INTERNATIONAL VOLUNTEERING
Teaching in Nepal
An enriching experience with young Nepalese people from disadvantaged backgrounds...
After leaving Costa Rica, the wind carried me to another continent, where I wandered around a bit, listening for the signs of life! After a stay in Italy, another in Switzerland and France, I ended up in Nepal, where I volunteered to teach English in a village primary school, in the Pokhara region, to children from less fortunate backgrounds, for three months.
Although teaching English can be useful to young people, and possibly open certain doors for them later, if they continue to practice it, of course, or if, as volunteers, we manage to convey to them the desire to continue on this path... For me, teaching remains a pretext for this type of experience.
Rather, I believe that international volunteers are there to give time and love to these children from difficult backgrounds. And that's what I was trying to give them. Quality time. And love galore! (Unfortunately, many of these little ones receive very little. Not even from their own parents!) So having strangers take the time to be there for them shows them their importance and allows them to open up to another reality and culture. It also helps them open their hearts to difference and novelty. To open their hearts to others! To the life!
International intercultural exchanges are beneficial to all newcomers for the opening of the soul, consciences and hearts! And, they are also beneficial for everyone! As much for volunteers as for teachers, parents or children!
Opening up to different cultures and realities...
For an experience like this to be fully successful, you must keep an open mind at all times. In addition to the great poverty in which certain peoples live and evolve, their customs and traditions can very often seem very archaic and out of place. However, we must keep in mind that we are not there to judge, criticize or show them that their way of doing things is not the right way. Not to mention that the best way to teach is always by example.
Of course, I didn't always agree with many of their methods; only, for example, if we think about how women and children (of lower social ranks even more!) are treated... However, I wasn't going there to judge them. Regardless of their last name (cast and social lineage are predominant in this small country), I treated everyone as my equal, with love and respect (which I try to do everywhere in the world). , ignoring jobs, past experiences, social status or bank account!) Which the teachers and children did not fail to notice! They were able to learn by watching me like this, open to everyone. And, I also learned a lot from everyone and from this most enriching experience! I will talk about it here and there in several of my books, Lost in Maui,Nomadic AndIllusion.
In the Dominican Republic...
A new and different experience with my readers!
After Nepal, with the Youth Foundation for Sustainable Development (with which I had already made a first volunteering trip in the past!), I went with different groups of volunteers, mainly made up of my readers, who wanted to live the same type of experience in the Dominican Republic. I was there to accompany them on their great adventure; help them with the language, the country, the different realities, the culture shock... Or quite simply to exchange with them about their experiences or others. To support them and also to spend quality time each.
Another experience, in the company of beautiful souls, most enriching at all levels!
