I can't believe that two months have almost passed. This week we are finishing up training and getting ready to head to our sites. Thursday we will all travel to San Sal, Friday we will meet our community counterparts, and then be sworn in at the U.S. Embassy and then Saturday we travel to our sites. I am technically in the department of San Miguel, but am also really close to the department of La Union. I will be about 25 minutes away from the city of San Miguel, which is the second largest city in El Salvador. It's nice that I will be close to a larger city where I can get lots of crazy food so that I can cook whatever I want! I will be the first volunteer in my site, which is exciting, but also a little nerve-racking. I will be working with a school of 500 kids, which is larger than my high school! Though hopefully that means that there will be more resources available to me in terms of energy and ideas from students and teachers alike.
This entire experience has still not settled in for me, I think because for me it doesn't feel like anything has started. I'm not in my site yet, I don't have my house set up - I'm still floating around in training land. I think once I meet my counterparts and move in, this whole two years dealy-bob will begin to sink in. I am so grateful for my wonderful homestay family in my training community and I can't wait to visit them again for holidays and family occasions. I only hope that I can have as good, or even better relationship with my homestay family, neighbors and counterparts in my site.
I am a little bummed because all of my friends from my training community are assigned sites on the other side of the country. The good thing is that I will be able to travel and get to their sites within one day if I want. It's also a good excuse to go and see more of El Salvador. Being close to San Miguel also means that people can get to me pretty easily as well, so maybe I will have vistors! (Peace Corps and otherwise.)
Even though I'm two months in, I really feel that this journey is just beginning. I will try and update again sometime soon, but I don't know how my internet will be in my new site. Wish me luck! Thinking of you all.
August 31, 2009
August 18, 2009
first class
I have officially taught my first class in El Salvador to Salvadoran kids. It was an English class that I gave to 6th graders. Almost the entire lesson was in Spanish though, with a few English words thrown in, so I’m counting it as my first class in Spanish! I’ve already learned a few things about teaching.
1) I stink at time management. I planned for the lesson to be 45 minutes long, but I was done after about 30! Part of it was not my fault, as the children knew more of the verbs than I thought they would, so we flew through some of the sections. I should have had more back up activities, or just done the ones that they liked a lot a few more times. I’ll remember that for next time.
2) Kids love to get up and learn. For my English class I was allowed to pick my own topic, so I asked some of the kids in the class beforehand what they wanted to learn. They said action verbs. I decided to do TPR (total physical recall) that we always used in Señora Kule’s Spanish class at FVS. We would recite the words in Spanish and do some action that would remind us of the word. I figured for action verbs that was a no-brainer! I picked 15 verbs because there are 30 kids in the class. The verbs ranged from swim, run, and eat, to hug, cross and lift. We also played “Simon Says” with the action verbs as well as a find-your-verb-partner. I had written all 15 verbs in English and Spanish on separate sheets of paper so I could hand them out to each student and then have them all get up and find their partner. I should have played that game 700 times they loved it so much. I especially liked it because the kids were really great about helping each other out to figure out what verb they had on their piece of paper, and then who their partner was.
3) The kids were really forgiving and made my first class a breeze. I know a handful of the kids in the class either from my host family or from the group of kids that we’ve been working with in the community. They were very excited to help out and show me what they know. Also, gringo TV—stare at the gringo ‘cause they might do something incredibly interesting—is fairly popular here so getting and holding their attention is not too much of a challenge!
So all and all I think my class was a success. I guess I could randomly poll the kids to see if they remember any of the verbs to know for sure, but I was pleased with their performance in class. I clearly have things I need to work on (time management!) but I’ll have plenty of opportunities to get better. I plan on teaching another English class before we go to our own sites. One last chance to mess up in front of a forgiving audience!
1) I stink at time management. I planned for the lesson to be 45 minutes long, but I was done after about 30! Part of it was not my fault, as the children knew more of the verbs than I thought they would, so we flew through some of the sections. I should have had more back up activities, or just done the ones that they liked a lot a few more times. I’ll remember that for next time.
