Work Camp

Now that the workcamp is over I am trying to put all of my thoughts together and make sense of what exactly happened and why. First of all, I feel each one of the participants was diligently selected by God so as to bring a special aspect to the group and thus make the work camp such an unforgettable experience. I must confess I was a bit angry at the beginning due to the poor living conditions, the noise and the disregard and negligence of the kids towards all our efforts to bring some harmony into their chaos. Then I realised there was nothing to be angry about - this was the standard of the place and yes - the kids have no role model to follow; there is no mom's role to show them they have to clean on a regular basis, to respect each others privacy. Unfortunately, these are entirely unachievable goals with present resources. In the community of Fazza orphanage nothing is mine and all is ours. The fact that nothing belongs exclusively to one of them devoids the kids from any sense of ownership which in turn makes them have no respect and care for what is theirs, what is common and shared. What made this experience so deeply touching and moving was exactly the situation these kids find themselves in - living in poor condition where everything is shared and no one is more special than the other; where they take responsibility for their actions yet there is no one to give them guidance and let them know what they are doing right or wrong. I am looking forward to teaching English in a private school for 2 months but during these 10 days at this orphanage I learnt  the real life lesson. Cause we had enough of time to integrate ourselves and to interact with the kids not only in a school setting. We were part of their daily games and evening gatherings and thus we could build some trust in them and get at least a vague idea of what it means to be an orphan in an almost forgotten place. And that is precisely what I got from this experience - I learnt that belongings does not define you and does not make you happy; you could always get (or at least wait for someone to donate it to you) a new mattress, shirt or pan; what truly matters for these kids and what they really value is - attention, communication, and human interaction. It was so touching how kids who are shy about their English skills were openly begging for attention and interaction.

• What did I learn?
To always seize the day and to value relationships with people more than anything else (landmarks, nature, culture are just static textbooks of assumptions, facts, or figures). We learn more about ourselves by learning and being interested in things about the others.
To interact more while putting aside judgement and to try to understand the other.

• What made me happy?
What made my my day and the whole stay at the orphanage was seeing the kids searching for contact and attention where no means of communication except hand gestures was present.
Indonesian kids are extremely humble and sensitive. What almost made me cry was having one kid holding my hand during my whole stay at their school, introducing me to everyone, asking me to 'steal' her favourite fruit from the buffet for the guests and at the end asking me to come back tomorrow and blowing a kiss to me on farewell. And let me introduce you to the to the heroine, Ani and her favorite skin snake fruit : )

What also touched me really deeply was hearing the words "don't forget me" from Ansori, one of the orphaned kids, a day before leaving. This was the moment when I realized I missed so many opportunities to get closer to some of the kids, to delve deeper in their lives and souls, and to try to understand them. I was so shocked about this realization that I momentarily started conversation with him cause I wanted to know exactly how he felt and why he felt this way. It must be incredibly difficult for them to meet new people every now and then, to get used to them and the very next moment - lose them. So thanks to technology (and Google Translate in particular) our conversation was incredibly facilitated and here it is what he shared with me:

 

Yes, Ansori does not know which direction his life is headed to and even whether there is any direction for him at all. He has graduated from high school and now, living in the orphanage he wanders which direction in life to take; sadly, the options are limited cause there is no one to help him at least make the first step.

So, it is only through interactions with such people that we start to value the meaning we have in our life - something like a widely spread commodity for us while deficit for others. And then I start asking myself the questions: What brings meaning to the life of the orphan? What are they looking forward to? What do they dream about?

I wish God helps me create the opportunity for me to learn the answer to these questions.