Worldview Magazine - Fall 2007 - (Page 24)

in Africa, Latin America and India. Program fee covers lodging, food, in-country support, insurance, small grants for project work plan. www.fsdinternational.org. Global Citizens Network Cultural immersion is a priority as volunteer teams assist with projects initiated by local communities in eight countries. No skills are required for one- to three-week projects in construction, teaching or planting. Program fee covers in-country travel, lodging, meals, insurance, other program costs. www.globalcitizens.org. Global Service Corps Service-learning projects are offered in areas such as HIV/ AIDS prevention, sustainable agriculture, healthcare and English instruction. Two-week to six-month communitybased projects take place in Tanzania and Thailand. Program fees cover in-country transportation, lodging, food, cultural excursions. www. globalservicecorps.org. Global Vision International Volunteers spend one to 20 weeks with worldwide research teams, engaging in conservation and wildlife expeditions or more traditional teaching, construction and community work projects. No experience is necessary to join teams operating in all regions of the world. Program fee includes food, lodging, equipment, training. www.gvi.co.uk. Global Volunteers Volunteers teach English, work with children or adults, repair buildings or provide health care. Both skilled and unskilled work is sought in almost 20 nations, some in the developed world. Program fee covers food, accommodations, ground transportation, project materials. http://npca.global volunteers.org/welcome.asp. Globe Aware Volunteers interact with host communities in 11 countries, supporting a variety of sustainable development projects such as construction and childcare. Most volunteer vacations are one week, with the option of extending up to three additional weeks. Program fee covers meals, lodging, insurance, in-country travel, administrative support. www.globeaware.org. I made with others, searching for significance in life. New wisdom had transformed their lives. I also realized that no one was bearing witness to the journeys that had propelled these people into lives of unimaginable hardship and sacrifice. The media usually wrote about the victims as los damnificados, as if they were somehow to blame for these tragedies. A resident by the name of Miguel told me that many coworkers were fired from their jobs because they were living in homeless shelters. “They threw us out, 22 damnificados.” Miguel said with bitterness. “Instead of giving us a hand, they undermined us.” When Miguel said that, I realized that just showing up was important work. I began to see suffering in a new light. When we try to minimize, deny or make suffering grandiose, we deprive it of meaning. What’s called for is to dig deep into the complexity of affliction to find a perspective for meaning. decided my role here was to document the stories of the people in the shelters in a way that would preserve, for them, testimonies of their journeys during this transformation in their lives. I saw myself as a miner, digging deep into their experiences and searching for the jewels of meaning that resided in their stories. The final outcome would be a collective work of residents’ narratives that would be given to each family at the end of the project. We called it Our Story: How We Survived the Tragedy. Residents told us that no one had cared enough to ask such questions before. In our daily contacts, Patricia Valero and I began to detect ever-so-subtle changes in their outlooks and feelings of mastery over their situation. Patricia is a GAIA social services worker who helped me with the nuances of Spanish during the interviews. Before the flood, Centro Lamas had been a five-story building with a movie theatre and a complex of offices. After that, the top warehouse floors were converted by the government into cubicles for 38 families. In general, the conditions were grim: poor ventilation, minimal lighting and sanitation and no privacy. Residents hauled buckets of water from first-floor tanks up five flights of stairs every day. As Patricia and I talked to survivors, I was amazed at the poetic and soulful descriptions they gave of their agonizing journeys out of the mudslides and how they held out hope of overcoming adversity. Sixty-year-old Juana, a housekeeper in the local firehouse, told of conquering fear: “I was reciting the rosary and when I finished, the world stopped. The world was taken away from me; the forest had become uprooted! It was horrible. The mountainside had slid down on me–I was imprisoned in mud. I screamed, ‘I’m alive!’ But no one heard me. They all ran away. I screamed and screamed, but I lost my voice. I was buried in mud up to my armpits, and I realized that there were four dead people on my right and four dead people on my left. I thought I would die, too. But a calm came over me and I remembered what the firemen told me to do in case of emergency–to make sounds. So, I was able to find a rock … and I hit it on a piece of wood many times, very strongly so they would hear me. Someone heard me and I was saved. I now have learned to have faith and I believe that everything has a solution. God let us live and he will bring us a brighter light.” Daniel Figueroa said, “I couldn’t let the river take my family away.” A minister and teacher named Ricardo told us about searching for his family at the edge of the deep mud on the tortured shores of the Caribbean, only hours after the disaster occurred. He joined several others as they climbed through canyons of debris and boulders. Holding hands for safety, the group helped people down from precarious places along their route. “We were six, a unit, all of us working together like a single thought,” Ricardo said. “We made a chain to save people–the chain was what gave us strength.” Aurora told me, “To see my town and remember how beautiful and precious it was To see it destroyed now–I have such great feelings about it. But, I don’t want to leave here. Do you have any idea what the breeze off the ocean means to us, or what it means to walk on the edge of the beach?” ooking toward the future, Elvia spoke of her plans to help children. “We have to fight and struggle for the children. They are the future … Now I feel satisfaction that nourishes me when I help the children elevate L 24 Fall 2007 http://www.fsdinternational.org http://www.globalcitizens.org http://www.globalservicecorps.org http://www.globalservicecorps.org http://www.gvi.co.uk http://npca.globalvolunteers.org/welcome.asp http://npca.globalvolunteers.org/welcome.asp http://www.globeaware.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Worldview Magazine - Fall 2007

Worldview - Fall 2007
Contents
Presiden'ts Note
Lafayette Park
Introduction
Interview
Commentary
Editor's Note
Letter from Rumbek, Sudan
Listings
Letter from Yekaterinburg, Russia
Letter from Codaesti, Romania
Letter from Catia La Mar, Venezuela
Letter from Gumare, Botswana
Letter from Ridder, Kazakhstan
Letter from Rincon, Cape Verde
Letter from Port Au Prince
Another Country
Community News
Giving Back
Opinion

Worldview Magazine - Fall 2007

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