2) Kids love to get up and learn. For my English class I was allowed to pick my own topic, so I asked some of the kids in the class beforehand what they wanted to learn. They said action verbs. I decided to do TPR (total physical recall) that we always used in Señora Kule’s Spanish class at FVS. We would recite the words in Spanish and do some action that would remind us of the word. I figured for action verbs that was a no-brainer! I picked 15 verbs because there are 30 kids in the class. The verbs ranged from swim, run, and eat, to hug, cross and lift. We also played “Simon Says” with the action verbs as well as a find-your-verb-partner. I had written all 15 verbs in English and Spanish on separate sheets of paper so I could hand them out to each student and then have them all get up and find their partner. I should have played that game 700 times they loved it so much. I especially liked it because the kids were really great about helping each other out to figure out what verb they had on their piece of paper, and then who their partner was.
3) The kids were really forgiving and made my first class a breeze. I know a handful of the kids in the class either from my host family or from the group of kids that we’ve been working with in the community. They were very excited to help out and show me what they know. Also, gringo TV—stare at the gringo ‘cause they might do something incredibly interesting—is fairly popular here so getting and holding their attention is not too much of a challenge!
So all and all I think my class was a success. I guess I could randomly poll the kids to see if they remember any of the verbs to know for sure, but I was pleased with their performance in class. I clearly have things I need to work on (time management!) but I’ll have plenty of opportunities to get better. I plan on teaching another English class before we go to our own sites. One last chance to mess up in front of a forgiving audience!
August 7, 2009
happiness on a bus
Just about every single morning I’m up at 5 or 5:30. Some mornings it’s because of the cows (vacas), roosters (gallos), buses (buses), or venders (vendedores); other mornings it’s because I’m going to “hacer ejercicio” (to make exercise) with my fellow Molineros trainees. Sometimes that means running straight up a hill for 30-40 minutes, depending when we want to turn around, or doing yoga on my patio, surrounded by curious dogs, chickens, ducks and host relatives. We always invite them to join in, but no luck! “Maybe later”, they say.
If we don’t have class here in Molineros, we travel to San Vicente. The bus schedules don’t seem to be organized in any way that I have figured out yet, but luckily our host parents know exactly which bus is passing at what time to get us where we need to go. The public transportation system is privatized here like it is in Argentina and India. Anyone can create a bus route, you just need to register with the Department of Transportation. So this means that you get bus routes like 178A that go from Verapaz to San Vicente, (which is the only bus that we can take that takes us directly to and from where we need to go). The 500 goes from Guadalupe to San Vicente, but only in the mornings, in the afternoons it turns around before our stop. Waaaaay before our stop. We only made that mistake once! The 501 however goes from Guadalupe to San Salvador, completely in the opposite direction that we need to go. The 301, 302, 303, 304, 305 and 306 all travel between San Miguel and San Salvador and come by about every 10 minutes. Other buses come only twice a day. Etc. etc. etc. all around the country.
I love public transportation (as long as I get a seat!). There is something about sharing a ride with other people, seeing the country and experiencing it all together that literally puts a smile on my face when I travel. Coming back from immersion days, I had a big goofy grin. It’s a good thing I was up near the front, because I’m sure if anyone had seen me, they would have thought I was even crazier than they already think the gringa traveler is. The bus that I was on had the front door more towards the middle of the bus so there are seats right up next to the driver, essentially sitting in the passenger seat of the bus. That’s where I was sitting. So I got an almost 180 degree view of El Salvador coming back from immersion days (more about immersion days later). Most of the buses here are old school buses. Someone said that a bunch of them are donated by school systems in the States. I’m not sure, but it seems like it. You can sometimes see the old lettering on the side that says “Montgomery County Public Schools” of “Ridgewood Elementary School”. All the buses are painted fabulous colors on the outside, with lots of decorations on the inside. There is normally music on the buses, and it’s normally loud and cheesy 80s pop. I’ve gotten off the bus to Lady in Red more than once.
