Journal 18 - I'm Out of Time

I limited myself to 30 minutes of reading and writing. I spent the thirty minutes reading and listening to NPR instead and now I'm out of time' I'm perfectly fine with that because I know I'm working efficiently and will finish earlier than if I had not set a goal. Here are my thoughts for today's reading.

I have been thinking about the woman who took pictures of the FLDS communities (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123815829). It's an interesting situation to consider, that of how one enters a community. She said it took her 4 months to get beyond their homes and activities and into their lives. I would like to get into the lives of the people in Wiamoase and understand the effects and thoughts they have about development projects in their community. How will I do this without a grasp of their language? I think an important part is applying one of the readings I did.

Rachel Naomi Remen talked in her article "Helping, Fixing or Serving?" about the difference between helping, fixing and serving. I think what struck me the most was how she defined serving as person to person, willing to put yourself out of your comfort zone and into a realm of mystery for another. It seems scary, but it correlates well with what President Monson said a couple years ago "Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved." When your goal is really to understand and get to know another, than serving and focusing on people is the only real answer; every other activity or focus misses the mark. It's hard to do--putting yourself out there to get to know and understand another--but it accomplishes and produces the most in the end. I really liked this reading, and I really hope that I can keep this in mind in Wiamoase. It seems important if I want to understand the community perceptions of the clinic to really come to know just a handful of people and--perhaps I'll only report on that handful, but I think that for myself, I'd have learned more that way than with any other method.

I suppose I should use my experience to invest in my efforts and study like I'll be there for years and avoid the rush and carelessness that might come with trying to speed up the process.

I also ran into this quote from Paulo Freire about problems in development efforts. He says "“ They talk about the people but they do not trust them; and trusting the people is the indispensable precondition for revolutionary change. A real humanist can be identified more by his trust in the people, which engages him in their struggle, than by a thousand actions in their favour, without that trust.”