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Angel |
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Angelica |
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Annie |
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Harry |
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Natalie |
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Trevor |
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Give and Take
Annie Kwok
In the past, I wouldn’t be willing to visit an underdeveloped mountain area, because I was convinced that I couldn’t get used to a life of scarcity.
Before I applied for the trip, I had participated in some training camps and lived days without enough food. Having experienced life with terrible conditions, I thought living in the mountain areas of Nepal probably wouldn’t be a nightmare.
The initial reason why I applied for the journey was that I wanted to explore the world when I was still young and to make every effort to help those children who can’t change their destiny. They are destined to be born in a remote village without proper education and health facilities and do not have many choices in life. On the contrary, born in Hong Kong, I belong to a group of fortunate people. While I enjoy my life with material abundance, I also want to learn to contribute, to give and to take.
Every day in the 8-day trip was fruitful. Everyone was fully engaged in serving even though there was no mobile phone network. Every morning, we gathered at 7 am, learned some yoga, and then ate breakfast before setting off to the school. We separated into groups to do farm work, paint on the walls, and conduct teaching activities. Before dinner, we returned to the village to hold workshops for local women to learn to make handicrafts. And right before having dinner, we had a debriefing and team building session. In the former, we reflected on what we did in the day and the quality of our service; in the latter, we played interactive games to enhance understanding of each other for better teamwork.
Initially, I thought this service trip would be a physically demanding and extremely difficult mission which would continually challenge my endurance. However, experiencing life in Nepal by myself, I realized although the paths were difficult, the view was amazing; Teaching the children efficiently was hard, but every child enjoyed the process with sincere laughter; Ploughing and wall painting were time-consuming and complicated, but accompanied with teammates, we smoothly solved all problems. In the process of serving, we contributed to the locals, through which we gained experience and enriched our knowledge. From the locals, we learned gratitude and satisfaction; We also learned to live simply like them to pursue the purest form of happiness and to always reflect on ourselves and live in the moment. Last but not least, we learned to give and take.
(Thanks Hing Sing Yuen, our volunteer, who translated Annie’s testimonial from Chinese to English.)
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