GO Ecuador Travel Diary Day 4 - Amanda Burks

We had to sing to the students in return for them singing to us.

Day four - Thursday March 13, 2014

Today we were able to tour the third center. This center focuses on infants as well as classes. Mothers are able to bring their babies and get milk as well as checkups. The center has a doctor and also does blood and urine work when necessary. When we visited the classrooms the children sang and danced for us. The children also told us jokes. In return we had to sing for the kids as well. They were so happy to sing for us and to see us singing. The children are always happy when they are at the center even though their home life is rough. They actually get to be kids and play while at the center, as opposed to the responsibilities they have at home to work and take care of younger siblings. The children play so rough but are yet so happy. While watching the kids play a little five-year-old came up to me and wanted me to pick her up and just hold her. Just holding her made her happy. She just wanted attention. She would play with my hair and earrings, then just lay her head on my chest. It’s the small things you do for them that makes a difference.

After visiting the center, we also toured two churches, the original center, and the presidential house. Doing the tours, I was able to really experience Ecuador and the culture. I was proud of myself today because I am scared of heights and climbed up to the platform at the church. Even though I did not go all the way to the top, I was still pretty high up. I also was able to climb up into the bell tower. When I had to climb back down I was really scared. Other members of the GO team helped me with my fear of heights and I really appreciated it. They were talking me through the whole way, and even carried my book bag so I can easily navigate the steps. The GO team members started off as strangers and we are slowly becoming a family.

G.O. Ecuador Travel Diary Day 3 - Amanda Burks

On the equator

Day three - Wednesday March 12

Today we went to the center of the world. It was interesting how, depending on what side of the equator you were on, determined which direction the water drained. I never realized how much of a difference it makes being on either side of the equator. It’s amazing how you can be in the same place but just a couple of feet away and the water drains in a different direction. Later in the day, we shadowed an English class and an adult class. The little boys were good at English and were learning the names of clothes and colors. The yearlong volunteer I shadowed kept giving positive reinforcement to the boys, which I thought was really good. She had them say “I am kind,” “I am intelligent,” and “I am important” in Spanish and in English. Also when the kids were leaving, she would kiss the top of their heads and tell them she loved them. The kids don’t get attention at home and the little things she does for them make a huge difference. The adult class was very sad. It was sad because this one woman couldn’t count money. She was learning how to count money and it’s crazy to think she lived most of her life not knowing how to count money. Also, the woman couldn’t do simple addition. It is sad that they go their whole lives not knowing simple things we take advantage of. It was good that she was learning and actually trying. Also, she would doubt herself and say she wasn’t doing well when she was actually doing really well. It is a good feeling being able to help others learn and teach them simple things most people take advantage of.

G.O. Ecuador: An Experience that Few Have

Amanda and Shanna

Ecuador was an experience that not many people can get. I still have friends that have never left the United States or been on a plane before. This experience taught me more about culture and the struggles people go through in third world countries that many people in the United States do not see first hand. On this trip I was able to see how the children and families of Ecuador manage every day. One thing I notice was that the children were happy, genuinely happy unlike the children here in America. These children are not selfish unlike majority of American kids. These children enjoy playing with each other and playing with anything. When I went to visit the main center of the Center for working families, children were playing tug-of-war with a scarf. I will never understand how much happiness a scarf can bring people and I learned I sometimes take things for granted. On this trip I made friendships with people, met people from all over the world that volunteer at the center. This has been an eye-opening experience for me that created bonds that I might not even have with other people in the future, and for that I am thankful. I experienced culture and people that honestly if it were not for Global Outreach I would never even think about coming to Ecuador.

Thank you, Global Outreach.  

S.Jeudy

G.O. Ecuador Travel Diary Day 2 - Amanda Burks

Children playing during recess at the Working Boys' Center

Day two - Tuesday March 11, 2014

Today I shadowed one of the yearlong volunteers. We first went to her special needs class. The children aren’t really special needs; they are just at a lower level than they are supposed to be at. I worked with a little boy, helping him with his addition. He didn’t do the work unless I read it to him. It was like he was almost nervous to do it by himself. I worked step by step with him until he got the right answer. Some addition problems he knew right off the bat while, others he had to count on his fingers to get the answer. Even though it was a bit frustrating at times because it took him a couple of tries to get the right answer, I still didn’t give up on him. It was a learning experience for the both of us because I got to work on my Spanish while he learned to add. He would get so excited when he knew the answer right off the bat. Seeing him get excited because he knew the answer made me happy and proud.

After working with the special needs kids we went to the other center. At the second center we were teaching an English class. I worked with two boys and one of them was very eager to learn. I had a list of questions I had to ask them and they would write the answers in English. After he finished one question he would say “okay what’s the next one,” and was just so eager and excited to move on. When the other boy finished, he would show me his answers to make sure they were right and to make corrections. They were so eager to learn English and to practice it. They would ask me questions in English and then ask me how to say certain words in English. We complain about school and studying, but these kids want to learn. It was heart breaking today hearing that young girls were doing sexual favors for older men to make some money. The girls are so young and innocent it’s unreal to think that this is even going on. When I was their age I was still playing with dolls. They are only eleven and twelve years old. The part of the day that was heartwarming was my encounter with Melanie. I was sitting in the office and a random little girl just comes in and sits in the chair with me. She was shy but she would still answer the questions I asked her in a low voice. Melanie just wanted affection. It was pleasant just to sit with her and enjoy each other’s presence.

