My name is Laura, and I'm a 30 year old, married, undergrad, social work student. Growing up I was always helping animals and people. After years of working as a nurse’s aide, caring for the elderly, I became aware of the social work profession. I started college in my later 20’s, knowing where my passions lie. I hope to work in gerontology with an emphasis on Alzheimer’s and dementia related issues. My goals are to work using pet therapy, family support group services, and alternative therapies. Since starting college I have also gained an interest in international politics. Having now studied abroad in China and El Salvador I have developed an understanding of immigration, poverty, and human rights. These are all issues that I hope to continue learning about.
In reflecting back on the El Salvador trip, it is very difficult to summarize the experience. It was defiantly life changing and emotionally difficult. Those sound like negative things, and in some sense they are, however sometimes in order to grow, we must go through some uncomfortable feelings.
My whole life has been fairly uneventful and peaceful. I had a happy childhood and I have never gone hungry. Studying social work and sociology I intellectually understand many problems people face. Going to El Salvador though, I felt, smelled, and heard what real suffering is like. I sat and listened to women in Santa Marta tell of losing all of their children during the war. I listened to how the government opened the dam just as they were crossing the river to the safety of Honduras, causing many to drown to death.
In San Salvador we listened to a woman explain the scars that went up one side and down the other side of a sex worker. Her throat had been slit, she still had a bullet in her back, and each of her arms had numerous scars. Her eyes were sad, hauntingly sad. And yet, still she works. Men violate her body day after day, because that is the only work she has.
At the site of the Jesuit Priest’s murders, we walked the path of their killers. Men of God who spoke for the people, died for speaking for those people. I stood where the gardener stood when he found the priest bodies, and then where he found his dead wife and daughter, who also were shot. At the parish of Monsenor Romero I sat in the pew where his congregation sat the afternoon he was shot in the heart. Also, because he spoke for the people.
The last day of our trip we sat as a group and talked about our experiences. We were asked by our professor 1) what are we leaving in El Salvador 2) what are we taking home with us? One person in the group said they were leaving a part of their childhood behind and emerging more as an adult. This has stayed with me as very accurate to my own feelings. I don’t feel as though I am a child, but sometimes our eyes are still not fully opened to the world around us, even though we are adults. Traveling forces us to open our eyes. Once our eyes are open we cannot pretend we don’t know of these things.
So, for myself I struggle with the fact that everyday more people in the world experience life far removed from the life I am accustomed to. More people than not, don’t have clean drinking water, health care is a luxury reserved for the rich, a working car to get to a job, a job that pays a fair wage, and access to education. There are many things that people in the United States taken for granted.
More than anything, though, I walked away from the trip fired up for social work, social change, peace, and human rights. I speak up for people more often. And I think about things more. I remember the people of El Salvador and their generosity. I think about how my actions here also affect them. How I vote, how I spend my money, how I use water, and how I use my education, these things all matter. More than one person who spoke with us told us that we have a responsibility to use our education wisely because most of the people will never have access to college. I plan on doing just that.
If we all did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves. - Thomas Edison
"You must do the thing you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt
“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” JFK
“To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” Mandela
If you have any comments or questions, feel free to email me.