Anticipation

I spoke with my site supervisor, a priest, this morning. Hearing his voice made this all more real, though sometimes I still can't believe it. What is this? I guess I should explain my pending hiatus from this blog.

On June 5, I will board Thai Airways for a 17-hour nonstop flight from New York to Bangkok. Through ND's Center for Social Concerns, a friend and I will live in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for seven weeks—doing so-called “service learning.” Which basically means we’ll work and learn and discern in the midst of poverty, and hope we can do a little good in the process. My friend and I are in a class of 36 students: we all are soon to depart for places around the world to begin to learn about the real world. The one beyond U.S. borders, the one of the shafted majority, the one of struggle, but also the one of real humanity.

Our particular site placement is with the Maryknoll, the century-old global mission organization. The community of priests, sisters, and lay missioners has built a number of social programs in Phnom Penh. As student short-term volunteers, my friend and I will have the main responsibility of teaching two intermediate English classes at the local public university. So for four weeks, I will teach English to probably 60-70 students my own age. Though a language class, the topic is “Current World Affairs.” Yes, I’m a more than a little intimidated.

But I’ve been fortunate to have so many mentors in my classrooms. My teachers have inspired me and cultivated a love of learning in me. The couple thousand dollars ND donors have paid to send me to Cambodia would probably pay the salary of ten local teachers—who could likely do a better job than I can. Both this realization and a strong desire to share some of the learning excitement I’ve been given will motivate me. I don’t harbor naïve visions of how effective I might be. I’ll just do my best. But if anyone has a neat idea of an activity or something, I’d love to hear it!

Beyond teaching in the morning for four weeks, I’ll get involved somehow with Maryknoll’s HIV/AIDS program. They have adults and children on ARVs (anti-retrovirals). Some 320 children are enrolled in the program: half are orphans and live in Maryknoll-run group homes and the other half live with families. But in a true community health system, workers visit the kids every day to supervise pill ingestion and check on other needs. Maryknoll helps with food, education, and other support. My supervisor spoke just this morning of the need for counsel for the children, and when they’re older, a transition to independence. This life—not death—is the possibility for the 38 million people living with HIV, no longer a death sentence.

This description sounds great from my couch in sunny, pleasant Michigan. But I know an experience doesn’t fit into a 500-word summary on a blog. Any presumption or expectation I might have will probably go flying out the window as soon as we touch down in Phnom Penh. So I’m not expecting movie-like poignancy. My summer will be messy. But I do have one personal hope. In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character Janie Crawford remarks, “you can’t know there until you go there.” So I hope beyond all my self-interested hope that I can “go there,” and in going, start to see if I can “stay there.” Can I live in Haiti someday, my dream? I hope so, but I don’t know, so I have to go. To Cambodia, I will simply go.