The service component of our trip is to teach English to Indian students between the ages of 3rd grade and 8th grade. The last day of our classes we plan to do a craft with the students. Each of us on the team had to come up with a craft idea. Mine, of course, had to be the most complicated; color a whole blank piece of computer paper with crayons usings lots of colors, paint the entire sheet with black paint, let the paint dry, then use toothpicks to scratch away the black paint and draw a picture! The colors will show through the black paint and look really pretty. However, we only have 45 minutes with the kids, so the paint wouldn't have enough time to dry. My solution = color and paint the papers myself before I leave. Welllllllllll not only does it take FOREVER to color 200 half sheets of paper, even with the whole family helping, I RAN OUT OF PAINT!!! The jar looked so big....now I'm praying that they sell acryllic black paint somewhere in Chennai! My parents might hate me right now - my mom's arm is probably ready to fall off from coloring so much, and my dad drove all over the town to try and find more paint. This is just so typical...I know you're not supposed to wait until the last minute to do projects, but really we've all pulled all nighters once in our lives right? A couple times maybe?
Looks like I'll be finishing this task overseas...
But I'm off to bed! We depart Buffalo for JFK tomorrow at 11:41am. Then we leave around 7:40pm to fly over night to London, then to Chennai. The international flight should take about 16hrs. Since I'm not in bed now hopefully I'll sleep on the plane. Goodnight! xoxo
Thursday, December 31, 2009
11 Months of Preparation
My team and I have been preparing for this trip for about 11 months (some less than others). Alot of people think we will do "mission" work on this trip, but one of the very first things I learned (during my interview, actually) was that we will not "better someone's life" in two weeks. There is nothing we can do to make an impact or change in the places we will visit. This idea was reinforced during our first "Training Workshop" in January which was an All Team-Cross Cultural Awareness Workshop. We spent an afternoon together will all of the International Service Immersion Trip participants learning about the particular social justice issues we will study while in India. Our trip specifically focuses on the Dalit issue; although the Caste System is outlawed in India, it is still very much implemented in society, and it has very negative effects on the Dalits, or "Untouchables".
In February our team sold Chai tea at Canisius's International Fest to fundraise a bit and promote our team at a cultural event. International Fest is probably one of the best events on campus, and it was so much fun to participate! Plus the food is great :)
In March our team attended a presentation by Jim Keady, founder of the Team Sweat organization. He and his wife spent several months in Indonesia trying to work at a sweatshop that produces Nike products and to live on the wages the Indonesian workers made. Needless to say, they weren't successful in their task. The wages workers are paid in Third World countries are so low that the workers must work overtime on top of their already long hours just to get by. And I would hardly call their lifestyle "getting by". Jim Keady's biggest point was that Nike is one of the wealthiest companies in the world yet it does not pay it's hardest working workers fairly. Keady pointed our that Nike sponsors Tiger Woods with a multi-million dollar contract just for playing golf. At the end of the presenation Keady had us send postcards to Tiger Woods asking him to visit the workers in Indonesia. Now that Woods has produced the largest scandal in the history of golf, I'm not so sure how all of this is working out. Perhaps it is what the Indians would call "karma", no? Anyway, Keady's second point was that Catholic instituitons, including Canisius and the Catholic University of America, have contracts with Nike for apparel of sports teams - how can Catholic instutions ignore such violations of social justice issues and support Nike? For more information about this, visit www.teamsweat.org.
In April our team went on a "Plunge into Buffalo" to visit and explore different progressive organizations in Buffalo that are doing something about the justice needs in our own community. This was BY FAR my favorite training session! It was so much fun to travel through Buffalo and discover ways to support local businesses, as opposed to large corporations. The places we visited included The Nickel City Co-op, The Lexington Food Co-op, Urban Roots, El Buen Amigo, Habitat for Humanity Restore, Guercio's, Sweet Tooth, PUSH Buffalo, and Sweetness 7 Cafe. On that day we learned about the difference between free trade and fair trade. Drink the FAIR TRADE coffee people!!! :)
Over summer break we met several times to plan our lessons, crafts, and our performances. This provided some nice team bonding time. This past semester our wonderful director, Lu, graciously invited us into her home where we had a few more meetings to re-focus on why we were taking the trip to India. There are four stated purposes to our trip:
"The purpose of Canisius College's International Service Immerision trips is to increase our awareness of the world, so scandalously unjust, so complex to understand, and so hard to change."
"The purpose of this trip is to fall in love and grow in solidarity with the people of the world and especially the poor, to let their stories become our stories, to ler our voices speak for them."
"The purpose of this trip is to challenge ourselves to live simply, to value relationships that we make, to engage our faith and spirituality in the experiences we have and to dig fo the truth behind the injustices."
"The purpose of the this trip is to be open to letting our experiences transform our lives so that we can become part of the solution, so that we can become men and women for others".
