Sanya
Yesterday was a pretty relaxed day for me and working in the kitchen was fun because that is something I generally enjoy. The experiences and conversations I had with the students at ASYV was the more awakening part of my day.
I spoke to a girl at length about her life and how she got here. She had lost her birth parents at a young age, and her adopted mother very recently, and went through a really hard time dealing with being orphaned the second time around. Yet she had a smile on her face and spoke about her new family here with the same amount of love and affection. A lot of girls around had similar stories, some worse than the others, but what was so amazing to see was the utmost gratitude they had for all their privileges in their current situation here at ASYV. They really instilled the idea that however hard life knocks you down, you get back up smiling.
Interestingly, during our 'Tufts Time' conversations that evening, we did an activity that led us to answer a series of questions for ourselves regarding our ideas of class, religion, race, gender and sexuality. It made me explore my own privileges in greater depth, and understand that though we all had set backs in life, these girls stories helped me see my problems in a more hopeful way. Everyone is going through their own relative struggles, but it's how they deal with it with so much grace, hope and happiness that is inspiring to me.
Yesterday was a pretty relaxed day for me and working in the kitchen was fun because that is something I generally enjoy. The experiences and conversations I had with the students at ASYV was the more awakening part of my day.
I spoke to a girl at length about her life and how she got here. She had lost her birth parents at a young age, and her adopted mother very recently, and went through a really hard time dealing with being orphaned the second time around. Yet she had a smile on her face and spoke about her new family here with the same amount of love and affection. A lot of girls around had similar stories, some worse than the others, but what was so amazing to see was the utmost gratitude they had for all their privileges in their current situation here at ASYV. They really instilled the idea that however hard life knocks you down, you get back up smiling.
Interestingly, during our 'Tufts Time' conversations that evening, we did an activity that led us to answer a series of questions for ourselves regarding our ideas of class, religion, race, gender and sexuality. It made me explore my own privileges in greater depth, and understand that though we all had set backs in life, these girls stories helped me see my problems in a more hopeful way. Everyone is going through their own relative struggles, but it's how they deal with it with so much grace, hope and happiness that is inspiring to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment