Wednesday, June 25, 2008

June 25, 2008

Our team has now completed seven days of volunteer work and we have 3 more working days ahead of us! Yahoo!

On Monday night Carl shared with us our first day's comments on what motivated us to come together in Querétaro in the middle of Mexico. We are a unique, diversified group of talented people with the shared vision to be of service to others, to experience personal growth and to have the opportunity to learn about others in a new culture. Each of us may use different words to summarize the vision; however, we all can agree that we are here to share of ourselves with the lovely students and teachers of UTEQ´s English Department.

For today´s journal entry, I thought it would be interesting to look at our volunteer work from a different perspective. I tried to quantify the work we will have completed by this Friday. This summary is a reference and is not official:

Completed/Activity Description:
522 hours- Working with students including evenings and Saturday
13 hours- Global Volunteers meetings (orientation, morning team meetings, etc.)
20 hours- Transportation (round trip hotel to UTEQ)
555 hours TOTAL

Another way to view the 555 hours is that it would take one person working 40 hours/week over 14 weeks to complete the work we have done in 10 days!

This total does not include the approximately 60 meals we will have shared by the time we complete our volunteer work in Querétaro. Nor does it include the time and effort done by Carl.

Each of us had a personal story we can share about how our heart has been touched by the experience in Querétaro. The moments have been as simple as a quiet thank you by a student or teacher at the end of the class, a smile in the eyes of a student that understood the English words when you spoke, and as large as being invited to a student´s home for a 25th wedding anniversary or to lunch at their home. We have also been touched by the kindness of our fellow team members as we work together to bring the best of ourselves to student interaction.

Thought of the Day:

How can I say good-bye when I am just learning how to say hello?

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