Returned Volunteers Weekend

Tested in Vietnam and Mongolia

RVs look forward to this event

VSO-Bahaginan honors its returned volunteers by hosting a 3-day RV Weekend.  This is a forum where volunteers get to share their experiences - their joys, challenges, and coping mechanisms upon return. 

One of the souvenirs

Items brought home as souvenirs from the placements are also exhibited.  At the fellowship night, RVs traditionally wear the attire native to their country of assignment.  

My memorabilia from Uganda

Stories shared vary and I am mentioning some of them here not to scare would-be volunteers but to provide a balanced view of the agony and ecstasy of volunteering.   Each experience is unique.  One volunteer was stoned because the locals thought that she came from an unfriendly country. 

From Zanzibar

Another experienced an attempted burglary.  One figured in a mob justice incident when his motorcycle was stolen and the culprit was stoned to death by the locals.  Several met motorcycle and vehicular accidents that were nearly fatal.  

It's time for nostalgia

Some had to be repatriated when serious political troubles occurred in their country of placement.  Others endured severe and extreme temperatures -   portable individualized heaters are carried to keep the body warm or bed mattresses have to be doused with  water before lying down to combat the heat.  

From freezing Mongolia

And most had to ingest food in a way similar to swallowing cod liver oil – squirming with hesitation but have to take it nevertheless.  There was also a lot of opportunity to travel within and nearby countries of their placements. 

Prints from Malawi

 Abundant were heart-warming stories of appreciation from the locals whom volunteers have interacted with or whose projects succeeded with help from volunteers.  The goodbyes were long and promises to keep in touch and return were common.  

VSO-Bahaginan staff making sure RVs feel at home

Back home some RVs experience the reality that they have no money, no jobs but it seems that these are very temporary parts of the adjustment.  Others have returned to their jobs or  have found better career opportunities because of their international volunteering experience.  

The solemn Volunteer pinning ceremony

Over-all, everyone felt a satisfaction that they have touched other people's lives, and their lives, too had been enriched by volunteering.  I brought home from that gathering the affirmation that indeed, volunteers are a different breed.  

They are men and women for all seasons. 

In a few months time, most of them will be re-volunteering

A Filipina VSO volunteer in Ethiopia

Uziel in action

I was mighty proud of her as I watched her teach 3 visually impaired students in a borrowed classroom at the  Addis Ababa University.  I was moved by the sight of 3 blind young men trying to get an education despite their disability.

Interaction

 Uziel was very patient with them and I could see that she was enjoying what she was doing.  She has a computer and was playing listening movies such as “The Beautiful Mind”.  She would play the audio and ask her students to paraphrase what they heard.  The exercise is to develop keen

Safely delivered to the ground

 listening skills.  The audio had to be replayed several times because the accent of the speakers are difficult to follow.  For example, mysteries was heard as mistress and we  had fun explaining to them what a mistress is. 

Gates of the Addis Ababa University

Billboard at the Uni campus

I also did my bit by telling the 3 students that I liked the harmony of the colors of the shirts that they were wearing and I described to them the colors.  When the class was over, Uziel had to guide all three of them to descend the stairs and out of the school building. 

Church of the Holy Trinity

Uziel is a volunteer whose placement is in Adwa (near Axum) in northern Ethiopia.  During the term break, she volunteered to teach special needs students in the capital city.

Church of St. George

When I visited Axum, I learned that many people (hotel guests, shop owners, Ethiopian airlines staff) know her.  Well, I was not  surprised because she calls herself Miss Friendship.   Ethiopian airlines staff remember her as their most important frequent flyer.

The Ethnological Museum, former palace of Haile Selassie

Just like the other Filipino volunteers in Uganda whom I visited in their accommodations, Uziel loves to cook.  She even made a cappuccino (minus the western appliances)  which was very addicting.  She boils fresh milk, puts some sugar and a little coffee

Bedroom of the Lion of Juda

 and stirs the mixture.  She pours the made coffee in a cup, adds the mixture and sprinkles the froth with chocolate.   Voila, you have the best cappuccino in Addis.

Dr. Gerry, Uziel and Eve

 While staying with Uziel,  I also met another Filipino VSO volunteer, Dr. Gerry, who works at the Yekatit Hospital.   I attended a Sunday mass at the Holy Saviour Church with Doc Gerry and I saw how popular he was with the Filipino churchgoers and the staff of eateries that he frequents.

