Monday, July 26, 2010

Diaries from a Volunteer



By: Rachel Sloane


I had been struggling with the language barrier working at La Puerta Abierta in my first few weeks. It had been hard for me to loose my talent of communicating well with others. My language barrier was starting to feel like a burden. I knew it wasn’t a huge issue, because we were always able to complete the tasks at hand, but for me, I felt like I was wasting a lot of the librarians' time having to repeat directions over and over.

So, you can imagine I would walk in with a little anxiety...but one student helped change that all.

Cary is an enthusiastic, blonde haired cutie who never walks into class with out saying ¨Buenos Dias.¨ He was pleasantly reading out loud to himself as I swept the classroom floor. His adorable interest in books about trucks somehow caught my attention. It was the first chance I had to hang out one on one with one of the students. I squatted down and pretended to follow along as he read about fire trucks, garbage trucks and dump trucks. Eventually he stopped and started asking me questions ¨Como se lama?¨ was his first inquiry, and questions about my family and my friends soon followed. The greatest part about this conversation was that I could follow along! Finally I was able to respond in a conversational manner and I discovered that I actually understood what somebody wanted to say to me!

This child had no idea what he did for me that day. He took a stress of my shoulders, he gave me a boost of confidence and me made me smile. But then again, I am quickly learning kids do a lot of wonderful things for us ¨grownups” with out realizing it.