Reflection of Service

I had a great time volunteering with World Relief Moline this semester. When I first found out that we had to do a service learning project I was upset and worried because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to fit 12 hours of community service in my already crazy 18 credit hour semester.
I can honestly say that this semester has been my hardest semester since I started college 4 years ago. Whom ever said that senior year is suppose to be easy, was either crazy, a liar, or both.
I learned so much from my volunteer experience with World Relief, and the family that Anna and I were placed with. It was not a stressful experience, like I thought it would be, instead it was a stress reliever and I found myself looking forward to spending time with the family on Saturday afternoons.

I noticed many cultural and and interpersonal communications themes throughout my experiences that I have written about in previous blogs. This was a brand new experience for me, and I am so glad that I was given this opportunity. Because of this assignment, I now know that I don't have to limit myself to certain things just because I am hard of hearing. I know that communication is not just a one way road or but instead a two way road with many different paths. There is so much more to communication than just verbal language.
Non-verbal communication has always been a huge part of my life and something that I have relied heavily on, and this only increased during my time with the family.
I can now say that I know for sure that things like body language and facial expressions are universal across cultures and also a huge part of effective communication. Never in my life have I had to rely so heavily on non-verbal forms of communication. It is a good thing that I like to talk with my hands. I even found myself displaying some of my own ethnocentrism. I would unconsciously sign (American Sign Language ) things to the family, and then get confused when they didn't respond or understand what I was saying. Ethnocentrism within the deaf community, is that a real thing? I always forget that now everyone is hard of hearing, and not everyone understands ASL.

I still don't know a whole lot about Burma, but I know a lot more than I did before I met this family. For instance, I can tell that Burma is a very collectivist culture. This family does everything together, and the kids want to please their parents and help them in any way that they possibly can, which is something that is very rare in the individualistic society that is America.

I know that I will continue to volunteer with World Relief in the future, I have just had such a positive experience. There have been difficult times, and my ideas of what communication actually is have been seriously challenged, and definitely changed, which is something that will greatly improve most experiences that I have in the future not just with other cultures and societies, but right here at St. Ambrose University. 

Relying on Non-verbal Communication More and More

This Saturday I spent time with the family, but this time I was alone. Up until this point, I have always had Anna with me to rely on when I didn't hear something correctly or didn't understand what someone was saying. Basically, Anna has been there to fill in the blanks for whatever body language facial expressions, and non-verbal cues fail to inform me; like a substitute because I have such a hard time reading the lips of people with heavy accents.
So obviously I was nervous going in, but not because I haven't spent enough time with the family, but because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to communicate with them enough to actually accomplish anything.
When I got there, they were very excited to see me, which is always a great ego boost. I slipped my shoes off as usual, because in Burma it is considered rude to not remove your shoes when entering someones home. This is a cultural custom that we do not see very often in the United States. Sometimes my mom yells at me if I track mud in the house, or have my shoes (or feet at all) on her coffee table, but removing my shoes at home is not considered rude to my family, and it is rarely the first thing that I think to do when I get to someone else's house.
We all started out the afternoon sitting in a circle together on the living room floor. Their cousins were there, which was an immediate relief to me because Michael's cousins have been in the United States for awhile, and the two little boys speak English fairly well, they just aren't huge fans of being our translators. I was glad that I at least had something to fall back on if I found myself completely lost.
I brought some children book with me that I got from the library, and as soon as I took them out the little girls were ready to read! I was excited that they wanted to read, and we actually read all four books that I brought right away. One of the little girls in the family is 8 years old, and her favorite way to read is to repeat what I say while I am reading the book. I can always tell by her kinesics when she is confused about something that we are reading. Kinesics is just a fancy term for body language and can include many things like gestures, head movements, eye behavior and facial expressions; basically all the non-verbal behaviors that I and many other hard of hearing and deaf people rely on for everyday communication. When Moo La La (the little girl) is confused about something while we are reading, or playing flash card games, she almost always exhibits the classic eye brow raise. This is a kinesic that I have always seen across races and cultures, and it always means that something is not fully understood.
Every week there is always something about American culture that I have a very hard time explaining. A few weeks ago the topic was mermaids and fairy-tales. This week the misunderstood concept was parades. What the heck is a parade? And why are parades a thing? How in the world was I going to explain this?

