredible. This trip was different from the one I took last year to South Africa in a few ways – it was a smaller group (only about 50 of us were there this week), and we were a little more casual about time. This came to be known as “Nica Time” – when we would aim to do something at say 9am, and would actually get started around 10:30am.

We worked – HARD. Between shoveling stuff called ‘material selecto’ (basically a mixture of sand and small and large rocks), mixing/pouring concrete, and hand-digging 10′ x 3′ x 3′ ditches for a warehouse foundation, we were all exhausted by the end of our workdays. Combine this back-breaking work with the 90+ degree & seemingly 100% humidity days (every day!) and that’s basically what the week consisted of.

Our Nicaraguan colleagues worked hard right alongside us. Each day, people from the communities we worked in came out and shoveled, dug, hauled, lifted, and sweated with us. The Nicaraguans work hard for what they have, even though to us it may not seem to be much. They take pride in this because of the fact that they have worked so hard for it. This inspired me to work even harder, knowing that the people we were doing these projects for were so willing to put their own sweat equity into the work that was being done to assist their communities. All too often, I feel jaded because of the lack of willingness to work I see here a lot in the US. My faith in hard work was renewed after this experience.

During the week, we took a trip to the Chinandega garbage dump. There are people who actually live there; daily life for them consists of picking through mounds of trash looking for recyclable material to trade for Cordobas. On any given day, most of them can find enough trash to earn about 6 cordobas (about $0.25 US) which might be enough to get them rice and beans for one day. Amigos For Christ is working with these people to help them get out of the garbage dump and to a community called Villa Catalina – a community built with love by efforts from Amigos and the people who used to live in the dump. We visited the Villa later in the afternoon and it was inspiring to see what the people there have done to turn their lives around from where they came from.

We also visited a special needs orphanage in town. The children at this orphanage have physical and mental challenges and need round-the-clock care. The women who work here have essentially given their lives to take care of these children. I ended up sitting with a 12 year old girl named Yaosca who could neither walk nor speak. It was an emotional morning for most of us, and the children were so pleased to have people sit with them, play with them, and basically just be there with them.

At the end of the week after all our work was complete, we took a day trip to La Playa Roca on the Pacific coast. As a girl who grew up 15 minutes from the Gulf Coast, this was a special treat to me. The beach is volcanic ash and rock so it’s black sand, and the surf was high that day. There was a lagoon down the beach which was safe, so we went swimming there and hung around for the sunset – absolutely gorgeous! A perfect end to an inspiring week.

Some of my observations from the week:

• John Bland, the man who started Amigos For Christ, had gotten in touch with some high school buddies. They passed the word around and there were about 12 guys who’d gone to high school together about 30 years ago who came down to work. A couple of them brought children and grandchildren. It was really neat to know that they had arranged a little ‘reunion’ to do service work.
• The Nicaraguans were eager to help us understand their language. I took Spanish all through high school but never used it so it was a bit rusty, but over the week it started coming back to me. The next time I visit a Spanish speaking country, I will do a little more prep work with the language. I think I missed out on some interaction because I couldn’t communicate as well as I wanted.
• Spending time with the children was priceless. On our last day, I brought a tub of fingernail polish and painted the little girls’ nails. I must have spent about 2 hours doing this, and it was such a treat for the little girls. The children help their families make money, so there isn’t much time for play. They know when we’re there, they’re going to get some playtime. Loving on the kids is one of my favorite things to do on trips like this!
• The work ethic there is outstanding. People typically only have hand tools to do manual labor, so it’s intense and they work REALLY hard.
• Our Amigos hosts were wonderful, we were well-fed all week and they were very kind to us. They see a lot of groups come and go through their home; they were very hospitable to us.

I’m getting addicted to doing things like this. The feelings of fulfillment and renewal of faith I come back with are priceless. Experiences like the one in Nicaragua help me to put my own daily issues into perspective in the grand scheme of things. When we take our eyes off of ourselves and do stuff for someone else, things always seem to get better. There is something special about serving those who need it, and the gratitude you receive in return just warms your heart. There is another trip to South Africa being planned for April 2010; I am giving serious consideration to returning. Would you like to come too? Let me know!

If you’d like to see pictures from my mission trip to Nicaragua, you can check them out here on Facebook!

As a final tribute to my trip to South Africa, I would like to share my experience with all of you in the form of videos. Please take a look at my GO Mamelodi video album here. The best way to watch them is from earliest upload to last upload, which means you’ll watch “Warm Welcome” first, then “Game Drive”, “Kids”, “Gardening”, and “Fun” last. These videos were painstakingly put together in bits and pieces in the wee hours of the morning, with time I’ve been able to squeeze from my schedule over the last two weeks after work, holiday festivities, and quality time with friends were over. I loved every minute of it though because it allowed me to relive my experience over and over again.