The volunteer that I was visiting this weekend, Emily, said that if you are an impulse buyer, you might have trouble in El Salvador because the venders come on to the bus to sell you things. Anything. Everything. I’ve witnessed the sale of chiclet, newspapers, pre-made sandwiches, meat on a stick, coconut water in bags, little notebooks, anatomy textbooks, English workbooks, salvation and chips. I haven’t purchased anything yet, but I might get some roasted peanuts or toasted coconut the next time one of those venders gets on the bus.
The immersion days experience was a four day, three night immersion in the site of a current volunteer. We did a home stay in their community, in the hopes that we would be completely immersed in Spanish and Salvadoran culture for at least 24 hours without any of our fellow gringos to fall back on. It kind of worked, except that the volunteer I was visiting lived right across the street from my host family. My family was waving goodnight and chatting across the street, but it still worked! After the home stay, I got to follow around Emily and do what she does on a daily basis. I helped her give an environmental charla (chat) which is probably what I will be doing a lot of. On Saturday I got to go with her environmental club to one of their reward excursions. We went to the Barra de Santiago, a 2.5 hour ride in the back of a truck to a beach/bay/mangrove forest area. It was beautiful and so nice to see how a volunteer is making progress with her kids. After touring the mangrove area in a boat, we took the kids to the beach. Emily had told the kids that they could tell their parents they would be extra safe on this trip because they were traveling with a lifeguard (me!). First of all, my certification expired two years ago, I was trained for swimming pools, not surf, and generally most of the people I was guarding had some modest amount of swimming lessons. It was just me, 25 salvadoran children and the Pacific ocean. The waves here are pretty serious, and there is a fairly mean undercurrent, not to mention that the tide was going out anyway. Luckily, there were some other volunteers that joined us on the beach that day, with their trainees that were shadowing them, so we just made a gringo wall and had the children play in the waves between us and the beach. It worked out well enough, but we all probably got knocked over a couple of times.
I’m so excited to finally be getting ideas about what I can do in my site. I’m having a blast seeing this country and learning more about the people and the language. I love spending time with the other trainees and my host family. I’m enjoying training for the most part but can’t wait to get to my site, wherever it may be. I’m thrilled to be here, and can’t wait to share it with whoever wants to come down and visit me!
If we don’t have class here in Molineros, we travel to San Vicente. The bus schedules don’t seem to be organized in any way that I have figured out yet, but luckily our host parents know exactly which bus is passing at what time to get us where we need to go. The public transportation system is privatized here like it is in Argentina and India. Anyone can create a bus route, you just need to register with the Department of Transportation. So this means that you get bus routes like 178A that go from Verapaz to San Vicente, (which is the only bus that we can take that takes us directly to and from where we need to go). The 500 goes from Guadalupe to San Vicente, but only in the mornings, in the afternoons it turns around before our stop. Waaaaay before our stop. We only made that mistake once! The 501 however goes from Guadalupe to San Salvador, completely in the opposite direction that we need to go. The 301, 302, 303, 304, 305 and 306 all travel between San Miguel and San Salvador and come by about every 10 minutes. Other buses come only twice a day. Etc. etc. etc. all around the country.
I love public transportation (as long as I get a seat!). There is something about sharing a ride with other people, seeing the country and experiencing it all together that literally puts a smile on my face when I travel. Coming back from immersion days, I had a big goofy grin. It’s a good thing I was up near the front, because I’m sure if anyone had seen me, they would have thought I was even crazier than they already think the gringa traveler is. The bus that I was on had the front door more towards the middle of the bus so there are seats right up next to the driver, essentially sitting in the passenger seat of the bus. That’s where I was sitting. So I got an almost 180 degree view of El Salvador coming back from immersion days (more about immersion days later). Most of the buses here are old school buses. Someone said that a bunch of them are donated by school systems in the States. I’m not sure, but it seems like it. You can sometimes see the old lettering on the side that says “Montgomery County Public Schools” of “Ridgewood Elementary School”. All the buses are painted fabulous colors on the outside, with lots of decorations on the inside. There is normally music on the buses, and it’s normally loud and cheesy 80s pop. I’ve gotten off the bus to Lady in Red more than once.
