Communicating Without Words

Today was our first day of work! All of us awoke eager to get started on the project. Our first job was to build the fence surrounding the soon-to-be playground. Going into it, everyone was pretty nervous about the language barrier between them and their team leaders. The morning began slowly and quietly, but as we got to know our team leaders better, we all found that the language barrier was not an insurmountable challenge. Most of us relied on body language, trial and error and a lot of laughing. Any tension was easily cured by some good 'ol fashioned goofing around. It was a slow start to finding our groove with the building process. By the end of the day, we had constructed the entire frame of the fence and about 1/3 of the fence was complete. It seemed like we weren't progressing too quickly, but the team leaders were incredibly patient and diligent about getting it right. Our team obviously had the most important task because our end of the fence would prevent the small children from falling off the edge of a cliff. So, it's no wonder why we took the extra time to get it right :).

Before launching into the second half of the work day we had a discussion with the leaders of the Asociacion de Solidaridad (The Solidarity Association), which is essentially a savings and loan program by and for the community. Those community members who chose to be a part can save up to 5% of their salary. This is a huge accomplishment given that saving money was not previously possible or even thought about because of the patriachal structure on many farms around Guatemala. We were all very impressed at the organization and the community's committment and leadership to the program.

Then, we began our 2nd half of the work day...

As previous posts mentioned, we were split into teams of 2-3 AWBers and 1 team leader who is a student in the carpentry program at Los Andes. Our team leader was Pedro. All of us came into it not knowing anything about carpentry, but he was incredibly encouraging and motivated us to be hands-on with the project. Emily discovered that she is an absolutely amazing hammer-er (is that a word?) and Elizabeth found out that she's not so good at sawing - but we still have four days to perfect our carpentry skills...so watch out! All joking aside, it was especially amazing to all of us how enthusiastic the carpentry students/team leaders were and the immense amount of commitment and effort they had put into the project. They had been working on preparing for this project for the past two weeks and each morning, they start about 2-3 hours prior to us arriving on the scene.

Everyone in the group learned a great deal about cross-cultural interaction and service. Oftentimes, volunteer groups come in with the idea that they are going to greatly benefit the community, but really we end up learning more from the community in the end. This was clearly evident in the interaction with our team leaders. They had so much knowledge and experience to impart on us. Also, we learned a lot about what it means to be patient. Due to our lack of carpentry skills, all of us made many mistakes, however Pedro and all the team leaders were not necesarily focused on the efficiency of the project but rather the process of learning and, in the end, geting it right. During reflection tonight we wondered whether or not such patience would be displayed by people in the US if the roles were reversed. Ask yourself, if you had to teach somebody who doesnt't speak your language or know the same things you do, would you be as patient? We know we would not, and our intereactions with our team leaders have made us want to strive to follow their example.

One of the biggest things that we've learned today is that the product is only a part of the experience. So maybe the material outcome is not as important as the relationships and lessons that come out of the process. This is something that is not acknowledged as readily in American culture with efficiency and productivity as the goal which causes the benefits and rewards of the process to be overlooked.

- Emily G. and Elizabeth