Anna had given me some children dictionaries, so I looked up the word parade in the picture dictionary, and it did more harm than good. Basically children's dictionaries expect you to already understand the concept of a parade, and actually uses the word "parade" in the definition that it gives. 

So we shut the book, and I decided that charades was the best way to go, since I couldn't come up with the right words. We created a mamba line. It was hilarious, and we all had fun, and there was a lot of laughter. I still have no idea if they even really understand what a parade is, and as an American and someone who grew up here, I can't honestly say I even have any idea of the history behind a parade. But the point is that we tried our best with the resources that we had. 

The last major thing that I noticed was the cultural idea of personal space. 

I have always had major issues with people invading my personal space, and have always been kind of claustrophobic. 

This is a very "touchy-feely" family. I don't know enough about Burma to know if this sense of personal space (or lack there of) is a cultural thing or a family thing, but it is still really weird for me. 

The whole time we were working on flash cards, one of the little boys was laying with his head on my back. 

Saturday was my last "official" day with the family and I am finished with my hours, but I look forward to continuing my volunteer experience. 

American Birthdays: The Icing on The Cake

I can't imagine being in my 30's and having ice cream for the first time. As Americans most of us take the everyday little things for granted. We don't appreciate the small moments, and we don't stop to simply take things in. For as long as I can remember Birthday parties have always been my favorite. Growing up with a chronic life-threatening disease, means that every birthday is a huge celebration of life, of winning the battle for another year. Spending time with friends and family, decorating, opening presents...

But for me the best part was the cake and ice cream. When you grow up type 1 diabetes and a mother that works in a dental office, my birthday was the one time of year where the sugar and the carbs that I ate didn't matter (well, they did. I still had to check my blood sugar and take my insulin) but for a day I almost got to be a normal kid.

We had a birthday part for Anna and Michael (the father) last Saturday and it was a huge hit!! If you want to experience culture shock first hand, throw an American style birthday party for a Burmese family. My favorite thing of the whole party was watching the baby (1 year old) eat ice cream for the first time. About as funny and as cute as a baby eating cake on their first birthday, but also a huge mess!

We wanted them to experience every aspect of a fun traditional American Birthday party. We had it ALL: construction paper DIY decorations, classic pin the tail on the donkey, ice cream, cake, cupcake decorating, you name it! 

Up until this point we have mostly been working on reading, writing, grammar, and money counting with the family so a party was welcomed! While the kids and I sat in the living room making the paper chain link decorations, Anna was in the kitchen showing those interested how to bake cupcakes (from a box, because lets be serious, I can hardly make grilled cheese without burning it. When you are learning something for the first time, baked goods from a box are the way to go). 

Os always I thankful for universal facial expressions and laughter. The kids caught on to "pin the tail on the donkey" right away and there was tons of laughter. I don't think I have ever seen anyone so excited to be blindfolded and laughed at! The smiles throughout the whole party were big and genuine. 

One of the major things that I have noticed not just at the party, but everyday that I have spent with this family is the in-group collectivism. The textbook definition of in-group collectivism is, "the degree to which people express pride, loyalty, and cohesiveness in their families." This is especially true of the mother. She is always pushing the kids to participate and actively learn what we are trying to teach them, whether it be flashcards, handwriting, or money counting. The birthday party was no different. She watched with excitement and pride while her kids made paper decorations, laughed when the tail of the donkey was put on the nose of the donkey, and smiled when they dipped their fingers in the cupcake batter. I think that pride in the accomplishments of our children, both big and small, is something that is often overlooked or simply shrugged off in American culture. I know my mom is proud of me, because she tells me all the time, but I never stop to appreciate that fact. These kids want to please their parents, they want to help each other out and work together as a family and make each other proud. We can all take a lesson in what the meaning of family is from them! 

One thing I know we will be working on next is colors and more specifically how to mix red, yellow, and blue to get all the colors of ROYGBIV. This was a difficult concept to understand when we were mixing food coloring in with the white frosting to get colors that everyone liked! 

I learned a lot last Saturday.

1. 1 year olds and ice cream are messy
2. Nothing bad happens when you forget to add the oil to boxed cake mix
3. Pin the Tail on the Donkey is always funny
4. Michael, a middle aged man from Burma knows how to work a digital camera better than me 
5. Smiles, laughs, and parental pride in children is universal across cultures 
6. We should always remember to appreciate the small stuff and hold on to every moment. 