In February our team sold Chai tea at Canisius's International Fest to fundraise a bit and promote our team at a cultural event. International Fest is probably one of the best events on campus, and it was so much fun to participate! Plus the food is great :)
In March our team attended a presentation by Jim Keady, founder of the Team Sweat organization. He and his wife spent several months in Indonesia trying to work at a sweatshop that produces Nike products and to live on the wages the Indonesian workers made. Needless to say, they weren't successful in their task. The wages workers are paid in Third World countries are so low that the workers must work overtime on top of their already long hours just to get by. And I would hardly call their lifestyle "getting by". Jim Keady's biggest point was that Nike is one of the wealthiest companies in the world yet it does not pay it's hardest working workers fairly. Keady pointed our that Nike sponsors Tiger Woods with a multi-million dollar contract just for playing golf. At the end of the presenation Keady had us send postcards to Tiger Woods asking him to visit the workers in Indonesia. Now that Woods has produced the largest scandal in the history of golf, I'm not so sure how all of this is working out. Perhaps it is what the Indians would call "karma", no? Anyway, Keady's second point was that Catholic instituitons, including Canisius and the Catholic University of America, have contracts with Nike for apparel of sports teams - how can Catholic instutions ignore such violations of social justice issues and support Nike? For more information about this, visit www.teamsweat.org.
In April our team went on a "Plunge into Buffalo" to visit and explore different progressive organizations in Buffalo that are doing something about the justice needs in our own community. This was BY FAR my favorite training session! It was so much fun to travel through Buffalo and discover ways to support local businesses, as opposed to large corporations. The places we visited included The Nickel City Co-op, The Lexington Food Co-op, Urban Roots, El Buen Amigo, Habitat for Humanity Restore, Guercio's, Sweet Tooth, PUSH Buffalo, and Sweetness 7 Cafe. On that day we learned about the difference between free trade and fair trade. Drink the FAIR TRADE coffee people!!! :)
Over summer break we met several times to plan our lessons, crafts, and our performances. This provided some nice team bonding time. This past semester our wonderful director, Lu, graciously invited us into her home where we had a few more meetings to re-focus on why we were taking the trip to India. There are four stated purposes to our trip:
"The purpose of Canisius College's International Service Immerision trips is to increase our awareness of the world, so scandalously unjust, so complex to understand, and so hard to change."
"The purpose of this trip is to fall in love and grow in solidarity with the people of the world and especially the poor, to let their stories become our stories, to ler our voices speak for them."
"The purpose of this trip is to challenge ourselves to live simply, to value relationships that we make, to engage our faith and spirituality in the experiences we have and to dig fo the truth behind the injustices."
"The purpose of the this trip is to be open to letting our experiences transform our lives so that we can become part of the solution, so that we can become men and women for others".
"I'm going to India!"..."What?"
A little under a year ago last January, I decided to apply for one of Campus Ministry's International Service Immersion Trips. I chose to apply to the trip to India because it was the furthest destination - I wanted to travel the East. I assumed that I would never get the chance to travel there again because India isn't exactly #1 on anyone's most desired vacation destinations list. It was a way to take advantage of an opportunity I might now have again. People always say "live your life to the fullest", so why not?
I told people that I was applying for this trip, but no one seemed to take me very seriously - especially my parents. I still remember the look on their faces when I came home one day in January and told them that I had been accepted to Team India 2010 and that I would be travelling there for two weeks the following January. Even though it was a reality at that point, all they could say was "What?". Hahahaha.
Unexpectedly, I received a similar reaction from just about everyone else I told. Very rarely did anyone give me the excited reaction that I anticipated. It never occured to me that what my ambition was unique; travelling to India isn't THAT weird, is it? But a few people did enthusiastically support my decision and I'm grateful for that.
My decision to go to India originated from a desire to travel there, but at the time I didn't know the real reason why I would go. It took me a few more months of preparation to discover this.
I told people that I was applying for this trip, but no one seemed to take me very seriously - especially my parents. I still remember the look on their faces when I came home one day in January and told them that I had been accepted to Team India 2010 and that I would be travelling there for two weeks the following January. Even though it was a reality at that point, all they could say was "What?". Hahahaha.
Unexpectedly, I received a similar reaction from just about everyone else I told. Very rarely did anyone give me the excited reaction that I anticipated. It never occured to me that what my ambition was unique; travelling to India isn't THAT weird, is it? But a few people did enthusiastically support my decision and I'm grateful for that.
My decision to go to India originated from a desire to travel there, but at the time I didn't know the real reason why I would go. It took me a few more months of preparation to discover this.
New Years' Eve
So I'm trying to finish up packing right now...it's hard to believe I leave tomorrow! It seems so surreal; I honestly can't grasp the reality that I am travelling to India in less than 24 hours!! I still have to finish up my crafts, so every second counts here. Travelling around the holidays is pretty stressful and I'm not sure I would attempt to do this again, but I guess that's a statement that must be validated once I return. I'll write more soon, this is pretty much just a test anyway.
xoxo
xoxo
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