Birdy has flown home!

Birdy has flown home!

It has been nearly 3 weeks since I have arrived back to Canada, after a gruelling 40 some hour journey from Lima to Toronto which involved sleeping on the airport floor with the noisiest “emergency blanket” ever that rather looks like a large sheet of tinfoil and sounds like 10 plastic bags being crumpled. It was much the same feeling of being the first one finished your exam in a quiet exam room, and trying to get the Velcro of your bag open making as little noise as possible.

But I digress, my experiences of being the noisiest person while people are trying to sleep or write an exam has nothing to do with the amazing experience that I gained through my placement with Students Without Borders in Lima, Peru. To recap, my placement was with the Centro de Educacion y Informacion para la Prevencion de Abuso del Drogas (Center of Education and Information for the Prevention of Drug Abuse) in one of their three group homes for vulnerable youth. I volunteered at the Casa Hogares Los Delfines for boys in La Victoria.

Most of my time there, I spent just hanging out with the boys and getting to know them. Other times, I was teaching English, how to use Adobe CS3 programs and sometimes, though less often than not, music via guitar. My role as an international volunteer, as was explained to me by my superior, was to be a positive support figure and to expose the boys to different cultures. I am not sure if I was able to provide that for the boys, shedding as much light as I can on both the Canadian and Chinese culture, but what I took away is something that I would not trade for the world.

While of course, like with most volunteer positions, at times I felt like I was not being utilized to the best of my ability, or I would get stressed out because I didn't know how to approach a situation and other times and sometimes felt like giving up because I wasn't getting through to the boys. But in the end, it doesn't matter how hard, or easy your placement is; it matters what lessons you take away from the placement and whether or not you let these experiences affect the way you live your life in the future.

In my 3 months in Lima, I learned and developed a whole new sense of compassion. Being no stranger to working with youth, I thought that the relationships that I developed with these boys would be much the same as the types of relationships I forged with my former music students. Obviously, it was not the same. Being a music teacher, in a position of authority and working with middle class youth did not prepare me for being a volunteer and an equal with an underprivileged and vulnerable population of youth, an all male population. I never thought that I could grow so attached to youth so much younger than me, and to youth who at times, were butting heads with me.

While you always know that it does not matter what social background you come from, people are people and every person has the ability to be a good person. Everybody knows this in theory, but it doesn't stop the stereotypes from coming out and any privileged person would be lying if they said they never let a negative thought of the poor come across their mind. I think that maybe it takes real life experience to really learn this lesson. These boys are amazing. It never ceases to amaze me that even though they have gone through so much, violent families, parents with addictions, street life; they are still so happy with life and determined to move forward. When I think of what these boys have been through, and how little I know of that life; I can't help but think a little stupid for sometimes making such a big deal about things that, in comparison to other things, it not an issue at all. I hope that with this experience, I can learn to be a more thoughtful person and to take life in stride like these boys do.

Most of all however, I hope to never forget. Not only the boys that I met and got to know there, but the vivacious culture of Peru, the language, and the relaxed way that people go about life in Peru, as opposed to the high-strung life that people seem to lead in Canada. Even though every now and then I'll catch myself accidentally saying "no gracias", "permiso" and once "donde" to my parents when I was trying to speak Cantonese; I can feel myself losing the Spanish language fast. I only hope that everything else I learned from my experience does not wear off quite as fast as the language, if it wears off at all.

So, thank you Students Without Borders and WUSC for the chance that you gave me to such a wonderful experience. I hope that more students continue to volunteer abroad and to continue allowing for room to change in a world where it is needed most.