It's the Little Things

Volunteering I believe attracts people for the cultural experience it offers, the opportunity to learn a new language, and above all, the possibility of to make a difference. In college I spent spring breaks building houses, participating in hurricane relief, and making programs for community development. As part of my service fraternity, I tutored low-achieving students, did trash clean-up in Williamsburg, and sold cookies, candy grams, and anything else I could bake to benefit relief organizations. And I felt good.

In those short-term volunteer experiences, I felt I had made a difference. Perhaps because there was some tangible evidence of my work. I could see the difference in the form of the foundation of a new house I had laid over the week, or in the completion of a homework assignment of one of my students. Here at NPH, however, I have found my volunteer experience not so life-changing for the community I am helping as I perhaps was disillusioned to believe before.

I'm heading into the last third of my volunteer year. While I know I have grown in leaps and bounds and have personally benefited from this experience more than I could have imagined, I am forced to think how others have benefited from me. There's where I draw the blank. This time, I don't feel so good.

Upon reflection of the volunteer community of Cuernavaca, I know we've established a firm "gringa" presence in the high school home. Our kids have grown used to hearing people speak Spanish with an accent (and have given them an extra person to make fun of). We have given them an extra person to help with their English homework. They have someone who can bring them yummy chocolate from the US and hand-me downs. They have a free movie rental shop from our large selection of movies we've acquired. They have been introduced to my all-time favorite dessert of brownies.

All joking aside, the moments in which I see any real benefit of my presence at NPH usually are far and few between. I became unusually discouraged this past week because of the little tangible evidence I could see that my presence makes any difference. There are no houses that I've built that gives shelter to a family in need or park that I've cleared of trash so wildlife can live more safely.

This past Tuesday, while still feeling discouraged, I headed to the high school to help in the English classes as usual. That day we listened to Cold Play's "Viva La Vida" while the kids tried to fill in the blanks where words were missing in the lyrics. One of my students, Juan, became quickly discouraged when he got lost after the first refrain. In frustration he yells "I hate this song! Why didn't you pick another one?" and puts his head on his desk. At this point I decide to sit next to him and start singing the song along with the CD player. Juan picked up his head making his paper visible. For the next two repeats of the song we followed the lyrics with my pencil touching every word. Upon filling in the last missing word Juan boasted to the class "I'm done, haha," as many of them were still filling in the lyrics.

While I walked around to the other students, I glanced over at Juan every so often who was singing along with the words. At one point he caught my eyes and told me "I like this song." He asked for more songs by Cold Play.

As corny as it might be, Juan cheered me up quite a bit. He made me realize, there is probably no big change I will make here. Let's be realistic. Prior to my arrival I though one year in Mexico would give me the opportunity to make things happen. In reality, a year is how much time one needs to acclimate, to learn, to establish one's presence and validity in an organization before even proposing those big ideas. Big ideas take time, and in the span of an organization, a year, my year, is a fraction of what it took to bring NPH to where it is today.

As I've only got a year, I believe I have to readjust my goals and give a little more credit to the little things.