Thursday - Demyana Azer

Today is Thursday, March 19, 2009. We officially have one more full day in Panama.
It's certainly been quite the trip. Today was the second and last day at Nutre Hogar, which was the last volunteering activity that we will have done on this trip. Thinking back on our reflection today, I think it is safe to say that every single one of us has been touched in a different, incredibly deep way. We've been to Casa Esperanza, where we were dealing with young under privileged children. Then we went to Nutre Hogar yesterday and today, where we dealt with infants and young toddlers who were malnourished and/or had physical disabilities. After both volunteer activities, the commonality that we found was that the few hours that we spent with the children truly went a long way.

Today I spent a lot of time observing many of my peers and how they were dealing with each child. I watched the face of one of the infants light up as one of the young men in our group was playing the simplest activities with him, such as putting on and taking off his socks. Every time he did this, the baby laughed up a storm, and it was adorable. As stereotypical as it is, I had never thought a guy our age could show such affection and get along so well with a child, willingly, and with such joy. Not only was the young infant overjoyed with having someone there just to hold him, play with him, and show some love, but at the end of the day the young man was deeply sorrowed to have to leave the baby. I watched another young lady in our group somehow manage to handle two babies at once (quite well might I add), and the love in all three of their eyes shone through with every movement and every gesture. It was incredible.

The baby that I personally had been blessed to spend time with today filled me with all sorts of emotion. At first he was fairly calm and quiet, just sitting on my lap and resting his head on my chest. After a little while, I started to play with him and soon discovered that this little boy was the easiest baby to make laugh! I literally did such simple things as shake a little green plastic rod, roll a piece of paper into a ball, and sometimes hit the two together, and the boy would laugh like he's never laughed before. It was amazing. He would laugh at the same thing for about 20 minutes straight, as if he'd never seen what I was doing. It reinforced the reoccurring motif of happiness stemming from simplicity. The boy was not laughing because there was a funny show on TV. He was not even laughing because I had given him a toy that made music and lit up. Contrastedly, all I had done was make a little noise with my mouth while hitting a little toy on the ground and sometimes against a rolled up piece of paper. It truly was incredible.

There was so much attachment with each one of these kids, and I think most of us felt a whole lot different at the end of the day than we did this morning. It's not just a feeling of accompishment, because really, we didn't do anything drastic. Yes, we did get some important things donated and made some purchases that will truly help the children at Nutre Hogar. But even more important than that was the little bit of time that each one of us spent with a child, and the affection we gave them that would not usually be attained from anyone else at their stay in Nutre Hogar. Although there are nurses working very hard day in and day out, it is not physically possible for each one of the children to receive the utmost love and care that they deserve from someone every single day. And the time that we spent with them, we gave them that. That feeling, and having felt a certain attachment and having left the child with that much more love at the end of the day was incredible. I think each member in our group was impacted in some way or another during this time.

It has been a fabulous experience throughout, and I truly am blessed to have been a part of this experience. Every part of this trip has taught me something, and I think it not only is important to walk away with a lessong learned (as we learned from the articles), but also to think a step further. Really, what can we do when we get back home to keep helping these children? What can we do when we get back home to help children with similar needs? Stuff like what we've see happens way closer to home than we think. And while we can all agree that this was an eye opening experience, I think we have to learn to take this experience and apply it elsewhere. We need to incorporate this experience into our everyday lives and truly find ways to help out in our own way, in the ways that we find we are best at. Not everyone's niche is playing with small infants. Not everyone has the desire to help out with children. But whatever each one finds to be his "niche" so to speak, let him to what is in his power to work with such things and try to make a difference, even if it's small steps at a time. Because as we've learned, a little really really can go a looong way.

-Demyana Azer