A group of about forty students, professors and lifelong learners took an air conditioned, cushioned bus to an orphanage in the Amazonas region. There were fifteen children from 5 to 13. The majority of them were placed there out of their families because of sexual abuse, neglect, or physical abuse. The woman in charge said that many of the children have psychological issues that were usually a result from the abuse. She noted that many of the problems are manifested when they are older like ages twelve or thirteen but not as much when they were young. They receive their education at the orphanage and form tight bonds with the other children. We spent two hours there interacting with all the children and had a handful of toys, balloons, tattoos and stickers to give to them and use them for playing.
Initially we sat down with a bunch of boys and asked the names and the ages but after that I could not come up with a way inquire about their interests or continue a conversation and they lost interest in talking to us. I felt awkward and frustrated by my lack of ability to carry a simple conversation or effectively keep them entertained. There were also too many of us compared to their numbers so I constantly moved to different kids to prevent us from overwhelming any one of them. The other SAS participants were able to connect better with the children when they got to talk and play one-on-one. When I travelled to Mexico in 2009, I fell in love with this young girl who got very attached to me. She introduced me to her mom and followed me around even when I was doing maintenance work on houses. Going into this orphanage, I expected the children to take to me like she did, but I didn’t have the time to work with any of them for a substantial amount of time. In the future, I need to be more creative in order to break the language barrier to connect with the kids.
I also brought my own toys from home to give to the children for them to play with. I hesitated just handing out the toys because they were already receiving so many other things and I hoped to use them as a medium for playing and bonding. I had a Cinderella doll and saw a girl with the princess on her shirt so I got to give her the doll and the two others next to her some as well. I also gave them a brush and they started to brush the dolls’ hair. This experience and their smiles made me feel a little more confident that I had done at least one thing that was significant.
When trying to interact through the language barrier, everyone tried to use different ways of connecting. I realized I usually feel more connected to the kids through humor, getting them to laugh. Without talking, I wasn’t able to do it as easily as when I am at home, so I guess it just requires more improvisation than I am used to. I also tried drawing pictures and different universal games to build a good connection. I want to work on my creativity skills when there is a language barrier because this will continue to be an issue in future projects. I can try and use more gestures or drawings to ask questions, make a child laugh or suggest activities. I also endeavor to create a connection with one child and be patient if communication is difficult.
One of the girls, Karol, drew me two pictures with her name on it and gave them to me. I had not even talked to her or seen her, yet she still felt the need to give me something. This act of charity on her part was a quintessential example of the theme of reciprocity which is a core of service learning according to Sternberger. She felt this need to give something to me as a gift and I in turn drew her a picture. The community that needs to be formed in service learning projects can only come from mutual sharing. I also was very aware of some of the different mental illnesses of many of the children. One of the girls wanted to take her tattoo off so badly she used my nail to scratch it off and then winced when it hurt her. I was at a complete loss of what to do because I could not understand her way of thinking or pattern of logic. I would have loved to spend more time to follow her patterns of behavior to get to understand what is happening in her world.
I want to explore what service was done during these couple of hours. We played with them and gave them toys but they did not really benefit from us going to play with them. We got most of the benefit because we got to play and be a part of a new cultural experience. But their lives go on the same with the same lack of stability and painful memories in their life. It is important to show these kids love and loyalty because they may not have really felt that they were truly intimate with someone or that there are people out there they can trust. I felt that we were continuing the cycle of people leaving their life. But also as discussed in class, the children enjoy the attention and enjoy knowing that we are going there to be with them. That attention and positive emotion was what they were deprived of and I guess we gave our service to them by bringing our impetus to be with them and become their friends.
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