For your immediate viewing pleasure, I’ve included my final video, “Fun” below. Thank you for your interest – stay tuned for regular programming!

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-700386200879821481&hl=en]

We had a rare treat in South Africa last week, as the work being done through the Charity and Faith church caught the attention of the US Ambassador to South Africa, Eric Bost. Ambassador Bost came and addressed our group on Tuesday afternoon and discussed some facts about South Africa, the AIDS epidemic, and expressed his gratitude for the partnership between Crossroads and Charity and Faith. He also mentioned how some United States corporations, like Waggener Edstrom’s new client Chevron, are being good corporate citizens in South Africa. Check out this video of his address to our work group (the Chevron mention is in the last 2 minutes of the video)

Thanks everyone for bearing with me while my normal blog subject matter has taken a back seat to this experience. I’m still readjusting to being back in the States, but things should be getting back to normal this week. I’ll pepper in some videos from the trip with my usual post topics of research and social media.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7940838829564036773&hl=en]

I returned home from Mamelodi on Saturday morning. I’m still trying to digest the whole experience and put my thoughts together coherently, but in the meantime here is a photo account of the 10 days I spent in South Africa. Enjoy!

(written Saturday November 22nd)

I have now been in South Africa for about 24 hours. We arrived in Johannesburg around 4pm local time (time zone is +2), after approximately 26 hours of traveling, to a fantastic welcome from our friends from Mamelodi. We then piled onto our buses and headed off to the first hotel we were to stay at until moving on to Pretoria (tomorrow). However, the trip really began before it even started…

Our departure time to head from Cincinnati to Dayton to catch the first leg of our flight was a bright and early 5:15am on Thursday morning. We arrived at the Dayton airport for a 10am departure to head to the Washington Dulles airport (IAD). With a 6-hour layover in Dulles, we meandered around the airport, checking out stores, exchanging our dollars for South African rand, and I personally settled on a nice little sushi place for lunch. We finally boarded our airplane – South African Airways Airbus 340-600 (the big dog) – for a 5:40pm departure. This was one BIG airplane – I’d say we had about 350 seats on the plane, and just about every one of them was full! Keeping in mind that there were only about 1/3 of our entire crew of 200 on this plane, I heard later that one of the groups that flew out of Atlanta actually got to have former President Jimmy Carter on their flight!

We settled into the cattle car (economy) for a short 14-hour hop across the Atlantic, crossing over some of the western African countries before heading over water again to come back on to the continent in sub-Saharan Africa. From the sky, it didn’t look much different from the American West. Once we hit the ground though, I knew we were worlds away.

You can definitely sense the European and Western influence in South Africa. Cars drive on the left like in the UK, and there are plenty of European cars on the roads (Citroën, Mercedes Benz, and Volkswagon to name a few). City and town names, such as Randburg, Gordonweg, and Johannesburg, definitely reflect the presence of European influence. And of course, American companies have a major presence here as well – Lexmark, Nashua, ReMax, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, etc) There are 9 different languages spoken in this country, and most people speak at least 4 of them, putting us Americans to shame!

The first place we went to was a hotel called the Kopanong, just outside of Johannesburg. A very nice hotel, and our home for the first night of our visit. This morning (Saturday) we visited the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, and then we took a bus out to Pilanesberg Game Reserve to take a safari drive. (Yes, I really took this photo on the drive, and yes, the zebras were that close to our vehicle – many more photos to come!)

You may be thinking at this point, I thought you were going on an aid trip to help others, not to take a vacation! Trust me – this is no vacation; there is a reason for us participating in these activities prior to beginning our work. I’ve always believed that the best education a person can receive is through their own personal experiences. We have all participated in pre-trip educational opportunities to learn about South African history, culture, wildlife, the effect of the apartheid, etc. But without being able to see it, touch it, feel it, experience what this country is all about firsthand, I believe we cannot begin to understand what the people we are here to help could possibly need. It was the request of Titus Sithole, the pastor at the Charity and Faith Mission Church, which we’ve partnered with here, that we receive the beauty and history that South Africa has to offer in addition to the work we will be doing. He believes that by gaining a little bit of understanding of the country, we will gain an understanding of the suffering, the poverty, and in general the need that we are here to help meet.

The visit to the Apartheid Museum rocked a lot of people. In fact, while we were on the plane, there was a white South African man sitting behind me and he told us that mentioning the word apartheid in the country is still a bit of a taboo. It is still an incredibly painful subject for many. To have visited the museum and learned a little bit about the history of the segregation in South Africa makes one really think about how evil people in general can be sometimes. I’m grateful for the learning experience.

Tomorrow, we will make our way to Pretoria and Mamelodi, and we will all be staying with host families in Mamelodi tomorrow night. Over the course of the week we will begin our various tasks involving construction, gardening, children’s activities, and technology. Thank you for taking an interest in this project, and make sure to check out the video blog from our team on www.gomamelodi08.com