Final Reflection

Final Reflection

This class has me very excited to finally go to Nicaragua!  I’m ready to experience, although only for two weeks, some of what we have been reading about in class.

As I have mentioned throughout the posts in this website, I think this class is absolutely necessary for service trips and I think any service trip where participants don’t go through something similar to this beforehand is failing.  This class really gave me the context to understand what I will be putting myself into in a few weeks.  I really appreciated the ability that we had to Skype some of the Nicaraguans that we will be working with and I liked that the Nicaraguans had a chance to ask us questions about America.  It really emphasized the importance of two-way learning and it exemplified the fact that we are learning from the Nicaraguans and the Nicaraguans are learning from us.  That experienced really helped me understand my place as a global citizen. During this class, I grew critical of my own intentions.

I’m also excited to see how my view of volunteer trips such as these will change during and after the trip.  The only thing that I can think about right now is Illich’s To Hell with Good Intentions.  I’m thinking about all the problems that Americans face and will continue to face and I’m questioning why I’m even going to Nicaragua.  I hope that I can be helpful, but then I also recognize and will willingly acknowledge my ignorance on many of the things that I will be dealing with.

I was a little worried about my final project, but as Asha, David and I continued to progress, I got more and more excited.  I was primarily concerned with not being able to implement anything substantial since I felt that we didn’t know nearly as much as we needed to actually be helpful.  But, after coming up with our final project idea, I really got excited and it felt good when Professor Moody said, “You all could start a revolution.”