Reflections

So I guess after being back at Glenmary for a week or two, I'd like to reflect on some things (some are serious, others are not):


1) I felt as if while at Glenmary, I didn't quite get to see all that they did for the community... I heard about it, but really only interacted with other people under 80 from Lewis County for a siginficant period of time on one day, and don't know that I really got the full experience. I would've liked to have gone to the food and clothing pantry at least once, or delivered firewood to a family or two, or something... I don't know, I guess I just felt like what Glenmary was doing was probably really good, but by the end of the week I still wasn't entire certain what it was that they did.
2) Swing Dancing to the Thurman's music doesn't work.
3) Team Dino was a heck of a lot of fun, and I wish I had some better way of keeping in touch with them.
4) The Farm had a very hands-off method of preaching Catholicism... we never once spoke to anybody about the Catholic faith, but it seemed were more content to merely do good deeds, be there for those who needed it, and try to give people in the region a good impression of Catholics in general. On Thursday, a Glenmary brother came and spoke to us about this, and the vibe I got was that we were essentially trying to make sure that people in the region, if they needed help, knew that they could come to the Catholics for it, and that was pretty much it. This seemed like an excellent idea in my mind, but unfortunately it was a bit surprising when we went to the Catholic church for Mass (granted it was a Thursday), and we were there with around seven other people from Lewis County... There are usually more than seven people that go to a single weekday dorm mass on campus at Notre Dame. It was just a bit surprising and possibly an indication that their method, although seemingly very subtle, may not exactly be the best method of building up a Catholic parish in the region.
5) The sense of community at Glenmary was incredible... the lack of technology and lack of concern for physical appearance made all of the unnecessary things in my life drop out of focus for the week, and I was able to see people for who they really were much more so than I ever am at ND. If there were some way to harness the Glenmary experience and bring it back to the rest of the world, I'd certainly put some effort into making it work.
6) Overall, I think the experience wasn't quite as service-oriented as I might have liked, or at least, I guess that's not really the case... I spent a heck of a lot of time doing "service"-like things, but I was kind of thrown off by how much fun I had... I was expecting to have far less fun than I did have, so it felt as if perhaps the service side of things was lacking. I think really this was not the typical experience for the average Glenmary visitor, as our group of 39 people was far larger than they usually have, so if my entire spiel about not getting to interact with the community enough is making you shy away from trying this experience, don't let it! Normally they have a lot more stuff for people to do in the community itself! As a side note, if you are interested in checking out Glenmary as a possible site to go volunteer at, it comes highly recommended (although parts of my blog may not indicate this, I really did enjoy it a LOT, I swear!), please visit this website:
http://www.glenmary.org/farm/default.htm
or (if you are an ND student) sign up for the Glenmary Farm Appalachia site during the fall and/or spring break(s).
7) My favorite events, working on the construction site and participating in "The Dinner Challenge" were quite entertaining but also informative... I wish that there were some way that I could take the ideas that the farm managers used for these two events and expand upon them for use during times that I want to teach others... mixing entertainment with learning is often the best way to ensure participation in the learning.


Overall, my parting thoughts:

The experience was a lot of fun and although I didn't necessarily get as much interaction with the Lewis County community as I would've liked, I did get the sense that Glenmary is usually better about making sure that interaction with the residents of Lewis County is encouraged and induced, and I would very much be interested in going back at some point in the future. I went into this Appalachia seminar hoping to figure out how to fit service into a life-time career, and I met a couple of people who do that successfully, so I'd say I've gained confidence in my ability to accomplish that.

El último día

Friday... what is there to say about today? I'm disappointed to be going home tomorrow morning, although I did have some fun times today. We were assigned to painting the bunk-houses, which we spent the majority of the day on. As well at the end of the day, we (team Dino) were assigned to "The Dinner Challenge" which was actually one of the better learning experiences in terms of helping me to understand the region and something that the people struggled with a bit more. "The Dinner Challenge" essentially consisted of us being handed six boxes of food, of the type that were usually handed out to the local residents by a food pantry that Glenmary ran (each box was to feed 4-6 people for two weeks), and told to make dinner with anything we could find in it. Essentially we ended up taking all of the dinner-related ingredients from all of the boxes and making all of them on the same day... this mostly consisted of spaghetti (without sauce, which had to invent that from one can of whole tomatoes and another can of chopped ones), corn bread (which was excellent), a grab-bag of really unhealthy stuff for desert, plus some popcorn (we attempted to make microwaveable popcorn on the stove... (Glenmary doesn't have a microwave) after seeing what that stuff looks like... never again will I eat popcorn out of one of those bags). It is a bit disconcerting that we had to use all of the semi-reasonably-healthy food all in one meal... that doesn't bode well for the health of the Lewis County families that depend on that food.

Anyway, a couple of the groups already left a few minutes ago, and I need to get some shut-eye in order to prep myself for the 5:30 am wake-up we've gotta have tomorrow in order to get back to ND at a reasonable time (everybody has homework they want to finish up), so I'm signing out for now.

