The visits to eleven RCP moms’ homes to check on Earth Boxes were the highlight of my day. Their smiles, enthusiasm, excitement and pride are contagious.
Our day started with a routine 7:30 am
breakfast. Fresh smiles, morning
greetings, discussions about the Spa Day and other projects and perseverant
search for coffee, sugar or banana jam, patient waiting for the last basket of
French toast decorated our breakfast room in a Global Volunteers’ way. After we heard from Carol and Edith yesterday’s
journal and the message of the day, Bud and Warren announced the transportation
arrangement. The very noticeable changes
from yesterday were that announcement was made only twice and Carl’s name was
mentioned only once. And even the
electronic device caught on one of the characteristics of an effective team,
“cooperative”. The document didn’t
disappear.
Team 7 is ready! Up the hill went the three vans, driven by
Warren, Bud and Ean. Edward and I were
joining Dawn and Wayne in the Earth Box team, to visit RCP mom’s homes. Four of us met Carol and JoAnne at the
library, waiting to be picked up by one of the caregivers. We were told one of them had left early today
to go to the other side of the mountain.
The librarian welcomed us and offered us the meeting table and
chairs. As the Earth Box was trying to
obtain insights from the RCP team about the moms, the latter tried to pick on
our brain about ideas about the SPA day, at one point, even to convince Edward
he can be good at foot massage. Soon, one
of the caregivers arrived and asked the Earth Box team to follow her. She was obviously aware of the assignment of
our team and was on the task to show us around.
A big applauds to Warren and Bud’s coordination! And great appreciation, on be half of all the
Global Volunteers staff on this team, to volunteers for your flexibility and
for sharing what you have learned about the project with us, as each one of us
rotates to different assignments.
Then it returned to the beginning of my
journal. We visited a total of eleven
moms and observed a consensus of pride and excitement about the earth box they
have received and interest in receiving more earth boxes in the future. Some of them face the challenge with
space. A couple of them have insect problems
with the crops. A few other were
confused about when would be the right time to harvest. However, most of moms seemed having mastered
the basics of growing in an Earth Box.
Dawn and Wayne worked together as a team, rotating between asking questions
and taking notes. Edward’s input was
very much appreciated by the moms.
We returned to the hotel around noon and
started staff meeting at 1:00 pm. We
discussed the interdependence of the 12 essential services, under three
overarching categories and the critical importance of comprehensive services to
local communities. After a few staff
presented on each category, with research data, presentations and videos,
countries managers shared the progress made in the services delivered in each
of their countries. Conversations continued
about challenges encountered, hopes for the future and follow-up actions. We also took a field trip to visit Mr. Henry
who is a retired agriculture extension officer.
He has opened his seeding company in 2010 and has been providing
seedling to the Earth Box team. Mr.
Henry impressed all of us, with his knowledge about crops, seedling techniques,
as well as his generous and genuine support to the project.
At the 5 pm meeting, we heard from all service
projects about their day. The field
event had affected quite a few volunteers’ schedule. Many of them joined their students and
teachers and cheered for their teams, while others returned to the hotel and
spent the afternoon in the resource room.
Aside from comments about today being another good day, it seems that
all of us have started to learn the ropes.
Debbi shared with us her observation of the lunch program at the
secondary school. Carl talked about
spending a lot of time with two aggressive boys. At different locations, challenges were
handled graciously with understanding, flexibility and cultural
sensitivity. Team 7 is striving.
Marigot Bay has become our home, soothing our
tiredness from the day and embrace our commitment towards serving the community
and creativity. What can be better than
a dinner, with a beautiful view of the bay at Julietta’s restaurant? The evening ended with the China country
presentation. I would say the chocolate
marketing strategy worked well, but I should have listened to JoAnn to
distribute them at the end, rather at the beginning.
-Hu Di
No comments:
Post a Comment