Finding New Ways to communicate

I have now been with our World Relief family several times, and I can say that this experience is unlike anything that I have ever done before. I was so nervous the first time that I met the family, because I had no idea what to expect. I was worried that I would not be of any help to them, because I would not be able to find any way to communicate with them. Sometimes being Hard of Hearing is a big battle, and I didn't want it to get the best of me and cost me this experience.

If anything, working with World Relief has taught me that there are almost endless ways to communicate. If one thing doesn't work, we try another, and another, and another, until we find the right thing.

Working with Anna has been great, because she has children, and works at a school, so she has a lot of experience. However, the best thing is that she has tons of kids books and flash cards; something that I do not have as a college student living alone.

I was surprised by how much our family already knows, and also by how well they read English. Their reading of the language is outstanding. We have used flashcards to explain what different words and objects are. The flash cards have pictures and words. For example the cards with say dog and then have a picture of a dog. This has been great in showing the family what things in our culture and everyday life in the United States, match up to which words in the English language. We have to cover the word most of the time, because the family knows English so well, but don't always know what word goes with what picture. So instead of having them read the word dog on the car, we show them the picture of the dog and have them tell use what it is a picture of.

These flash cards and books assist us when trying to explain the semantics or the meaning of a word. For example there are flash cards for different parts of the body (arm, hand, legs, etc) We show the family the flash card because they can read the English word well, and then point to the part of the body that the word corresponds to.

One of the most challenging situations so far, was trying to find a way to explain what a fairy tale is. Michael, the father, has a book that translates a bunch of Burmese words to English, and visa versa. However, to my knowledge we were not able to come up with a word in Burmese culture that accurately describes what a fairytale is.

How in the world do you explain to someone that doesn't know what a fairytale is, that mermaids are not real, when reading the Little Mermaid? The best we could come up with, was explaining that The Little Mermaid is a story, and it is not true, it is not real. It was hard for the family to understand how a story in the book we were reading was not real. 

Semantics aside, one of the hardest things for me is accents. I have spent so much of my life relying on lip-reading as a major form of verbal communication for myself and accents are my worst enemy. Growing up in the midwest, I can read the lips of most Native English speakers ease. However, when it comes to accents, lip movements change and I am often lost. Because of this, and the fact that the family we are working with is from Burma, and just now learning to speak English, I fins myself dazed and confused the majority of the time. It is nice that Anna is there to help me understand, and it is good practice for the family, because I often have to ask them to repeat themselves. It is a frustration that I am learning to work with better, and I hope to find many non-verbal forms of communication that will help the family!

One thing is for sure; I am VERY glad that facial expressions (happy, sad, angry, anxious, excited) are pretty much universal across cultures and languages!  

Jumping In- Head First, Eyes Open. World Relief 2013

I was so nervous to start my Service Learning Project with World Relief but not because I have never done this before. I am not one of those people that can say that I have lived my entire life in a secure bubble, because I haven't. I have seen suffering and desperation first hand. I have worked, and slept beside the poorest of the poor. I have spent a lot of time in Haiti working with the people there and helping to rebuild a country and a community plagued with disaster and corruption. Compassion isn't something you are born knowing how to give, it is something that you learn.

I know going in to this that it will not be easy. It will challenge everything that I know about people and my perceptions, and all the ideas that I have about communication. The number one reason why I am so nervous is because I have never really been put in a situation where language might not be my primary means of communication. In Haiti, I spoke some of the language, and many of the Natives spoke English. I am hard of hearing, and unless people are speaking clear and loud, I am usually lost. I don't know what this is going to be like. Working with people who I know I have compassion for, but will not easily communicate with.

I know that the family we will be working with is from Berma, although I know nothing of the country, its language, its culture, or its people. I am excited for this new experience, but I have a lot of work and research ahead of me. I want to know where these people come from, and what they have been through, I want to be able to understand them better.

I have nothing to base any assumptions off of, because I know nothing about Berma other than things must have been pretty bad there for people to need out. Maybe that is an assumption. Maybe it isn't true, but I think it might be.

I know I am starting late to the game, this is the first time in my whole college career that I have been so overwhelmed and busy that I could hardly breathe. But I am ready to jump in head first with my eyes wide open and learn as much as I can and help wherever I am needed. Communication, turns out, is so much more than just a liberal arts college requirement, it is one of the most important parts of life.