Living Together

Last week while I was volunteering at WASL, I was asked by another volunteer if I was there because I wanted to be there or if I was there because I had to be. I gave his question a quick thought and answered him. However, I think his question deserves more attention than a quick answer. I have been thinking about it a lot and have posed the same question to myself while I was found myself in different situations throughout the week.

For the most part, my answer is that I'm there because I want to be there. I came into Beyond Borders knowing that there was a local volunteer component and I also had the opportunity to choose which part of The Working Centre I was working with. On the other hand, I was there because I had to be there if I wanted to complete my hours for my class. Additionally, it was my first week there so I had not yet formed a sentimental connection to WASL that drew me back. However, the concept that I struggle with is what it means to want to be there and how do we determine that?

Almost everything we do in life has a purpose. We go to school because we want to eventually have a high-paying job. We go to work because we have to pay bills. We go on dates because we want to find a life-partner. In almost all circumstances, I think there is something we gain. What, then, does it mean to be somewhere because we want to be there? To be somewhere because we want to be there does not necessarily mean we don't gain anything out of it. The most important factor, in my opinion, is the qualitative factor of sentimental connection. It makes you happy and despite the hardships, you find joy in working through life's obstacles. In that regard, I would say that last week, I was there merely because I had to be there. In fact, going to WASL this week still felt like an obligation but leaving was a different story. I didn't necessarily long to return to WASL this week but I am currently looking forward to my next week there!

This week at WASL, I started to feel comfortable -- I felt like I was finally at home. I was welcomed and my volunteer coordinator was happy to see that I had returned. After I had taken off my jacket, she asked me to go get my nametag and to sign in. It was not until I let her know that I do not have a nametag that she realized I didn't get one last week. But to be officially welcomed with a machine made nametag, I felt like I had a purpose at WASL. I was then asked to help out in the front of the store! However, due to different demands for help, I spent some of my time in the back and got shown a lot of the key routines that happen at WASL. I interacted well with my co-volunteers and continued to make those crucial connections.

At home: I started to feel at home at WASL. What does this mean? Carissa wrote on her blog about this topic based on her readings by an author, Michael Jackson, in At Home in the World. She noted that to feel at home is to be familiar with her surroundings, to live in a world without boundaries as described by the Warlpiri people. In their lives, everyone is connected. Wives, husbands, and brothers are abundant and related by their skin names. To be at home is to be comfortable, living and working together and to have a connection with the people whom you work with.

Now, this concept of being at home and working together relates to one of this week's readings by Jim Lotz. On his chapter on What is Community Development?, he describes that community development "focuses on the process of enabling people collectively to achieve goals and to influence actions together, rather than as individuals." He also notes that the group in question must feel a collective need for this change rather than have it imposed by a foreign group, which he considers an intrusion. I think this week, I have started to feel a part of the community that exists in the initiatives at The Working Centre and that I am connected. Yet I have a sense of pride in the work I do but at the same time a respect for the environment I was in.

To feel at home at WASL was to be respected and to have a conflict-free day. It was to make connections with fellow volunteers and to laugh and smile together. Yet this does not reflect real life. Personally, I have a fundamental problem with this conception of home described both by Jackson and by Lotz. To me, these authors describe a low-conflict world that aims at solving problems collectively. To fight against the same thing and to develop the community with everyone's needs in mind. However, this is not what being at home is to me at all. Being at home is being with family; with family, we are obscene and uncensored. Perhaps it is my ongoing relationship with my family but sometimes I think being with my parents and my brother brings the worst out of me. I become opinionated and seek to get what I want. We bicker all the time and do not necessarily get along. We have selfish desires that we need our family members to fulfill. I remember my dad saying that he felt proud that our whole family attended my grandfather's 80th birthday gathering. Why did he feel proud when the dinner was not to celebrate him? I was distraught when I heard this. Feeling at home to me is not necessarily about being the most comfortable. It is not living conflict-free nor is it knowing the landscape of life. Feeling at home, for me, is living together despite our differences and working together towards a common goal. You cannot escape family and, to an extent, it is an obligation. So does this mean I only spend time with my family because I have to be with them, or do I want to be with them?

I don't think we necessarily have to make that distinction in life. Whatever the reason, we are there for the good of the community and have a vested interest in bettering it. Living together means making the occasional sacrifice to help those you are with. Although I felt at home, in the conventional sense of the phrase, at WASL I do not feel that I am necessarily being challenged. I hope to find my place at home at both WASL and the Dominican as I challenge myself to live together with others and be true to myself.

Jim Lotz' reading: http://www.theworkingcentre.org/wscd/pubs/understanding-canada.pdf
Carissa's Blog: http://cabaron33-beyondborders.blogspot.com/2011/02/being-at-home-in-world.html