Bazillions of thoughts

I’ve adopted my old habit of burrowing myself into a book… I went through “Hunger Games.” Definitely recommend that. Now I’m reading one called “United For Zion: Principles For Uniting The Saints To Eliminate Poverty.” AKA a gospel approach to poverty. Really interesting!

And now for an amazing quote to start off today’s blog!

“One reason many people offer charity rather than promoting self-reliance is that the latter is tougher to achieve. Charity requires only pity. We feel sorry for people in their predicament and make a generous gesture to offer temporary assistance. Self-reliance requires more than pity. It calls for discernment. And discernment demands relationship. We cannot fully discern someone’s situation whom we don’t know well. Thus, a gospel approach to economic development is built on relationship and discernment with those being helped. It requires a careful understanding of their needs, resources, and challenges. This information can then be incorporated into the strategy of assistance that is consistent with principles like spiritual motivation, cooperation and self-reliance….by creating a relationship first, we can work with those in poverty to jointly assess needs, a process that inevitably yields better results. By doing so we literally “become one” with them. As you can see, creating self-reliance is more complex than simple charity. That’s why so little of it is done. And yet, self-reliance is the only enduring solution.”

BAM.

That depicts my latest struggles in being here. Every day is an adventure to add to my life’s list of greatest adventures, whether I am flailing my arms out the taxi (full-sized van) window; reading a book under the super fluffy, bright blue clouds; playing tic-tac-toe in the dirt with kids; watching women walk with baskets of fruit on their heads; kids playing futbol in the fields; walking past schools and mosks on every corner; boda (motorcycle) rides with my arms out like a bird; breaking my $25 equivalent bills in the supermarket over packs of 15 cent cookies; jumping the gate of our house to get into the compound in the pouring rain while we are locked outside our house—so just dancing in the rain to pass the time; nights of weird sleep patterns; eating peanut butter and jelly on spoons at 3 in the morning to curb my weird cravings; eating chapats (chapatti—flour tortillas) for essentially EVERY meal; planning my life out….

Well, those are my daily adventures. Steering away from THOSE, I want to take a sec to talk about what goes on upstairs.

For the last week, I’ve really started to drag my feet. Frustration comes easily, especially when I realize that me coming in for 4 months with the mentality that I’m really going to make a lasting impact on this society is almost laughable. So many people have come before me, having EXTENSIVE knowledge on how international development really works. So I dragged my feet, kind of hoping for the oncoming weeks to pass by, and do so quickly, so that I can return home back where I don’t feel the obligation to really MAKE a change—where I could return to my selfish life of looking after my life and my future, and not having to bear the weight of not this society specifically, but ALL developing countries. Having come here and gotten a TASTE of development, I feel like I’m almost addicted. I can’t picture me going home and just moving on from this experience. I really see my life path shifting to make room to further myself in this work and the work of development itself. So… we’re to the point of Cecilly being frustrated because I can’t make a big change. I’d go to meetings and do teachings, trainings, but half-heartedly. Wednesday morning, in fact, I stole the day for myself and read “Hunger Games” in the compound, after everyone left. Funny story. Everyone was going out for the day, and I hid in a little nook on the side of the house, deep in my book. I had a meeting to go to in a couple hours, and I heard the last person leave the house and lock it up as they left. Now I was locked OUTSIDE of the house, INSIDE of my yard, all alone, with only my swimsuit on. I couldn’t leave because I’d be by myself, for one. Secondly, I had no skirt—just my swimsuit on my body. I contemplated coming out from hiding and joining them—I wouldn’t be able to just stay by myself. Instead, though, I kept up my adventure in Panem. If you’ve read “Hunger Games,” you get it. Thankfully, a group coming home met the leavers at the gate. As they wrestled with unlocking the padlocked door, they peeked down the alleyway/crook I was scrunched up in. Kyle just stared, and I motioned a “sshhhh” to him. He just left, laughing. One by one, they peeked at me, took a picture, and made fun of me to no end. Good times.

ANYWAY. Man, I get on tangents of stories! In calling home, a lot of the things that mom, dad, and Chris said really helped me to change my perspective. Example: you can only do so much for someone until you really turn it over to them to carry on the work. So even though I see potential problems in the projects, until I really come to believe that they WILL sustain them when we’re gone.

Today about 6 of us went to a rural school and finished building the adobe stove we started last week. This schoolmaster, Isaac, is incredible! He started this school a couple years ago after insane trials, and now they are beginning to be self-sustainable. Anyway, this school is in the middle of almost nowhere, and the landscape is BEAUTIFUL! I got to thinking, as we were there, how even though maybe I can’t change the whole world, there is so much I CAN do: every person we work with, I want to really come to KNOW. The best guarantee a project will last is when it is what the people WANT. I think I know how to help them, but if they don’t want my idea, I’m wasting time and resources.

Probably the most important characteristic I’ve learned to develop here is that of adaptability. My mind has been so malleable, so “dynamic” as a good friend, Godfrey, would say. My mind has never THOUGHT so much in all my life, and perhaps that is what my grades reflect.

I have to leave far before I want to today; I’ll prolly post more soon. Loves!