Saying Good Bye

This week I had my last volunteer session with my refugee family. I never imagines that it would be as hard as it was for me to say goodbye to my family. I did not expect to get as attached as I did to the kids and my family as a whole.
Throughout my entire volunteer experience I experienced a change in perception and many cross cultural experiences. My perception of my life has changed and my perception of others has changed. Also as I experienced cross cultural situations, I gained a better appreciation for my culture as well as other people's culture.
I have used perception many times in my volunteer experience. I used selection to select the situation. I used organization to find a schema and apply it to the situation. Lastly, I used interpretation to find out the meaning of the situation. After spending time with this family and experiencing a culture different than my own, I look at other people differently. I am less judgmental when I see others now because I have learned that everyone is fighting their own battle and you do not know what that is. Before my  volunteering I might have looked at my family and made a certain judgment about them. Now I am starting to realize that I should not make any judgments about people because I do not know what they are going through. Also, my perceptions of my life have changed. This experience has caused me to look at my life. This experience has made me appreciate everything in my life. It has made me appreciate my house, my family, and most important, the opportunities that I have experienced. I am so fortunate to have everything and everyone that is a part of my life. Also, seeing that our family appreciated little things like snow falling, learning a new word, or mastering something that they have been working on for a long time has made me appreciate those things that I take for granted too often.
In addition to perception I have experienced many cross cultural situations. These experiences have taught me to be grateful for my own culture but also to appreciate other cultures and respect their traditions. An example of cross cultural situation was when our family cooked dinner for us. The mother cooked all afternoon for us. When dinner was ready we went into the kitchen and sat at the table. We assumed that we would be eating with the family but they let us sit down and they stood and watched. The little girl told us that in their culture it is courteous to let your guests sit and eat you stand and wait until they are done. I thought that was so interesting and kind of them to do that. The dinner was great and then we got up to help clear the table and do the dishes, the family told us to sit and relax. This was so different from dinner in American culture but it was so interesting. They are so courteous and kind to their guests. In American culture we usually eat with our guests. This was just one of the many cross culture experiences that I experienced.
Overall I had an incredible volunteering experience. I have learned so many thing about perception and cross cultural experiences. I have learned a lot about my self and to appreciate everything in my life. I can't believe that my time with the family is over but I do plan on stopping by a few times next semester to check up on them and see them.

Colors with the Kids

Today I worked on colors with one of the little boys. He is 4 years old and his name is Mon Song. He is pre-school right now so he learning a lot of English. One thing he struggles with though is colors. He mixes up some of his colors. I made flashcards for him with the colors on them. I would show him a color and then if he didn't know it I would say it and he would repeat it. This went on for a little bit until he got bored so I started to point out objects in the room.

Mon Song did not know all of the colors but he did know a few. He knew yellow, orange, and red. I would point to the red book and he knew the color right away. However, when I pointed to his blue shirt he did not know the color at all. He would stare at his shirt and then look at me so i could tell him the color. I felt bad because he was concentrating so hard on trying to think of the color but he just could not come up with. I used the process of perception to understand what he was doing. I used selection to select the situation. I used organization and applied a schema to the fact that he wasn't understanding some of the colors. Then I used interpretation to realize that he was not only mixing up the colors but he was not understanding some of his colors. After a lot of practice he was starting to distinguish blue, green, and purple. I was really proud because he did not give up and did not throw a fit when he didn't get the color right. 

Also, I experienced a cross cultural situation today. We had been going over colors for about 20 minutes and he was starting to get a little antsy. We took a little break and he got up on the couch and stared out the window. He immediately turned to me and said come here. I have never heard him talk to me in English unless I ask him to. I went over to the couch and he pointed out to the snow and he said snow, it's white. I was so surprised and happy because we had only gone over white once. He was so excited when I said yes, it's white. He knew that he got it right and he had a big smile on his face. Also, he turned to me and said, "Isn't it cool" I almost teared up at the fact that he was seeing snow. His face lit up in excitement because it was one of his first times seeing snow. This is something that a lot of Americans dread but he did not. He was so excited to see this amazing stuff flying out of the sky. It made me appreciate how the little things like a snowfall mean so much to people. 

I keep an open mind when I am working with Mon Song. I know he is trying his best to learn his colors. I like to keep going over them because kids learn best by repetition. Constantly going over the colors will help him remember them and give him more practice.

I think the cause of his problem of mixing up colors is that he only practices when we come to volunteer and he gets distracted. At home he is always playing and does not work on his colors as much as he should be. A solution to this problem is letting his sister help him and teach him If she can work with him on his colors for a half hour each day he will learn his colors and eventually master them. 