The volunteer that I was visiting this weekend, Emily, said that if you are an impulse buyer, you might have trouble in El Salvador because the venders come on to the bus to sell you things. Anything. Everything. I’ve witnessed the sale of chiclet, newspapers, pre-made sandwiches, meat on a stick, coconut water in bags, little notebooks, anatomy textbooks, English workbooks, salvation and chips. I haven’t purchased anything yet, but I might get some roasted peanuts or toasted coconut the next time one of those venders gets on the bus.
The immersion days experience was a four day, three night immersion in the site of a current volunteer. We did a home stay in their community, in the hopes that we would be completely immersed in Spanish and Salvadoran culture for at least 24 hours without any of our fellow gringos to fall back on. It kind of worked, except that the volunteer I was visiting lived right across the street from my host family. My family was waving goodnight and chatting across the street, but it still worked! After the home stay, I got to follow around Emily and do what she does on a daily basis. I helped her give an environmental charla (chat) which is probably what I will be doing a lot of. On Saturday I got to go with her environmental club to one of their reward excursions. We went to the Barra de Santiago, a 2.5 hour ride in the back of a truck to a beach/bay/mangrove forest area. It was beautiful and so nice to see how a volunteer is making progress with her kids. After touring the mangrove area in a boat, we took the kids to the beach. Emily had told the kids that they could tell their parents they would be extra safe on this trip because they were traveling with a lifeguard (me!). First of all, my certification expired two years ago, I was trained for swimming pools, not surf, and generally most of the people I was guarding had some modest amount of swimming lessons. It was just me, 25 salvadoran children and the Pacific ocean. The waves here are pretty serious, and there is a fairly mean undercurrent, not to mention that the tide was going out anyway. Luckily, there were some other volunteers that joined us on the beach that day, with their trainees that were shadowing them, so we just made a gringo wall and had the children play in the waves between us and the beach. It worked out well enough, but we all probably got knocked over a couple of times.
I’m so excited to finally be getting ideas about what I can do in my site. I’m having a blast seeing this country and learning more about the people and the language. I love spending time with the other trainees and my host family. I’m enjoying training for the most part but can’t wait to get to my site, wherever it may be. I’m thrilled to be here, and can’t wait to share it with whoever wants to come down and visit me!
July 27, 2009
how big can you dream?
We are currently in the throws of community based-training. Buried in one of the bajillion pieces of paper that Peace Corps sent us to read before we left was a basic description of our training. They outlined two types. One is classroom based and the other is community based. The community based one is new and only being used in selective areas. What do you know that El Salvador is one of those areas? This means that for the next 6 weeks (to make a total of 8 weeks) we will be living and working within host communities. Our Spanish teacher comes to us and we have class in a fellow trainee’s host family’s home. (We aren’t volunteers until we are sworn in.) We also do community contact activities within our host community to get used to going up to people and asking for help on such and such an activity. We go in groups so it’s not as daunting, but really, when we get to our assigned sites, it’s only going to be us, so we better be ready! We also travel to the PC training center in San Vicente at least once a week for health classes and policy and procedure training as a entire group (all 33 of us, as opposed to the 5-6 people that live in a host community.)
After two months of community based language and culture training, we are sworn in, assigned our sites, travel to our sites and move in, and make community contacts for two months. We go to people’s homes, introduce ourselves, hold meetings etc. Then after those two months, we come back to San Vicente for 2 weeks of intense technical training. This not only allows us to focus more on our Spanish at the beginning, when that’s what we really need, but it also allows us to come back to technical training with specific questions and ideas from our sites that can be shared and worked out with the larger group. It sounds like a great way to do training.
One of the community contacts that we are currently working on is an activity that lasts the entire 2 months that we are in our host communities. We are supposed to engage with a local youth group, identify a problem, or problems in our community that can be alleviated or eliminated by an activity, and then we plan, execute and “celebrate” our activity. We have found a group of kids to work with and we had our first meeting. Instead of asking the kids to identify “problems” in their community, we asked the kids to come up with their ideal community. They could draw, discuss, list, write or describe whatever community they wanted. If their ideal community is one with a giant purple elephant, we wanted them to say that. (Our group of kids ranges in age from 11-14.)
