First off, let me apologize. It has been over two weeks
since the Week in the Life experience and I’ve yet to write any blogs about it.
Being the true procrastinator that I am, I refrained from writing anything
because I wanted everything to be perfect and inspiring. You may be thinking,
“Meagan, you are silly. Writing nothing is far worse than anything else you could
have written!” And I would have to agree with you. So here goes something…
The average Canadian is expected to live approximately
eighty-one years. One week in the span of his or her lifetime is the equivalent
to around twenty seconds in the span of a twenty-four hour day. So, in essence,
Week in the Life (formerly known as Shack Week) will become a mere twenty
seconds in the course of my lifetime. That. Is. Frightening.
Have you ever had one of those moments you’ve vowed to
remember for the rest of your life? But like a child trying to hold a handful
of sand, it slowly slips away? That is exactly how I feel about Shack Week.
That is why twenty seconds terrifies me so much. I’m cupping some fantastic
sand full of wisdom and life-changing goodness, but every time I check on it I
have less and less in my hands.
However, twenty seconds, though typically insignificant, can
change the course of someone’s life. Maybe it was that time someone gave you the
Heimlich while you were choking on some popcorn. Maybe it was that spontaneous
decision to move to France. It could even be as simple as that smile from a
stranger who eventually became the love of your life. Regardless of how little
time it took, what matters is that it happened.
So yeah, Shack Week happened. And it was great. It was the
perfect combination of this-is-so-hard-how-can-people-live-like-this?
and maybe-they-have-the-right-idea.
There was push, there was pull, but most importantly, there were lessons
learned.
Lesson One:
Put others first.
If everyone puts everyone else first, they will have seven
billion people looking after them instead of just one (themselves).
It seems simple enough. Go out of your way to help people
and they will meet your needs. Ultimately, having the masses looking after each
other is a much better idea than everyone looking after his or herself.
This came to me after an exceptionally grueling time
sweeping a driveway. Not just any driveway. A big, long, cobblestone-esque
driveway. The kind that is so dusty that you can sweep the same spot five times
and have it still be dusty. The kind that gets the broom stuck on the stones.
The kind of driveway that makes you rethink life as you know it.
Let me paint you a picture. It was the last day and we were
all sore, hungry, and tired. Blisters were developing on our hands and our
backs ached with every push. It was hot outside and the labor left us
overheating. The combination of hard work and heatstroke left us feeling faint
and nauseous. And here we were sweeping. And sweeping. For hours. And hours.
We could have left the task to a couple of keeners and
slipped away to a less demoralizing chore. Yet here we were, collectively
pushing through (literally and figuratively). When the going got tough, we
rotated jobs to give a break to those feeling particularly ill. And we always
came back to lend a hand. We put our own needs aside and put our family’s
first. I’m not sure how we could have managed had we not all been so
considerate of each other.
Lesson Two:
Attitude is everything.
I have a confession to make: I love food. I love to eat a
lot and I love to eat often. And if I don’t have food, I get hangry
(hunger-anger).
One of my biggest fears of Week in the Life was my hanger.
Regardless of how hard I try to turn it around, my peers can tell when I
haven’t eaten in a while. I have never been hungry for a week straight and I
had no idea how that would affect my attitude. I knew I had to keep it together
for the sake of the other girls, but I wasn’t sure how I would, or could
manage.
Let it be known that I was never full that entire week. I
was once so hungry that the thought of eaten an entire package of Mr. Noodles
to myself (we would split one pack between two or three of us) moved me to
tears. I am not kidding. But for the one in eight people of the world who
suffer from undernourishment, hunger is just one of the daily challenges they
face.
We had many opportunities to complain about our situation.
Nearly every aspect of our lives was a chore and a struggle. But we didn’t
complain. We sought out that silver lining and encouraged the heck out of each
other. We knew attitudes were contagious and that, good or bad, it would spread
its way across the group.
Of all of the jobs I knew we would do that week (rock
picking, field work, clamming, and general labor) I was the least excited for
clamming. We had to go out in the middle of the night and hop in the freezing
cold ocean in shorts and a t-shirt. It was late (we arrived at the beach around
1am) and I was cold in my full-length pants, two sweaters, and blanket. The
thought of losing just one of my layers was awful. I alternated which foot I
would stand on because the sand was so cold! And to make matters worse, we
anticipated not making any money that night. We would have been lucky if we
earned money to cover our transportation cost. It was the perfect recipe for a
bad attitude.
I chose to focus on the good. I had given myself an internal
pep talk and challenged myself to make the most of the situation. And guess
what, it turned out that clamming was my favorite job.
There wasn’t a cloud or a moon in the sky, and the infinity
of stars shone brightly. It was one of the most beautiful skies I have ever
seen. I wish I could have had my camera with me to capture the moment. And when
viewed at from the lens of an adventurer, clamming can be quite fun!
Your mission is to locate and extract as many clams as you
can. Your only equipment is a pitchfork. You have no idea where the clams may
be hiding, so you run out into the water and stab the ground until you hit
something hard. Here is where the tricky part comes in. You have to time your
rescue mission so that a wave doesn’t knock you over or wash your clam away. Then
you need to wedge your fork in the sand, prop it down, and scoop up the
treasure with your hands. Time it wrong and you’ll lose your clam and get
soaked. Time it right and you earn yourself a potential 3.33 pesos, or $0.28
CAD.
Eventually my feet got numb enough that they weren’t cold
anymore. After that it was all smooth sailing. I learned that I possess acute
clam-radar and I managed to find a dozen and a half clams (which is pretty
significant since some previous groups struggled to collect twelve clams
total). We all cheered each other on and laughed in spite of the cold. What
could have been a terrible night ended up being a magical one with the help of
some great attitudes.
Lesson Three:
There is always something
else to learn.
The entire week was a one big learning curve. Everything
posed a new challenge to us. Even the mundane like cooking or doing laundry
proved difficult. There were successes, and there were failures. My biggest,
and funniest failure was my attempt at washing someone’s hair.
Taylor and I were both overdue for some shampoo and we were
keen to test out our bucket shower theories. We had heard that having someone
else wash our hair was easier than doing it ourselves, so I was going to wash
hers and she mine.
We only had a cheap bar of soap, a bucket, and a 2L Coke
bottle of grey water. I took at stab at the challenge and got her hair as wet
as possible (frankly it was more of a mane than hair… but I digress). I wanted
it to be SUPER clean so I rubbed a good amount of soap into her hair. Then I
had the genius idea of making shampoo by dissolving some soap into water. I
poured that over her head and started lathering.
Things started to go south once I started rinsing. The soap
wasn’t washing out. It was once it started it crusting over that I called for
help. Her black hair was tinted grey from the soap and it was as hard as a
helmet. Ultimately it was unsalvageable and had to be confined to a braid for
the rest of the week. I still feel bad about it. Luckily there are no hard
feelings between us. Her hair has made a full recovery.
My list of lessons learned could go on forever. Ultimately I
have a better understanding of the struggles of living in poverty. I admit it
was a mere glimpse, but I truly believe this experience will serve as the
catalyst in my future humanitarian endeavors. I have most definitely developed
a new perspective on this journey.
Lots of love,
Meagan <3
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