G.O. Ecuador Travel Diary Day 1 - Amanda Burks

Amanda Burks (far right) straddling the equator with other G.O. members. 

 

 

Day One - Monday March 10, 2014

            Today we were given a tour of the center. Everyone at the center was very friendly, not only the people who work there, but the people who attend the center as well. Every time you walk past someone you are greeted with “hola Buenos dias” which is very different from America because strangers don’t even look at each other and here they are happy to see you. It is amazing what the center does for families. Even at the elevator in the mall when strangers got in they greeted us while, in America we try not to make eye contact in the elevator.The children are 14 and 15 and are already learning trade schools, preparing themselves to become a professional. In America children that age are doing regular school work and are just entering high school. The center really does change people’s lives. The center is the perfect example of “give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.”

            We also went to visit some of the houses today of the people who attend the center. They are very humble people. All the houses we visited today had six or more people living in them. The houses consisted of one or two rooms and most of them did not have bathrooms. The houses were very small and had the bare minimal. People in America complain about not getting new uggs or new sneakers, while the people we met barely have roofs. The families could barely feed their children, but did not complain. The families were very humble and looked at the bright side of things. The one man told us that one day he wants to open his own bakery with his wife and rebuild his house with proper installation in addition to making it bigger. He did not complain about how hard his life is he looked into the future and told us his dream and how he wants to make his life better. The experience today touched my heart and was eye opening, it made me want to reevaluate my life. We take everything for granted when others have it way worse than we do.

G.O. Team Ecuador: We're Back!

Greetings all! Many of you followed our volunteer trip to the Working Boys' Center in Quito, Ecuador from March 9-17 on the Campus Ministry Facebook page. Over the next week and a half, we will be sharing student travel diaries that document some of their most powerful experiences of the trip.

New Gear!

Members of G.O. Team Ecuador checking out our new gear from the Saint Peter's University Book Store

Being Authentically Dominican

When people ask me what I am, I immediately, without hesitation, respond saying "Dominican." but that would be a lie. I like to think that I am Dominican because I was conceived by Dominican parents and I was born there. A few summers ago, however, I found out that those facts were not enough to make me "fully" Dominican. "You left when you were a baby, that doesn't count. You might as well have been born there!" my friends and cousins teased as I sat with them on a porch on a warm summer night. There comments enraged me because I always thought of myself to be just as Dominican as they were. The rest of the summer was filled with more mockery and insults about what a gringa I was.

This upset me, in part, because they were right. Sure I do not need a tourist card to enter the Dominican Republic. Sure I grew up listening to Aventura, Antony Santos, and Juan Luis Guerra. Sure I consider plantains their own food group, live for baseball season, rock tubis out in public more times than I would admit to, think Vick's VapoRub is the cure to any illness known to man, and I’m probably still subconsciously scared of El Cuco. Is any of that enough to make me "fully" Dominican? Or am I some fraction thereof? Regardless of all the culturally relevant things I do, I have always battled with the idea that I wasn't Dominican enough. Deep down, even though I would never admit it or say it aloud, I know that I am Dominican-American.

My mother and I immigrated to the United States when I was only two months old. Although I grew up with a deep love, pride and respect for my Dominican roots and culture, I am also Americanized. I celebrate Thanksgiving. I drive a car, not a motorcycle. I have electricity twenty-four hours a day. I know how to take buses and trains, I am fluent in English, and I really, really like McDonald's. But is it really fair for them to think of me as a lesser Dominican because I was raised in the US? After all, I am a victim of circumstance. It was my parents' choice to move to the United States. It was my parents' choice to become naturalized citizens.

This is where it gets really confusing. Not only do the Dominicans in the Dominican Republic think of me as a lesser Dominican, but the Americans in the United States think of me as a lesser American. I am looked down upon because my parents never went to college and have regular, low-paying, blue-collar jobs. To white America, I am just another Hispanic girl chasing the American dream, working part-time and attending college in order for my family to progress. In order to make my parents proud and not regret their decision to leave everything they had ever known to give my siblings and me a better life.

The faces that I received in response to me telling people that I went to McNair Academic High School are still etched into my brain. They would open their mouth and eyes really wide and say "You got into McNair?" as if it was impossible for a person of my status to be intelligent. My senior year of high school, one of my teachers confessed to me that he would have never imagined that I was such a good writer based on my appearance. Years later, I am still processing what that means. Do I not look as smart as my peers because I am Latina? I did not know that a certain type of person looked more intelligent than another. Sometimes I feel as though I have to work harder to prove myself because my ethnicity is used against me; that it’s a hindrance rather than an advantage.