I was not expecting it to be so hard to get 20 engaged and active youth to dream. We had split up in to smaller groups to try to make everyone comfortable, and divided the gringos up among each group of kids to facilitate. Most of the children described communities with larger schools, larger churches, more soccer fields, cleaner rivers and more cars. I’m not trying to suggest that these are invalid answers, because from what I can see, this community could use all of those things, but I wanted the children to have fun and think about themselves for a while.
I guess I was expecting them to say they wanted a big park or a bike trail, or a swimming pool, or a basketball hoop. Maybe I’m placing what I think they should want on them. I do think that some of the kids wanted to say things like that, but were just shy. However, I’m also convinced that the children’s responses were what they were partly because they have never been asked to dream before.
In one of our larger-group development sessions we were talking about how it’s often hard for people with fewer opportunities and experiences to think about their hopes and dreams, especially when they are never asked that question with any frequency. As children growing up in America, we are frequently asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?!” Most children will shout something fantastic or outrageous: ballerina, fireman, president, doctor, veterinarian, blue elevator or whatever it may be. Ask the children here, and they will say farmer, teacher, mom. Again, I’m not trying to say that these are “wrong” answers by any means, because this community surely does need farmers and moms and teachers, but I was expecting kids here to be kids. And I’m sure there are kids here that dream of being fabulous things when they grow up, but I didn’t expect to receive the responses we did when we asked for an “ideal” community. I am beginning to see the reality of what we were discussing in that development session. I’m curious to see how this plays out in whatever site I’m eventually placed in. I plan on doing community visioning in my site, but I’m wondering how much of a challenge that will be? I need to start thinking of ways to get people who don’t normally dream to do so.
We will continue working with this group of kids to identify some activity they want to do to make their community more like the ideal that they created. Hopefully with a little more prodding from us we can encourage them to start thinking big.
After two months of community based language and culture training, we are sworn in, assigned our sites, travel to our sites and move in, and make community contacts for two months. We go to people’s homes, introduce ourselves, hold meetings etc. Then after those two months, we come back to San Vicente for 2 weeks of intense technical training. This not only allows us to focus more on our Spanish at the beginning, when that’s what we really need, but it also allows us to come back to technical training with specific questions and ideas from our sites that can be shared and worked out with the larger group. It sounds like a great way to do training.
One of the community contacts that we are currently working on is an activity that lasts the entire 2 months that we are in our host communities. We are supposed to engage with a local youth group, identify a problem, or problems in our community that can be alleviated or eliminated by an activity, and then we plan, execute and “celebrate” our activity. We have found a group of kids to work with and we had our first meeting. Instead of asking the kids to identify “problems” in their community, we asked the kids to come up with their ideal community. They could draw, discuss, list, write or describe whatever community they wanted. If their ideal community is one with a giant purple elephant, we wanted them to say that. (Our group of kids ranges in age from 11-14.)
I was not expecting it to be so hard to get 20 engaged and active youth to dream. We had split up in to smaller groups to try to make everyone comfortable, and divided the gringos up among each group of kids to facilitate. Most of the children described communities with larger schools, larger churches, more soccer fields, cleaner rivers and more cars. I’m not trying to suggest that these are invalid answers, because from what I can see, this community could use all of those things, but I wanted the children to have fun and think about themselves for a while.
I guess I was expecting them to say they wanted a big park or a bike trail, or a swimming pool, or a basketball hoop. Maybe I’m placing what I think they should want on them. I do think that some of the kids wanted to say things like that, but were just shy. However, I’m also convinced that the children’s responses were what they were partly because they have never been asked to dream before.
In one of our larger-group development sessions we were talking about how it’s often hard for people with fewer opportunities and experiences to think about their hopes and dreams, especially when they are never asked that question with any frequency. As children growing up in America, we are frequently asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?!” Most children will shout something fantastic or outrageous: ballerina, fireman, president, doctor, veterinarian, blue elevator or whatever it may be. Ask the children here, and they will say farmer, teacher, mom. Again, I’m not trying to say that these are “wrong” answers by any means, because this community surely does need farmers and moms and teachers, but I was expecting kids here to be kids. And I’m sure there are kids here that dream of being fabulous things when they grow up, but I didn’t expect to receive the responses we did when we asked for an “ideal” community. I am beginning to see the reality of what we were discussing in that development session. I’m curious to see how this plays out in whatever site I’m eventually placed in. I plan on doing community visioning in my site, but I’m wondering how much of a challenge that will be? I need to start thinking of ways to get people who don’t normally dream to do so.