-Kevin

Rejected!

So today is Thursday... and Team Dino went to the nursing home in town. We were essentially given free reign to roam around the nursing home, seeking out people to talk to for a while, and told to meet in the middle room around 1 God-unit and 45 minutes later, where we were going to sing to the residents. I... guess I fail at talking to people or something... because for an entire God-unit and 45 minutes, I tried again and again to have some form of legitimate-ish conversation with someone?!? anyone?!? that was a resident there, and got shut down instead... Example of typical conversation:

Me: "Hello Sir, are you having a good morning?"
Sir: "What? Do I have any money?" (with an incredibly indignant look, as if assuming I am intending to rob him if he answers yes to that question)
Me: "Sorry, I said, 'are you having a good morning?'"
Sir: "What? I can't hear you!"
Me: "Ohh... I said, 'ARE YOU HAVING A GOOD MORNING?'"
Sir: "Ohh, yeah, it's all right... I don't know what you want from me...?"
Me: "OHH, I'M JUST HERE TO CHAT!"
Sir: "Well if you are looking for something to do, I'd suggest talking to one of those people."
Me: "Err... well okay then... do you have any kids?"
Sir: "Yes."
Me: "Ohh really? How many?"
Sir: "What?? I don't know what you want from me."
Me: "I don't want anything!"
Sir: "Well why are you standing here?"
etc...
(in this case, cue three minute long staring contest when I run out of things to try and talk about (I was made fun of for days afterwards for the staring contest by other Team Dino members))

Anyway, at around 11:30, we met in the middle of the nursing home and sung for a while, kind of going through a bunch of different songs that were all over the spectrum. I'm a huge fan of singing, so I thought it was fun, but eventually that ended and we headed back to Glenmary. In the car, I found out that I was the only person that had somehow managed to not make a good connection with somebody that was there... I'm not entirely certain how that happened, but it was unfortunate, because I think a lot of other people got more out of it than I did.

Again, the interactions (at least the good ones) I had today were mostly between me and people from Glenmary, so overall I'm feeling a bit unsatisfied with the way that turned out.
However, we are going to the Catholic church for mass this evening, which I'm excited about... I'd better go change. (also, I'm not at 5 days without a shower... I bet I smell gross, as will my church clothes next week!)

The Halfway Point

As Wednesday comes to a close, I kind of want to take a bit of time to reflect on the fact that I'm already halfway done with this service trip... so far it has gone by really quickly, but I feel like I'm finally starting to get something definite out of it other than community building. Today some things of note:
1) We cooked breakfast this morning (as in team Dino). I love cooking!
2) I went to a construction site with my group (where we established that we were definitely officially group Dino (cause we couldn't decide between Dino: -mite, -saurs, or -sty (as in Dynasty (I know, that one is a huge stretch)))), where we first sanded the walls and then painted the ceiling, so that the place looked a little bit better. It was a very satisfying experience, because not only were we able to make the house look better than it had when we first arrived, we also got to hang out with two of the residents of Lewis County who were working at the site, and got to learn a little more about the area through them. As well, painting is even better for good conversation than hammering nails, so I got to learn more about the people I was with than I had in the past couple of days. I know I've said that a lot, but when you've only known someone for a couple of days, that tends to happen. I've still got so much to learn about them, that even though I feel as if I already know them really well, I really don't, and keep finding out new things, as their level of comfort with the rest of the group increases (at times it is a bit of a problem, assuming I know them so well, because I keep running into the issue that I forget that I don't know them that well and anticipate reactions to things, only to see them react completely different than I expected).
3) When I got back to the farm, I learned from one of the other ND people that our site leader, Cath, had to leave due to a death in the family. This was an unfortunate happenstance that I really don't know much about yet, but I trust that God will watch over her and get her through this rough time. In the meantime, her friend Matt essentially took over the site leader's position, and is ensuring that everything runs smoothly.
4) My group did the reflection for tonight. We focused on encouraging further interaction at the group level, encouraging everyone to go around in a circle and say positive things about each of the other people. The other groups seemed to thoroughly enjoy this. We then challenged the other teams to come up with a team name (each group was originally assigned a letter (our letter was D)) that reflected something they had gotten out of the experience so far.
5) We are going to a protestant church service, so I've gotta run.

Peace!

Wild Woman, a lady in need, or a tourist attraction?

