Get up. Stand up.

Well, here I am again after many months, back to work on this whole blog thing. I thank all of you who still even check this damn thing after this long period of absolute nothingness. I can assure you that my life here in Belize has not been event-less to the point of having nothing to share, but rather quite the opposite. A lot has gone on since my last entry however I had been too overwhelmed and unsure as to how to sit down and put my experiences and emotions into the appropriate words. Though I have many stories to share, I wish to focus on my hardest challenge I have faced thus far while being in the field.

Following the La Ruta Maya experience and my Easter vacation trip to El Salvador, my job position at Socio-Economic Outreach (SEO) increased exponentially in terms of being an unhealthy and unproductive working environment. Working at SEO had been a struggle since the very first day, challenges of which I accredited to culture shock, my lack of experience in work in regards to agriculture, and various other factors that I used to try and reaffirm myself in the work position.

As time passed, I started to allow myself, through the help of my community mates and local friends, to recognize the reality of my situation. The way in which I was being controlled and degraded in my work had caused me to slip into a time of depleting personal motivation in my work. No matter how hard I worked and did my best to try and please the other, I was never good enough – constantly ripped down to nothing only to try and lift myself up to start again, knowing what the outcome would be.

Standing up for myself, with the support of those I am forever grateful for, against the injustice in my work was an extremely empowering and liberating experience. Though it cost me my work position in the end, I would not have had it any other way. I left with my pride and my dignity, the two parts of myself that were trying to be taken from me.

My time at SEO was a tremendous growing experience, no matter how cliché that may sound. I truly experienced the importance and necessity of treating every individual with a level of respect and decency that exudes the love that one wishes to emit to the world. I witnessed the power of negativity that one can have on another human being. I also discovered the power of letting the other person have the last word…no matter how much it may kill you inside, it is for the better because deep inside your heart you know the truth and that is all that really matters in the end.

[This year I will be starting a new job position as a Support Person for the Youth Coordinators working in the St. Peter Claver Parish. My work will consist of taking part in Standard VI and Confirmation retreats as well as working with both town and village Youth Groups. I look forward to beginning this work that I believe will be extraordinarily life giving.]