We will continue working with this group of kids to identify some activity they want to do to make their community more like the ideal that they created. Hopefully with a little more prodding from us we can encourage them to start thinking big.
July 19, 2009
"asi es"
Training has been a whirlwind of activity so far. We are currently in our host family/training sites. I have the wonderful opportunity to be my host family´s first PC trainee - I hope I give her a good impression of us. The country is an amazing place, full of great food, fruit, people and vistas. As in any new culture, there are little quirks to get used to, but one piece of advice we were given was "asi es" and I think that that is very apt to my situation. "That´s the way it is" I don´t see this little missive as a cop-out, or an avoidance of the situation, but instead, I see it as a path to understanding. By recognizing that some things and my culture and their´s are just the way they are because they are, I think that will lessen my culture shock later on. I am looking forward to challenging myself to learn more about myself and this culture every day. So far so good!
Oh, and one week down. Not that I´m counting down, but just because it´s flown by so much.
Oh, and one week down. Not that I´m counting down, but just because it´s flown by so much.
June 22, 2009
"without courage, wisdom bears no fruit"
I've been checking things off my to-do list, but that doesn't make the future any more certain. I graduated in May, and I packed up all my belongings from Skidmore College. I road-tripped across the country with my friend Alicea, visiting national parks, and friends and family along the way. I'm home now, making even more to-do lists as well as un-packing and repacking all of my belongings. I'm preparing to leave for the Peace Corps so the packing I'm doing now is like nothing I've done before.
I'm packing things appropriate for semi-tropical, rural El Salvador, which is where I will be for the next 27 months.
Alicea and I got accepted in to the same program: Agro-Forestry/Environmental Education, so we will be traveling together for a bit longer ;) We will meet our fellow Peace Corps volunteers in Washington D.C. for pre-service training and meet-and-greets on July 7th. Then, bright and early on the 8th (4 am - it's a good thing we both did crew with all the early mornings!) we leave for El Salvador.
I will most likely by in an elementary school teaching environmental education. I'm very excited to begin learning exactly what my position entails, because right now, it's more of a "less is more" vibe coming from the Peace Corps headquarters.
I will attempt to update this blog as regularly as I can, but no promises!
Hope your summer is going well.
Alicea and me, post-race. A teammate captioned the photo with: well, at least they have great personalities...
I'm packing things appropriate for semi-tropical, rural El Salvador, which is where I will be for the next 27 months.
Alicea and I got accepted in to the same program: Agro-Forestry/Environmental Education, so we will be traveling together for a bit longer ;) We will meet our fellow Peace Corps volunteers in Washington D.C. for pre-service training and meet-and-greets on July 7th. Then, bright and early on the 8th (4 am - it's a good thing we both did crew with all the early mornings!) we leave for El Salvador.
I will most likely by in an elementary school teaching environmental education. I'm very excited to begin learning exactly what my position entails, because right now, it's more of a "less is more" vibe coming from the Peace Corps headquarters.
I will attempt to update this blog as regularly as I can, but no promises!
Hope your summer is going well.
Alicea and me, post-race. A teammate captioned the photo with: well, at least they have great personalities...
February 1, 2009
can i get paid to think?
the following is the personal essay I submitted to the Peace Corps as a part of my initial application. I thought people might like to read it.
According to a recent personality survey I took, I am a thinker. My friends and I joke around about what that truly means, but deep down I know and embrace that label. I am a thinker. Sometimes I think too much, and every once and a while I forget to think, but at any given moment, I am probably pondering something. Lately I have been thinking about “small-ness”.