Today I woke up to the announcement that my group was going to go visit wild woman, a local resident. I was really excited because I was being given my first opportunity to interact with people native to the area, and I planned to make the most of it. We got to her house, and were told to feed the cows, an activity I had very little experience with, and found to be mildly interesting. Then we went inside to meet wild woman, a really old woman with a heck of a lot of energy for her age and a seemingly a vibrant past. The next couple of hours were spent chatting with her about various things, as well as telling each other jokes that she had available to entertain visitors with. It was fun, but at the end of the day, I'm not certain what I got out of it. I guess it kind of seemed a bit too much like a tourist attraction rather than a service project, if that makes any sense? At the end of the day, I don't think we really had the opportunity to learn very much from her, nor her from us, and we didn't really get to help her out besides feeding the cows. However, during the course of the day, I did get to know the other people I was working with mostly those in my group, significantly better, so there was at least something positive to gain from the day's experiences. I suppose I should also mention that at around lunchtime we packed up and went back to Glenmary, where we spent the rest of the day painting. I'd better run though, cause I think we are going to the Thurman's (a local family, we weren't given many details...) house for a garage concert that I think will involve some dancing (I'm excited about that, cause I'm very big into swing dancing).

Meeting The Troops

So although I did have some fun yesterday at Glenmary, I'm tempted to only talk about today... because I already mentioned that I would discuss the rest of Sunday, I'll make my discussion of it brief, and then move on. Sunday was interesting... we got to Glenmary, and found out that our group (of 9) was going to be working there that week with three other schools, UGA, St. Joe's College of Maine, and Loyola University Chicago. We played a bit of soccer, got a tour of the three-building 'farm' and went to our first reflection, where the farm managers divided us into groups (not based upon schools). As a general side note, on the tour, we were given instructions to put away our cell phones and watches for the week, as well as get used to the idea that we were only allowed to shower once during the week, as Glenmary tried to get rid of these other distractions and allow us to live simply*. For me personally this was a huge plus, because I am very much interested in trying to live without significant amounts of technology (I know... I know... I'm currently writing a blog about my experiences... ironic ain't it?).
Anyway, we went to bed at... actually I don't know when, because we didn't have the time, and got up... approximately eight God-units (I'm not sure the conversion rate between those and hours, but I'd estimate on the scale of 1-1) later. My group (Team Dino (you'll know why later)) was scheduled to work on the staff-house floor, which we began to do right after breakfast. I'll be honest, initially I was a bit disappointed because it meant I didn't get to go off of the farm and meet anybody, but I suppose it'll be all right... most of the other groups are going off the farm somewhere into the community, so I'll probably get plenty of chances later in the week. However, this retiling job turned out to be a lot of fun, not only because I learned how to tile a floor, but also managed to meet and get to know the other people in my small group a little bit better. I was paired with three people from Georgia, one person from Loyola, on from St. Joe's, and one other girl from ND that I didn't know very well beforehand, and during the course of the day, pounding nails right next to each other, we had plenty of good conversations. During reflection tonight (I suppose I should explain, reflection is essentially a God-unit or so of time taken to discussing the day's activities and trying to make sure we were getting the most out of the experience (slightly more religious-based than most of the rest of our activities)), we focused on the experiences from today and how they helped us to get to know the other people we were living in community with a bit better. I came away from that with the realization that in the last 24 hours, I'd become better friends with many of those 38 other people there than I was with many of the people in some of my small classes at ND. The sense of community I felt about an hour ago was overwhelming. I've gotta go though, somebody's ringing the dinner bell!



* CAVEAT! **** Please only read the fine print if you noticed a possible discrepancy with my asterisked statement and are questioning my truthfulness (otherwise don't, cause it might disappoint you) ****

Just to clarify, all of these blog posts were written in retrospect as if I was there at the time, because I wasn't allowed access to a computer. Hopefully now that you've read this part, you aren't significantly less enthralled about the ability to read what I was thinking at the time... I tried my best to represent my actual thoughts as they were when I experienced the events I have described and will continue to do so.

"Hit the road Jack..."

"... and don't you come back no more no more..." -- ohh, sorry, I didn't really you were listening in (reading in?). Anyway, today we arrived at Glenmary Farm, but I'll just talk about the travel experience for today and leave my actual experiences from today on the farm to a later post. So the CSC decided that everyone needed to leave from D2 (the parking lot pretty much the furthest possible spot from my dorm (Carroll)) at 6:30 this morning. My roommate Aaron was going to a different Appalachia site, and my friend Sarah was going with me to Glenmary, so after Aaron and I swung by Lyons to pick her up, we made the hike to D2 to start our trek. Told to arrive around 5 pm, we had a bunch of time to kill, so we headed to a pancake house for breakfast, and then got on the road. The trip was rather uneventful, although we did have a couple points of excitement. My personal favorite events were getting to know the other people in the car a bit better, as well as the fact that on our way there, for some reason, due to the way the roads were designed, we started out in Indiana, passed into Ohio, back to Indiana, to Kentucky, Ohio, Kentucky, Ohio, and then finally to Kentucky, state of our destination. I should note that part of the reason for this is that we had just passed into Kentucky when we decided to turn back around and have lunch in Cincinnati, so at least two of the state changes were intentional. Ten and a half hours after we departed from ND, we arrived at Glenmary Farm. A sign labelling the group of three buildings "The Farm" as well as their logo "where peace came and stayed" greeted us, as did two other schools that were also staying there that week.

Unfortunately, the bell for reflection calls, so I must end my spiel... don't worry though, I'll be back!