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Haha where do I even begin?

I guess I could start off by saying that the trip itself was nothing short of amazing. Given that this was the first time going overseas for a school CIP project, the trip has proved to be both enlightening and enjoyable. If you are one of the few J1s-to-be who chanced upon this blog URL at out Open House (and one of the even fewer ones who decided to visit it) and are considering whether to take up ISLE, then consider no more, for I can guarantee that it would be one of the most rewarding experiences of your JC life. 

I started off with the notion that such a service-learning trip would definitely entail more service than learning, and I guess this is because we have often been led to believe that given our material status, it is our moral obligation to give rather than receive. I was pretty much all geared up and ready to offer my assistance to the best of my abilities (and don't get me wrong, I did try), but it was in the middle of the trip where you truly start to realize:

You tend to receive much more than you give. 

Let's face it. Inner Laotian villages like the ones we have visited (Na Saat and Na Kom, mainly) would have its fair share of foreign visitors to lend a helping hand in their state of affairs and thus, the impact our team would have on their lives is no less comparable compared to the teams that came before and after. Furthermore, given our lack of aptitude in mixing cement and the Laotian language, how much help could we actually offer with such odds heavily stacked against us? I am certainly not saying that we should not service others simply because of its sheer difficulty - my point is that on service learning trips such as this, simply harbouring the sole intention to serve has, ironically, become a narrow way of thinking. 

What's to stop us from learning ourselves from Laos and its people? Whether is it their sheer happiness and contentment with basic living conditions and entertainment in the form of shooting rubber bands, or simply their perseverance exemplified in construction and farming, these are traits of the human spirit that we can aspire to emulate to become a better person. If we choose to, that is. Service, after all, is a cumulative effort, and we should not beat ourselves up too much for not accomplishing our initial (and often overly ambitious) goals, so much such that we end up missing all the learning that such a trip can offer.

I guess this was my biggest takeaway from the trip, amongst other takeaways such as the appreciation of our comfortable lives back in Singapore and how we should strive not to waste our resources (which I honestly feel are takeaways that have been re-hashed ad nauseam from reflection to reflection), that we have so much more to receive and learn as opposed to our capacity to give.

Ultimately, when it comes to service-learning, 'learning' is bigger than 'service'.