Are we really helping the kids?

I have an hour before I head back to Cai Cay and wanted to throw out a few thoughts about what we´re doing with the kids. Over the last week I have been tossing around the question; am I really helping the kids?
It wasn´t until Thursday that I finally came to an answer that I agree with. At first the school and what we were doing seemed very unorganized. As I said before four of us patch together a class plan for the day which is translated through 3 languages before being presented to the children. If that doesn´t feed chaos, how about throwing in the 30 to 40 kids of different ages and different skill levels to teach in two rooms that are only divided by an open archway, creating even more distratction. Needless to say maybe they repeat, How are you or find the dog in the map of the city or can count to 10 in english or spanish for that matter with the younger kids. Is that really what they need?
As I walk down the cobblestone street dodging the cow pies and avoiding the squirely dogs, passing the similing villagers with loads of corn or potatoes on their backs larger and heavier than I am, I wonder is the bits of english or the reading and writing of any language helping these children. Do they even need help?
Jimme the guy from Holland whom I have been volunteering with dubbed us Volunteer Tourists... since we take photos of the children of the landscape of the village and have an out. We will be there for two weeks and we are gone. Just tourists passing through a village buried in poverty. We come in and feed our egos by helping out and resolving whatever guilt we have for living a life of excess with our cars, televisions, computers, and whatever luxury you can imagine. But does it really help? Are we making a difference? Would it be better if we werent there?
Here´s what I came to on Thursday... it´s not the language, it´s not the education although those things will make it easier for the children to step out of that village and opens how much choice they have in their lives. Our little school with 2 hrs to help them each day isn´t enough. It barely scratches the surface of educating the children properly. But it does give them something more and it does offer the world something more. You see, I can look back on each day and my mind is filled with smiles, laughter, and good times. The kids have fun with us... for example the last 3 days I took charge of the children washing their hands before coming into the school. ( they get really dirty in the dusty village and it ruins the books, and supplies if they get dirt on everything..)... so they wash in a large bucket and I towel dry their hands. To make this fun, I have been grabbing their hands with the towel and shaking them dry, sometimes with sound effects and sometimes with a dab on the nose or a wipe on the mouth. They laugh and laugh and one little boy has now made that his greating to me. He puts his hands out in front like in prayer fingers pointing out and slides his hands together with a shooting sound and a smile. I do it in return and we connect. A few of the other boys call me juan encino or something like that from a movie smackdown? I´m not really clear what they are saying but they claim I'm a movie star or something because they have seen an american movie in which I resemble one of the characters..again we connect. A final example or moment was when the kids were working on mother´s day presents... Mario the boy I mentioned who lives in the shed with the guinea pigs was having trouble. I was pulled to sit down with him and help him and the boys at his table. What came out of that time together was that his mom had died. I showed him my angel tattoo on my leg of my mom who had also died and we connected as did many other kids...
So before I babble on for pages... the key to what we are doing is in the moments that we share. The glimpses of connection... the space between the knowledge and teaching when all time stops and we see each other for people for human beings having a physical experience together. We aren´t there to teach english, we aren´t there to teach reading, writing, etc... that is an excuse to open our hearts to different cultures. To see beyond the boundaries of money, education, language, location and know we are changing the world... for every moment we connect with one and other we create a peace and understanding. If these moments were had by each person in the world every day.... I believe we would start to see a difference in our personal lives which would radiate into the world around us for we are all connected by far greater bonds they we chose to acknowledge in our day to day lives...
And finally the ability for me to share this in this blog I hope will inspire everyone who reads this to step through their day with a little more awareness, a little more gratitude and a little more acceptance of those around us... the choice of a better world is in our hands... and while I´m on the subject... check out this amazing organization I stumbled unto yesterday... this guy Yuri... is embodying what I¨m less than gracefully trying to illustrate in my writing... www.aldeayanapay.org
is his website that speaks about his amazing social projects... enjoy...
I´ll be adding more next weekend when I return form another week in Cai Cay...