Halloween with the Family

These past two volunteer times have been pretty fun. Last week we volunteered and we carved pumpkins with the family. Then on Halloween we took two of the kids trick-or-treating. Both of the times were so much fun. It was interesting to me at how the family knew very little if anything about Halloween. Through both experiences I learned about perception and dealt with a cross culture situation.
Through these past two volunteering times I have learned about perception. My perceptions of this family and of my own life have changed. I am learning and perceiving new things about our family and their culture each week. When we carved pumpkins we had to explain to the family what we were doing and why. It was so interesting to see their reactions. It was fun to have the kids help us carve out the insides. After we were done, the kids loved the pumpkin and stood it by their fireplace for decoration. They were so grateful to us for doing something as simple as carving a pumpkin and seeing their reactions was priceless.We asked them if they did anything similar to carving pumpkins or Halloween in general in Berma and they said no this was very different for them. Through interpretation I figured out that these people are so grateful for things that we sometimes take for granted. This made me think about my life and how I sometimes take things for granted that other people can only dream of having. This entire volunteering experience has taught me to look at life in a different way and appreciate everything in my life. I never realized that going trick-or-treating was something special. I just thought it was something everyone did. After taking the kids trick-or-treating and seeing their faces when they got candy, I realized I was wrong. It was something special and I have never seen the kids happier than they were trick-or-treating.
The second thing I have been experiencing is a cross culture situation. Cross culture is when someone compares two cultures. I have found myself doing that every time I volunteer. Some things that I have noticed are the way the kids obey their parents. When the mother asks the little girl to do something she does it right away no questions asked. In American culture some families are like that but a lot of kids do talk back to their parents and do not always do what they say. Another thing I have witnessed is how the little girl, who is 8, is like a parent to her little brother. She is constantly changing their diapers, feeding them, and playing with them. She also reads to them and tries to teach them as much English as she can. She does this so her mother can rest or make dinner. In our culture kids do not usually  parent their younger siblings. The biggest cross culture situation I experienced was when we took them trick-or-treating. We had to explain to the parents what Halloween was, why kids dress up in costumes, and what trick-or-treating was. It was very hard because they did not understand most of it but they understood enough so we could ask permission to take their kids trick-or-treating. In our culture it is just assumed that everyone knows what Halloween is and sometimes we take for granted the pure excitement of trick-or-treating. One thing we all have in common is that we like to celebrate and enjoy getting the candy!
I am learning a lot about myself, my life, and this family through this volunteering experience. Through perception and this cross culture situation, I am learning so much more than I thought I would at the beginning of volunteering. I cannot wait for next week to talk to them and start teaching them again.

Blog #2: Getting to Know Our Family

After having some problems with our first family, we asked Kelly if we could switch families. We were switched to a new family the this week and are getting to know them. There is a dad, Thawn, a mom, Mang Nu, and 4 children. There is a girl who is 8, Niang, a boy who is 4, Mon Song, a boy who is 18 months, Mon Mon, and a 9 month old boy, Moi.

At first I was a little nervous because we had to go through the awkward first few minutes but after that we were fine. The family was extremely welcoming and nice. The mom stays home and takes care of the 3 little boys and the dad works at the Tyson factory during the day. Also, the girl, Niang, goes to school. After we introduced ourselves we decided to evaluate what the mother knows. We went though the alphabet, numbers, colors, and shapes. She knew all of them. Then even went over body parts, clothes, and even some parts of the house. She knew all of those too. We figured out that the family had been here for about a year. In that time she had learned a lot. After we asked her some more questions, we grabbed a book and asked her if she could read. She read pretty well and only had trouble with a few words. We also asked her to write some things and that is where we discovered she needed help. She knew her letters and what they looked like but did not know how to write them. So that was our new goal was to teach her how to write letters and eventually words and sentences. We started out just having her sound the letters out and teaching her how to trace the letters. 

In addition to working with the mom we decided that we could work with Niang and the little boy Mon Song. Niang knew a lot of English but needed help learning addition. Also we wanted to see what Mon Song knew. Niang was more than willing to learn however her brother was not. He was very shy and did not talk to us at all. 

soon our time was up and had to leave. I felt very accomplished. We got off to a great start but we do have a long way to go. In the future I want to get Mon Song to open up so we can start working with him because he will pick up English very fast. Next time I think we are going to split up into groups so that way the family will not be overwhelmed. Two people can work with the mom on writing, two people can work with Niang, and two people can work on getting Mon Song to open up. I am looking forward to our next visit especially because the mom said that she wants to cook dinner for us. I feel really good about what we are doing and I think we are really going to help this family learn. I also think they will be teaching us about Burmese culture as much as we are teaching them about American culture. 

Before I met my Family

I am very nervous to meet my family for the first time. There are a mom, dad, and 2 sons.  I am most nervous about the language barrier. Also I think that is the thing that could be the most exciting. I am nervous that she will not be able to understand us and we will not be able to understand her. But at he same time this is an opportunity for us to learn some words in her language. We will not just be the teacher but she can also be the teacher by teaching us words and phrases in her language. I love teaching people new things and this is a great opportunity to do just that. I also love learning new things. I think my first visit will be a lot of introduction and just trying to asses where we need to start and some of the first things we should teach her. I want to try and bring some pictures or books to help her start learning through visual aids. I am really excited and nervous at the same time for our first meeting and the rest of the semester.