What no man is...?
I love that every day is a unique experience filled with lessons and realizations waiting to be uncovered.
I love how I haul myself out of bed despite only three or two (or zero) hours of sleep because I know what I do matters.
And its not the results, its not the numbers and magnitude that counts. It’s the journey, and the people you meet along that journey. So training 300 public school teachers is not as important as the relationship I built with that town. And handing out 3000 relief packs is not as significant as sharing the experience with the students in my team. Our business is hope, my boss said. We have to spread hope where there is little and make hope where there is none. Yesterday I lead the first clean up team at Brookside. The water and mud reached up to the third floor of the school building. We saw the mud marks left at the top branches of trees. 2 of the volunteers with me got injured from broken shards in the mud. One almost fainted from the smell of rot emitted by the mud. When I told the students that we had to leave, they all looked at me in disbelief. They didn’t want to go, not until the job was done. I didn’t tell them that it wouldn’t end, that rebuilding takes time, sometimes months and years to accomplish. As we filed out through the alley, residents greeted them and thanked them for their help. These people where not hopeless, they were already rebuilding their homes. Their community leader gave me a hug upon seeing the look on my face. Don’t be so upset, she said, they are fine and they are now rebuilding. All will be well again.
If I were to stick to products and numbers, then I’d probably be frustrated with the results of a day’s worth of hauling mud. But that’s not what this job is about. In GK, things like results and effectiveness are not as important as relationships. So in the end, the day went well because I got 50 students to care for a village and I got a village to feel that they are cared for by 50 students.
Everybody is told to go home and prepare for the coming storm. Outside, it is quiet - too quiet. It scares me because the calm before the storm foretells the magnitude of the storm. Tonight is a very calm night.
The GK workers insisted on having dinner before we leave. We are all thinking the same thing, that we might not see each other this weekend. Once again Tung brings up the fact that I’m turning into an old maid. I really don’t mind. Like I said, I love my job and before I decided to make this life-changing decision to become a GK worker, I considered all the consequences that it entailed. Having no time to rest is part of those consequences. My last day off was August 30, 2009. Since then I have been working nonstop from Monday to Sunday, with staggered sleeping periods. Having no time for a social life is another.
I really don’t mind, I keep reminding myself. Because I’ve never felt this happy before. But sometimes it bothers me. When I’m not in the village, when I’m not working, when I’m alone in my room and the night is too calm to be right and I have nothing but my thoughts to keep me company because everyone I know is asleep, it bothers me that despite being able to fulfill my dream every day I still feel lonely at nights like this.
A big storm is coming. And I have the whole weekend to rest.
Rest???
I don’t think so.
I love how I haul myself out of bed despite only three or two (or zero) hours of sleep because I know what I do matters.
And its not the results, its not the numbers and magnitude that counts. It’s the journey, and the people you meet along that journey. So training 300 public school teachers is not as important as the relationship I built with that town. And handing out 3000 relief packs is not as significant as sharing the experience with the students in my team. Our business is hope, my boss said. We have to spread hope where there is little and make hope where there is none. Yesterday I lead the first clean up team at Brookside. The water and mud reached up to the third floor of the school building. We saw the mud marks left at the top branches of trees. 2 of the volunteers with me got injured from broken shards in the mud. One almost fainted from the smell of rot emitted by the mud. When I told the students that we had to leave, they all looked at me in disbelief. They didn’t want to go, not until the job was done. I didn’t tell them that it wouldn’t end, that rebuilding takes time, sometimes months and years to accomplish. As we filed out through the alley, residents greeted them and thanked them for their help. These people where not hopeless, they were already rebuilding their homes. Their community leader gave me a hug upon seeing the look on my face. Don’t be so upset, she said, they are fine and they are now rebuilding. All will be well again.
If I were to stick to products and numbers, then I’d probably be frustrated with the results of a day’s worth of hauling mud. But that’s not what this job is about. In GK, things like results and effectiveness are not as important as relationships. So in the end, the day went well because I got 50 students to care for a village and I got a village to feel that they are cared for by 50 students.
Everybody is told to go home and prepare for the coming storm. Outside, it is quiet - too quiet. It scares me because the calm before the storm foretells the magnitude of the storm. Tonight is a very calm night.
The GK workers insisted on having dinner before we leave. We are all thinking the same thing, that we might not see each other this weekend. Once again Tung brings up the fact that I’m turning into an old maid. I really don’t mind. Like I said, I love my job and before I decided to make this life-changing decision to become a GK worker, I considered all the consequences that it entailed. Having no time to rest is part of those consequences. My last day off was August 30, 2009. Since then I have been working nonstop from Monday to Sunday, with staggered sleeping periods. Having no time for a social life is another.
I really don’t mind, I keep reminding myself. Because I’ve never felt this happy before. But sometimes it bothers me. When I’m not in the village, when I’m not working, when I’m alone in my room and the night is too calm to be right and I have nothing but my thoughts to keep me company because everyone I know is asleep, it bothers me that despite being able to fulfill my dream every day I still feel lonely at nights like this.
A big storm is coming. And I have the whole weekend to rest.
Rest???
I don’t think so.