During Service

This past Tuesday was the first time I met the family I'm volunteering for, it's a husband, wife, and two kids. They are very happy, funny people but none of them speak very clear English, and they have a translator that comes to there house when they have visitors. I was helping the mom learn how to count American money, what the coins were called, and how much they were worth. I then tried having her put together different amounts. After that we helped the kids make Valentine cards and the mom made us muffins and tea. I think it must be a scary concept for all of the family to move to a whole new country, away from your family, and try to learn our language, and our ways of life. You could tell when the mom got frustrated because she couldn't remember the amounts of coins, or our names. Also their cultural background is much different than ours, the father gets the final say on what everyone does in the house and they're expected to be on their best behavior when guests are around. I think the mom making muffins and tea is a cultural thing that she feels the need to do if there is ever any amount of guests in their house. However, even though it is a scary thing for the family to move to a different country they were all very gracious and acted thankful for our presence. We asked the father if there was any place in the house we weren't allowed to go and he said "You are helping my family, my house is your house, go anywhere you like." That really blew me away that a family who has a lot of learning to do about being in America and are refugees from their own country, is that trustworthy in us to open their home to us after meeting us for the first time. Now after having met the family for the first time, I'm better prepared on how to talk to them and the kinds of activities to bring with to help them learn everything that is necessary for them to begin to grow their lives here in America.

Blog #2

Pre-Service

My hopes for the service - learning project is to learn more about other cultures and expand my own views on the world and other cultures. My assumptions about the service-learning site is that it will be very different from what I'm used to. The house will be set up differently and they will use the electronics and appliances in different ways then we do. I don't know about the population they serve, I think the family that we're going to is from Afghanistan which is going to be interesting to see how they feel about being in America. I think that I'd ask them a lot of questions about their culture and try to relate some of their traditions back to the way things are in America.