Finally...Stef's Reflection

Although a territory of the US, Puerto Rico has maintained its own culture and tradition. It continues to invoke a relaxed attitude towards life. During our trip we spent a day at a high school. The building itself exemplified the laid back personality of the island. During the day students were free to hang out and study outside if they didn’t have class. There were no doors on the end of the hall ways, everything was open to the outside world. One classroom even had a wall taken out exposing the students and teacher to the outside world. This differs drastically from the security stringent continental US schools that are always on the look out for a potential school shooting. Speaking to the students we learned of the different views towards America in Puerto Rican politics. There seem to be three main parties; the ones who wish to keep things as they are, those who wish to make Puerto Rico a state and those who wish for independence. All of the students seemed very excited about the election of Barack Obama. Visiting the homeless shelter where we helped make and serve lunch also was very different from what I expected. Some of the people had previously lived in the continental US before migrating down to the streets of Puerto Rico. A lot of the homeless could speak some English. At the shelter the staff encouraged their residents to learn to paint. They brought in retired art teachers, professors and artists to give pointers to the residents. For money, the residents sold their paintings. One very talented resident had recently sold a painting at an auction for 4 figures! Having been to Puerto Rico before as a tourist, it was interesting to come back and to see what real life is like on the island. The trip was very rewarding over all and gave me new insight on the Puerto Rican culture.

Yesterday's Meeting: Emotional Site Experiences and the Traffic Game

Yesterday's meeting was in my opinion, one of the best meetings of the year. Amy James started out by stressing the need for people to be more open and reflective when explaining their experiences at their site. It didn't suffice to simply say "Oh, this week was good, we played with the kids, they were happy, etc.". She encouraged people to delve deeper into their experiences and discuss among other things, their interactions with a particular child at their site, some of the difficulties they faced at their site, or even some of the difficulties the children faced.

Inspired, everybody gave a much more thorough explanation of their experiences at their sites than they had in previous weeks. The story that stands out most in my mind was Henry's about how some children's parents could not even afford to buy them clean underwear or a washing machine. Consequently, these Donovan Middle School students are forced to wear the same underwear almost every day and are made fun of by their fellow classmates. As somebody that was made fun of Middle School, I can only imagine what it must be like for these students to not only be constantly ridiculed, but also be very uncomfortable because they're wearing dirty clothes all the time. Luckily, Kelly Wolfe, the director of the Advantage After School Program, runs a service where she cleans children's underwear at the school. Unfortunately, she is not able to run this service consistently enough, leaving some children for days without clean clothes. One student was so desperate for clean clothes that he broke into Kelly's office, looking for underwear and socks, but unfortunately found none. The school then responded by sending this poor child, who wanted nothing more than clean clothes, home. Henry confessed that one day this student broke down to him and started crying because he couldn't deal with the situation anymore. Luckily, we have some funds in the form of a Bonner Grant that could be used to buy underwear, socks, or even other clothes for children. While buying clothes will be no means by a permanent solution, it will at least provide temporary relief for these tormented, distressed students.

Finally, Amy introduced us to the interactive, yet difficult, Traffic Game. Observing that there was little interaction between the older and younger Bonner Leaders, the idea of this game was to bring us closer together as a group. The rules were simple. There were seven dots placed in a straight line. The middle dot was left unoccupied while three people stood on one side of the dot and the other three people stood on the other side of the dot, facing the first three people. The goal was to get the three people from each side of the unoccupied dot to the other side, but participants were only allowed to go around one person at a time and could not move backwards. Thus, if at any time, there were two people in front of you facing the opposite way, the game was over because you could not get around them, nor could they back up. Three people standing to the side helped decide strategy as they had a more complete view of the dots than any of the direct participants. While the rules were simple enough, coordinating the game was a completely different story. No matter how hard we tried, we simply could not accomplish the goal. We tried many different strategies, including figuring it out on paper, but while some were more succesful than others, they all failed in the end. However, even though we failed to "win" the game, the Bonner were interacting in a way that they had not interacted before and that was a victory in itself. Furthermore, as Amy admitted to us later, she had only seen one team succesfully complete the Traffic Game.

