Community Week 2

Community week 2!!!! I can’t believe it’s already the second week down. Our week started off a little slow, but gained momentum as we went along. We started off with the Wellness Group on Monday at the local clinic. I simply loved interacting with the elderly ladies and grannies! They come together once a week for a meal which they all contribute towards, but they just love interacting with one another and being there together. What stuck out for me was their sense of unity!

“We are like sisters”,

 “We love each other”,

“I have a toothache but I’m still here”,

“I love being here; I will come even if I have to walk very far”,

and comments like those are really uplifting. I feel like wow, even if I do nothing here these ladies are already amazing on their own! I can just add more value to what they already have. One great thing about these lovely old ladies; you meet them once, now you their friend for lifeJ. Whenever I saw them later that week they would call me and rush over to hug and greet me! I absolutely love itJ!

However there were the challenges too. The Primary School for example, has identified about 50-60 “problem kids” in Grade 1 which we ethically have to formally assess before commencing treatment. And this can take a really long time, considering we just have 4 more weeks at this point! I feel it just takes initiative. We could have said naaah this is too much we won’t cope! But instead we jumped head first into it and started assessing. And wow, in two days we actually had completed one out of three assessments with all the kids! The other 2 assessments are definitely going to take longer, but now that we’ve started chipping away at this mountain, it doesn’t seem so huge to overcome anymore!

We also had our first meeting for initiating a support group for parents with disabled children. This was an initiative requested by two mothers from the community. And all I felt after that meeting was wow! We just had those two mothers in this meeting, one an elderly mother with an intellectually impaired child, and the other a much younger mother with a 20 year old son with CP. But they are so dedicated to their children! They really poured their hearts out to us about their concerns, and even though they had children with vastly different problems, they could really identify with one another and it was clear they were facing similar problems.

 I feel so positive about this group. Even if it is just these two mothers, their initiative can change the whole community and its perception of disabled children! It starts from ventures like these, and I feel so proud to be a part of it. The only thing that saddens me was a point the older mother brought up. Her concern was about who would take care of her child when she was gone? And it left me pondering… how amazing is a mother? No matter the race, culture, tradition, a mother is a mother no matter where in the world she is! No one will ever love or take care of a child the way a mother has. And her concern is always for her child first! And the sad reality for disabled children is that once that mother or parent is gone, their shield or barrier against the world is also gone. However, I also acknowledge that not all mothers are like this, and we still see many cases of abuse and neglect of children by their own parents. May God protect all the beautiful children in our Rainbow Nation!

So after a week of challenges, opportunities and general ups and downs, I had a great epiphany! I love community, and I really think I would enjoy being a community service Occupational Therapist. To be honest I was and still am terrified about my community service placement next year. My first choice is a small community health clinic, which is apparently under resourced with no budget, and the feel I’ve been getting from others is that I wouldn’t learn anything there! However, since these two weeks on community I feel like hell, if I can enjoy this experience and see so much potential in this little community where we don’t even have an OT department, why can’t I enjoy community service???

I don’t know what it is about community, but I feel I will thrive on the challenges rather than letting it get me down. It just excites me to see so much opportunity! Perhaps it is because I am just a persistent person. I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing, but I will nag you and persist until I get what I want, and I am also not afraid to ask for what I need. Therefore I find that I am usually the one to take charge of projects and groups because I’ll get the dirty work done! However, working with my group on community I’ve come to appreciate each person’s strengths and weaknesses, and that you don’t have to do everything yourself. I am glad I have a hard working group who share the same vision as I do. I have also noticed I have waaaay too many ideas, but I can also now actually see what can work, what can’t, and how I can just play my part of the puzzle, but leave it to the community to create the picture. In my head community is all about helping the people to help themselves. And that is what I love about community especially in this community. Despite observable hardships, there are still those community members willing to help change their community and serve their people the best they can. I believe that God always makes a way, and I feel incredibly grateful that God has chosen us as a means to serve and help this beautiful community!

Till next weekJ

xxx