Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Energy & Passion :)


Throughout this summer experience, I was able to put my Spanish translation skills to use, enjoy many evenings dodging cow pies while playing soccer games in town, and participate in many El Porvenir community initiatives. The group of eight VT students jumped right into initiatives such as domestic garden promotion with a local agronomist, an empowerment/exercise/nutrition club with a local group of women, beach reforestation with the local high school students and the local tourism committee, dengue prevention outreach with the local clinic, computer classes with middle school students, and water sanitation talks with the local water committee. As you can see, we kept ourselves busy.


In addition to putting effort into community projects, my group had the opportunity to experience Honduran culture as well. Personally, I visited a Garifuna (Afro-Honduran) community, re-discovered my love for baleadas (typical Honduran food consisting of a fresh tortilla, beans, eggs, and cheese) and horchata (common drink consisting mainly of peanuts, rice milk, and sugar), overcame my fear of huge beetles and geckos, woke up to roosters, learned how to dance Honduran style, rode two-sies on a broken bike, and fell in love with the sight of jagged mountains and beach sunsets.


It was an amazing trip, and the memories I will take with me are tremendous.


But upon reflecting further, I am beginning to wonder what the main benefit was from my individual presence in the community. I gained many great memories and a better understanding of community-led development from working in El Porvenir, but what did the people that I met and the students with whom I worked gain from me?


With the help of Virginia Tech and an international service nonprofit called Peacework, I first visited El Porvenir and started the partnership between the community and the Virginia Tech Honors program a little over two years ago. At the time, I assumed the main benefits of this partnership would be students getting practical experience related to their field of study and the El Porvenir community using the technical knowledge that the students would bring to community initiatives.


But, after working in the El Porvenir community on three separate occasions, spending four semesters preparing a group of students to partner with El Porvenir on the implementation of community programs, and finally bringing a student group to work in the community, my perspective has changed. I have realized that my role of making the connection between students and community members was not just to create a space where the community could take advantage of knowledge resources and students could get practical experience.

For both the student group and the El Porvenir community groups, the connection was to show them that other people in this world truly care about tackling the tough problems that people face every day.


Realistically, the aspiring firefighters from El Porvenir whom my group worked with might never be able to raise enough money to finish their firehouse, the local agronomist may never be able to help all of the El Porvenir families with successful home gardens, and some of the Virginia Tech students in my group may not be able to travel outside the country to work on a project like this ever again.


But, as I sat through an El Porvenir women’s empowerment/exercise/nutrition club meeting and watched the leader speak about her future goals for the club, and as I listened attentively at an interest meeting with the new Ut Prosim El Porvenir class leaders and watched them talk about their future goals for the class, the excitement and passion through which all parties spoke was palpable. The passionate energy I helped unite by bringing these people together has given all parties involved an example of what it means to join in solidarity across difference, care ardently about issues that are universal to the human condition, and work together towards tackling life’s tough problems.


-Emily :)