Yekatit Hospital

I have not doubted my impression that the Filipino VSO volunteers I have met in Africa not only share their skills but also bring laughter and sunshine to the people around them.   May their tribe increase.

Seat of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Ethiopia.  The Patriarch lives there.

  

My scorecard as a Volunteer

People I worked with

Dress is called kitenge

They saved lives

As my two years have come to an end, I ask myself... what have I really done here in Gulu?  My end-of-placement report of 33 pages (with pictures) says that I have: prepared process

couldn't send them to school

checklists, demonstrated that work is not your own creation but follows documented procedures, showed what is customer care, organized some workplace, and so on. I have been engaged also in what is called the Wider Role of  the Volunteer by making myself useful to the priests and nuns whose selflessness gave me inspiration.  But, I have not: built anything visible, saved a life in an operating room, taught the poor some  livelihood activities so they can eat beyond beans and posho, sent a single child to school by underwriting his school fees.

So, have I accomplished anything meaningful? Well, a Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) brochure says, "to spend time in a developing country volunteering and sharing your experience is possibly one of the most rewarding things you can do. It is said we make a difference and so we do but, the biggest difference we make is to ourselves".

It's just the color of the skin

As a volunteer, I deliberately lived in an environment devoid of desire for things that I cannot have or do. I learned: to keep a healthy mind and body, (the stomach may grumble, bladder may begin to burst but they can be tamed by mind control), the virtue of patience, realizing that being impatient will not dramatically change my life (my endurance had been tested), that I am comfortable with abandonment of my identity, and the deeper appreciation of the simpler things in life.

white mosquito net,  now gray

What difference in me has this done for others? I made: simple people happier by giving them almost all the material things that I possessed here, some people display and be proud of their skills by patiently waiting for them to finish their work no matter how long it takes. 

Now you see him, now you don't

I showed them that it is only the color of my skin that is different. That in this global village, some countries are ahead but others (such as Uganda) will catch up.

From them, I learned: the bonding effect of prolonged greetings and handshake, to value the wisdom of elders, that responsibility for family extends to the whole clan, that yesterday and tomorrow are not as important as today, that in Africa, when you support someone, you don't stay in front or beside the person - you stay behind to provide that big push.

With youth groups

But the biggest payback I got was when a young man told me that he would want to marry a white woman like me. I said, well, are you willing to cook, wash clothes, and do other household chores because white women, unlike African women, expect their men to do these things, too. He said, he can learn. 

I had two very good years in Gulu, Uganda, East Africa.

One of them wants to marry a white woman

A year ago today

Need to learn to ride to be accepted

This time last year was when I missed my regular paycheck and nothing was to be forthcoming afterwards.  I just left my job then and was busy preparing

WHO card - good for 10 years

Send-off by my sons' friends

Selling my corporate wardrobe

for my trip to Africa - polishing my biking skills, attending motorbike lessons, getting all the inoculations, writing instructions for the household, preparing for Mia's schooling in Scotland, packing and re-packing, announcing my eclipse.  I remember braving the aftermath of a typhoon to pick-up my World Health Organization yellow fever card - a requirement for one entering Africa.   Now I am wearing a different  pin and carrying an   identification card whose logo  was to change a year later (quite coincidental because in my last job, the logo was also changed as I was leaving).  My lifestyle now as a volunteer is the first step in the life-changing decision that I made.   As can be found

ID that opens no electronic doors

Made by women with HIV/AIDS

in its website, most people join VSO because they want to give something back and find they get much more in return - a wealth of memories and a whole new perspective of life.  In 1985, I was excited to travel around Europe using Frommer's Europe on a $25 a day.  Twenty five years later today, I am excited to live in Uganda, East Africa on a $7 a day - excluding rent.  This is an institutional standard (with some exceptions) as volunteers are in places where we can more than get by with the allowance.

Both are equivalent to about USD 50 cents

When I told my boss that I'd be getting some USD300 as a volunteer, he said it was not bad. But when I said that it was per month, I sensed his newly calibrated heart blinked and he blushed.

Have yet to ride around on this; till the roads get paved