First person:
This trip was such an eye opening experience for me. During spring semester, I learned about the people, places and cultures that we would be visiting; however, I don’t think anything could have prepared me for what I encountered.
The first week of the trip I worked at Bonham Elementary School. I thought this experience would be no different from the field experiences I had at Bluffton University. Wow, was I wrong! The classroom I was placed in was a bilingual preschool, and it looked the same as the classrooms I was used to except for the ethnicity of the students (all Hispanics, except for one). When class started and everyone spoke in Spanish, I felt completely out of my element. It was the first time in my life where I felt in the minority. It was definitely a culture shock.
For three days during the trip, I volunteered at MANNA, a soup kitchen only a few blocks from the Alamo. A little old lady named Winny, whom the homeless respected as if she were their grandma, ran the place. This experience had a huge impact on me. Growing up in a small town, I have been fairly sheltered throughout my life. I had envisioned homeless people as being dirty, wearing raggedy clothes, pushing a shopping cart, begging for money, and most of all, being uneducated. Through my time serving lunch at MANNA, I saw people who did fit that stereotype, as well as people who looked just like me. Some were high school dropouts, others had master’s degrees, yet they were all grateful for us for volunteering our time. I cannot count the number of times we were thanked. The people I encountered at MANNA were some of the poorest, yet most caring and appreciative people I have ever met. Looking back, I am ashamed of myself for creating this image in my head of what homeless people were like without having any experiences with them.
This trip also made me aware of problems bigger than my own. I’d never realized I had such an easy life until I was exposed firsthand to the conditions in which some people live. The neighborhoods in Mexico where the families of the Maquiladora workers reside were one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen. The Colonias in Texas were much the same. They didn’t have paved roads, appropriate housing, running water or disease prevention. These families had each other, and for that they seemed grateful. I cannot imagine living such a life. There seemed to be no escape for their problems because of the vicious cycle in which they have been caught. Their voices will never be heard unless people like me spread awareness about the experiences I had with them.
The most important lesson I learned from this trip is that the best way to learn about others is to become immersed in their culture. No textbook, lecture or PowerPoint presentation could have given me so much knowledge, raised so many questions or given me such a desire to learn more, as this cross cultural experience has done.
