Communication
After I returned from my trip, the first thing I heard after seeing my friends again was: "How was your trip?"
Despite all the practice Lon, Brianna and Tim gave us on the trip about preparing for this conversation, when it actually came down it, it was still difficult. Depending on who I was talking to, I had variations of answers for that question. For some it was a short and sweet 'elevator pitch'-like response, for others it was a more detailed one, and a few lucky ones got to engage in an hour long conversation with me.
No matter what, though, I still found it difficult because what I found was that it was hard for others to fully understand and grasp what I was saying, unless they had actually been there with me on the trip. Even people I knew who had gone on similar trips like these ones, I felt had a hard time understanding everything I told them. I think it's because my experience of the trip was so subjective. There were 15 of us there, but I guarantee that each of our experiences and how we were impacted by the trip was different. Therefore, you can imagine how difficult it must have been communicating such a subjective and unique experience.
I loved talking about my trip though, especially those long conversations with select few people. I found myself rambling on and on and on, while they kept asking questions, and before I knew it we had already been talking for over an hour, but I had gotten so caught up into talking about the trip and my feelings that it just kind of snuck up on me. I've never been someone who was super good at communication; I'm the type of person who prefers to talk about something over email or text than a phone call, but this all felt really natural to me.
Still, I felt like there was still some sort of barrier there between myself and my friends during our discussions. Even pictures don't do it justice, sometimes. I think of it as when someone says "You had to be there to understand, or you had to be there to find the joke funny." Same thing here - there's only so much my words can do. I think that the rest is up to you to go out and experience it, and that's what I told a few of my friends who showed a lot of interest.
It was so rewarding though - the dialogue that I was able to have with people because coming back as someone who was more knowledgable and inspired from before I left, I felt like i was able to realize more about my friends and their interests, beliefs, and opinions. And now that I'm involved with World Vision here, after the trip, I still find it hard sometimes to communicate everything that I want to say or when I'm asked a question because there's just so much information, and so many exciting things that World Vision is doing. For example, today we were having a bake sale at the university to support our sponsor child in Senegal and a woman approaches our table and says to us: "I'm disappointed that more clubs aren't acknowledging that it is World Aids Day today." Then she went on to say how World Vision needs to do more to address the problem of AIDS and that though they work in these communities, HIV/AIDS is still a problem and a large pandemic they're not putting enough resources towards it. Honestly, I don't know the extent to which World Vision works on AIDS and even the clinical and medical side of things - that wasn't something I experienced in Nicaragua. But no matter what I said to her, and not once did I say she was wrong, I simply just stated that World Vision, like any organization, can't specialize in everything. I said that food and child security have always been major pillars for WV, but that's why it's important that organizations partner with one another because some have the resources with this, and others have the resources with this. And yet, she seemed to block out everything I said and continue to express displeasure. After, Brianna explained to me when I told her about it was that in fact, World Vision has done an immense amount of care HIV/AIDS. It was quite the experience though, and one that was largely due to a lack of communication - or the unwillingness to communicate.
Nevertheless, I really appreciate it when people I know come up to me, or strangers when they see me around school doing events for the club, come up and ask me about WV. So I guess what I've learned is don't worry if communicating all the awesome things you're doing is hard sometimes because so much relies on experience. I think it's a big enough accomplishment if you can tell your story and get people interested in joining you in your cause.