In the end, you are what you identify with. Nobody can tell you to pick a side or a culture. Nobody can tell you who you are. I choose to be proud of my Dominican heritage, my traditions, my cuisine, my music and my culture. I choose to keep my roots alive. I may never be as Dominican as those who live in the Dominican Republic, but Dominican identity should not be put on a scale. I will not let others make me feel as a lesser Dominican because I do not live there. I am blessed that my parents brought me to the US for greater opportunities, and I am eternally grateful for that. I am not against assimilation into American culture, because everybody wants to fit in. I admit that I have adopted American traditions and even an American way of thinking. So what am I? I am an American by circumstance and I am a Dominican by choice. I am both. 

Nelcida L. Garcia, G.O. Team: Dominican Republic

Some Thoughts on Growing Up Black & Caribbean in the US

The initial title for this post was “To Be Doubly Dispersed.” I finally decided against it thinking that it might be too esoteric of an allusion to the African diasporas – dispersions – of which I am a part. My grandmother, Shirley, and my mother, Patricia immigrated to the US in 1968 and 1970, respectively from Trinidad & Tobago. My older brother, Alex, and I are the first US-born generation in our family. Much of my worldview, including how I think about and experience my blackness, continues to be shaped by the distinct ways that African culture was distilled in these communities.

After living and working abroad, I have come to realize how beneficial of an experience it has been to occupy these three distinct but often converging roles: that of being a US citizen in the world, of being a black man in the US, and of coming from foreign roots in a black American population that largely traces its roots to the southern states. I am aware of the power that I wield when I travel around developing countries with a US passport. Coming from a traditionally oppressed group in the US I find that viscerally I am sympathetic to populations on the unfortunate end of some of our foreign policy decisions. That is, I understand myself in relation to those people in a way that I imagine is different from many of my compatriots. The majority of my family, on their small, oil-rich island nation, is, after all, subject to US foreign policy.

Despite the rewards of this diversity, I have lived with a persistent – but not ever-present – sense of dislocation. This may be a shared experience among first generation Americans, but I have never been able to fully escape the feeling of being neither American enough, nor Caribbean enough to not feel as though one or the other part of me was not setting me apart from whichever group I was trying to blend in to. After all, my grandmother still calls me “Yankee boy,” and my friends always seem to catch the slight change in my accent when I talk to someone from the English-speaking Caribbean.

There is a limit to what we can absorb during our most formative years. When one is drawing upon several traditions – each one diverse in its own right – one is bound to miss many bits of cultural knowledge and experience. In my case, these lost opportunities can manifest themselves in minor, at times comical, confessions. To my black American friends, I might note that I still cannot play spades, and that it took me 19 years of life on this planet before I ate a single fiber of collard greens. (Have a black friend explain.) On the other hand, I am terrible at all the Trinidadian card games that my grandmother taught me growing up – and my cousins enjoy reminding me of that. Individually, this sort of thing is not devastating, but taken together with similar occurrences, I quickly began to realize growing up that my blackness was taking on a slightly different flavor than the groups by which I had been influenced.

Dwayne David Paul, Asst. Director of Campus Ministry, G.O. coordinator

My Experience of Ethnic Difference

As humans beings we are all the same and even our DNA is similar, but some of the human beings do not want to be considered part of the same or one large group of people.  In actuality, most of the humans do share some form of similarities, but end up leading to social issues based on race, color, class, gender, sexuality and colonial history that clashes with various groups of people for being different. However, I was not exposed to the social issues brought on by just being different until I moved to United States from Pakistan at the age of seven.  At first I felt out of place and tried to fit in by not losing my true identity and traditions.  The main reason for us moving to the U.S. was for my parents to raise their children in a better environment, receive good educations and to have a brighter future; however, I was shocked to see social issues caused by people judging each other for being different. 

Every human being is a human being—who is unique and different form everyone around them (also including myself).  I was not born in the U.S. but was born in Pakistan and moved to the U.S. when I was about seven years old. Most of the people in are not originally from here, but have been living here since their ancestors came across the ocean on crowded boats or the recent ones who came on an airplane. As a newcomer in a strange landscape, I felt like I did not belong here and people would judge me for being different. I did not let my difference bother me when I came to live in an area that does not welcome newcomers.

I had lived in Pennsylvania for two years, in a small town, an hour drive away from Philadelphia.  The community and school district were not diverse at all. The majority of the people were Caucasian; it was an eyeopening experience. Conversely, Jersey City is a multicultural community, and cannot go anywhere without seeing or meeting people of different backgrounds.  Whenever you go for a walk or run an errand you might end up meeting people from Ghana, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Egypt, Dominican Republic, Ireland, Greece and Haiti, among others. 

Most the people might think racial or social issues to be old news, but the problem still exists today, and thrives in parts of the world.  One of the places around the world where racial and ethnic differences still exist is the Dominican Republic. GO Team: Dominican Republic will visit small towns or villages where people from Haiti have settled and mixed themselves with the Dominicans, thereby adopting two identities. I hope to get to know their views in order to understand the causes of the racial and ethnic issues with which they are dealing.

Shahroze Ahmad, G.O. Team: Dominican Republic