Last Wednesday's Meeting

Last Wednesday, we had a short, but interesting meeting. We first discussed everybody's experiences at their respective sites. Everybody had something good to say, but I was especially intrigued by Rita Tran's week at the Underground Cafe (UC) and Emily Chamberlain's week at the Family Treatment Court.
Rita spoke about how difficult it was for the children now that the upstairs space is not quite finished and the downstairs space is slightly restrictive. Even worse, the children are not happy about the new regulations that have been imposed upon the program since they received funding from the Safe Schools Advantage After School Program fund. In short, it's too regimented. The kids just want to dance or play basketball, but now they have to do certain programs. When Haley started the UC a few years ago, it was meant to be a place where the students decided what they wanted to do. Now, they are growing weary as they see control shift slowly out of their hands. Also, the UC is supposed to be open from 6-8 PM on Thursdays, but now they can't find enough staff to keep it open that late.
Emily mentioned how three women got in trouble for sneaking out of Johnson Park Center (JPC), a rehabilitory residence area with a strict no-drug policy, to score some drugs. Needless to say, these three women were kicked out of JPC. She also sat next to a judge during a hearing at the Family Court. The case involved a woman who was trying to maintain custody of her child after it became known that she beat this child. Apparently, this women had lost custody of her other children years earlier for similar reasons. When asked by the judge how long she would continue having children, even though she treated them so poorly, she replied "I'll continue having children until you let me keep one of them."
After this, Amy James spoke about a potential service trip with Amherst College. She had recently an e-mail from the Bonner Director at Amherst who expressed interest in collaborating with us on some sort of service activity. Also, the Bonner program at Hobart Williams and Smith has expressed interest in collaborating with us as well, so we thought that it would be a good idea if Amherst and HWS met us halfway in Utica (we're lazy) sometime in either April or May. However, this is extremely tentative as we haven't even discussed location or dates with either college yet.
Finally, I showed everybody this blog. Everybody seemed to like it and I hope that they all become active bloggers.

Laura's Reaction

The majority of people look back upon their time in Puerto Rico and think of sandy beaches, laying idly in the sun, and eating the island cuisine. When I think about Puerto Rico memories of the homeless shelter, veteran’s hospital, and local high school come to mind. For these memories and experiences I will always be grateful. On our trip to Puerto Rico we were able to see a side of the island that most people will never see. We were immersed in the language, culture, and life of the people there. Each day of volunteering at a new site let us meet new people and hear different stories. For me the day spent working at the boarding house was unforgettable. The shelter was located in a poor region of San Juan. The unique thing about the boarding house was that it was not only a food kitchen, but also provided shelter, facilities to wash, religious education, and clothing. The people there functioned as a community; the workers did not act superior and the people in need did not seem ashamed. Instead they all conversed together and appeared genuinely happy to be there. Spending a day with both the volunteers and the people who came to the shelter showed me that if you are fortunate enough to be well off, you should happily want to give back to others who are less fortunate. As humans we need to care for one another and that is what the people at the shelter are doing every day.

Yoko's Reaction

The first day, Sunday, we arrived in San Juan and settled into our Holiday Day Inn Express rooms. We walked around the area for most of the time along with going to the beach. The second day we headed over to the Red Cross and cleaned the outside and inside of Red Cross vehicles. The third day we went to a boarding home called La Fondita de Jesus where we served food and some of us also went to a nearby place where we sorted out donated clothing to give out to the poor. On the fourth day, we went to the Veteran’s Hospital to help give out gifts from the Red Cross to patients there and also to talk with the patients. We communicated with some of them in English but even though many of them only knew Spanish we managed to somewhat communicate through the ‘Holas’ and other small Spanish words we learned. Then on the fifth day we headed over to the Escuela Lino Padron Rivera de Vega Baja High School where we had the chance to interact with students there and to help out by painting the music room. The students there were very interested in hearing what we had to say and most of them were willing to speak English. Then, the last day, Friday, we left very early in the morning to the airport. The trip gave us the great experience to have had been able to help out in a community in a culturally different atmosphere.

Caroline's Reaction

With the temperature at roughly 75ºF, it was not difficult to immediately fall in love with Puerto Rico. Although we had the first day off to enjoy the beach near our hotel and explore the surrounding areas, our group had to get up early to start volunteering Monday morning. We started our volunteer trip washing the ambulances and SUVs at the Red Cross in San Juan. As the week progressed, I realized the tremendous work that the organization did and the number of people they helped. The diversity of the volunteering that we did helped me to learn about Puerto Rico beyond the beach and resorts. From serving food at a local soup kitchen, to distributing toiletries to war veterans in a hospital, and finally to visiting high school students in a nearby town, I discovered so much about Puerto Rico’s culture and the experiences of its people. The trip allowed me to volunteer outside of the community in Utica that I am used to helping, and I am glad I got a chance to make a difference in the lives of the people that were so hospitable to me.

Liam's Reaction

During my recent trip to Puerto Rico with the Bonner Leaders Program, I meet many interesting people and learned a lot about the local community programs and culture. One of the most memorable aspects of the trip was how hospitable everyone we met was. Whether we were looking for a good restaurant or asking for directions, the locals always took time to answer our questions. In addition, all of the people we worked with made sure that we had everything we needed. I think Puerto Rico was a great choice to visit because its culture is different enough so that we were all experiencing something new, but it is not so different that we were unable to be effective. For example, during our visit to a high school, I was able learn a lot about many of the students because most of them knew how to speak English. This trip allowed us to learn about Puerto Rico and help the community there.