So far this blog tells you a lot about our team and about our sponsors. Now that you have some familiarity with who we are, I would like to fill you in on some of why we do things the way we do...the philosophy behind Team USA. This is also where I will share a little with you about why I do what I do for this project. 
First of all, I'd like to ground all of what we do on the words of Paul Pholeros, who said in a 2013, "People are not the problem. We've never found that. The problem [is] poor living environment, poor housing, and the bugs that do people harm. None of those are limited by geography, by skin colour or by religion. None of them. The common link between all the work we've had to do is one thing and that's poverty."
I would add to this that poverty looks very much the same whether we look at Detroit, Los Angles, rural Arkansas, Milwaukee, Nashik, or Diepsloot, Part of the early work we did with our team was to read about Diepsloot and watch some You-Tube videos (some that I would recommend and some that I wouldn't, but all to stir conversation and thought!) We all wrote responses to this material and shared it with each other. Each individual response echoed two points:
1. This looks so different from what I am used to--how can I make sense of this world based on what we would call it/think of it here.
2. These people have the same concerns as we do. As one of us said, "the difference that “my eyes” see now after India, is that these folks are doing the best they can with what they have. They work with the jobs they have, they take care of their families the best they can, and they keep trying to move forward under the condition that are presented to them….And in reality, isn’t that what we all do?
This is the moment when change starts.
We all come to the Community Plumbing Challenge with different experiences and different specialties, but somewhere, underneath, whether we are engineers, teachers, legislative or business professionals, or higher ed folks, we are all concerned with the crucial question or how to alleviate poverty and improve the health of the world, one person and one community at a time. This year we will do part of this work in Diepsloot, but we come home and do our part in the US when we pay attention to proper code enforcement, quality design of plumbing systems, health education, and access to life-long education and socio-economic change.
The second grounding principle that we come back to over and over can also be said in Paul's words: "Change comes slowly...The work must be built around people -those doing the work and those who we are working with."(Healthhabitat webpage) For many of us, this is both the most exciting and the most scary prospect we face when we go out to do work like the CPC.
There are mountaintop moments when change comes in the blink of an eye--sometimes just in the way someone suddenly puts something into words in a way that resonates with everyone and give new meaning to everything that comes afterwords. I would say that Judy Torres' statement that "We are Team School 125" was one of those moments last year. (More about Judy and about leadership development through the CPC next week.)
But most of the time we, and change, creep along. And sometimes we are desperate to have something happen and also afraid that we will do something wrong. As our folks have said this spring, " It’s hard when you don’t fully understand what the other culture expects and you make a mistake, which could be minor or major depending on the culture. I am very anxious to travel further and be able to interact with other cultures. I’m nervous that I will make a mistake and offend someone or that I will say the wrong thing," and "we will have to take our time with decisions and ideas we have in Deipsloot and make sure to look at every situation we're involved with from every angle to come up with the best solutions that are fair and benefit everyone as well as possible."
The next time I write I will concentrate on some suggestions for how to tame some of these fears and how to be good teammates not just with ourselves but with those we will meet int he upcoming weeks. For now I will close with a story that illuminates some of the things that I think we all worry about but don't necessarily have names for.
"Elephant and Mouse were best friends. One day Elephant said, "Mouse, let's have a party!: Animals gathered from far and near. They ate, and drank, and sang, and danced. And nobody celebrated more exuberantly than the elephant. After it was over, Elephant exclaimed, "Mouse, did you ever go to a better party? What a celebration!" But Mouse did not answer. "Where are you?" Elephant called. hen he shrank back in horror. There at his feet lay the Mouse, his body ground into the dirt--smashed by the exuberance of his friend, the Elephant. "Sometimes that is what it is like to do mission with you Westerners," the African storyteller commented. "It is like dancing with an Elephant." (Helping Without Hurting In Short-Term Missions Participants Guide, Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, pg. 54)
All of us want to be good dance partners!
No comments:
Post a Comment