There seems to be a potent lack of small things in our lives. Large cars, mega-farms, multinational corporations, and voracious consumer appetites dominate. Many of the problems I notice around me seem to arise from an unsustainable excess. Monocultures, monopolies and unilateral actions are threatening our sustainability as a human population. One breed of cow, potato, corn, political system, finance system, pesticide, antibiotic, advertiser and market are driving the reduction of our world to one homogenous product. I see these monocultures, as I would classify them, as unsustainable and undesirable.
I understand and appreciate that some large systems are required and are often better than smaller ones, for instance – public transportation, communication, emergency relief efforts and public health care. However, not only is small beautiful, and more sustainable, but small can be wonderfully powerful. I believe small ideas and changes can have big impacts. I believe a return to the small and local is a way to alleviate many of our world’s ills. It is to that end that I relish the opportunity to volunteer through the Peace Corps within a community that could use my help.
I am prepared to be a Peace Corps volunteer and tackle a variety of challenges in my placement. As my academic record shows, I have taken quite a range of courses. I am immensely interested in the connections between and among disciplines – how environmental policy is connected with economics, geology, sociology, physics, psychology, mediation, urban development and government. Even the largest problem can have small solutions, but they are often complex, intricate and require broad support and action.
For instance, to truly address urban poverty, changes must be made to education, health care, unemployment support, housing, rural outreach, farm support, environmental protection and a host of other systems and programs. Together, these required changes are by no means small and are linked in ways that are not intrinsically apparent, yet in these links we find the keys to meaningful change. Being a thinker, I love finding those miniscule connections, those interdisciplinary associations that give you that “ah-ha” moment. The moment when you discover problem A is related with problems B through D, but within those connections, you also find a host of solutions: many of them small, yet powerful.
I'm not sure what my future job title may be, but I want to make a career out of "ah-ha" moments. I know this will require an involved understanding of many facets of life and to that end I try to learn as much as I can. I am a thinker for life.
According to a recent personality survey I took, I am a thinker. My friends and I joke around about what that truly means, but deep down I know and embrace that label. I am a thinker. Sometimes I think too much, and every once and a while I forget to think, but at any given moment, I am probably pondering something. Lately I have been thinking about “small-ness”.
There seems to be a potent lack of small things in our lives. Large cars, mega-farms, multinational corporations, and voracious consumer appetites dominate. Many of the problems I notice around me seem to arise from an unsustainable excess. Monocultures, monopolies and unilateral actions are threatening our sustainability as a human population. One breed of cow, potato, corn, political system, finance system, pesticide, antibiotic, advertiser and market are driving the reduction of our world to one homogenous product. I see these monocultures, as I would classify them, as unsustainable and undesirable.
I understand and appreciate that some large systems are required and are often better than smaller ones, for instance – public transportation, communication, emergency relief efforts and public health care. However, not only is small beautiful, and more sustainable, but small can be wonderfully powerful. I believe small ideas and changes can have big impacts. I believe a return to the small and local is a way to alleviate many of our world’s ills. It is to that end that I relish the opportunity to volunteer through the Peace Corps within a community that could use my help.
I am prepared to be a Peace Corps volunteer and tackle a variety of challenges in my placement. As my academic record shows, I have taken quite a range of courses. I am immensely interested in the connections between and among disciplines – how environmental policy is connected with economics, geology, sociology, physics, psychology, mediation, urban development and government. Even the largest problem can have small solutions, but they are often complex, intricate and require broad support and action.
For instance, to truly address urban poverty, changes must be made to education, health care, unemployment support, housing, rural outreach, farm support, environmental protection and a host of other systems and programs. Together, these required changes are by no means small and are linked in ways that are not intrinsically apparent, yet in these links we find the keys to meaningful change. Being a thinker, I love finding those miniscule connections, those interdisciplinary associations that give you that “ah-ha” moment. The moment when you discover problem A is related with problems B through D, but within those connections, you also find a host of solutions: many of them small, yet powerful.
I'm not sure what my future job title may be, but I want to make a career out of "ah-ha" moments. I know this will require an involved understanding of many facets of life and to that end I try to learn as much as I can. I am a thinker for life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)