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就在我十月初即将去印度之际，忽然接到白土窑志愿者Miranda用英文写的一个中期培训的邮件，让我有些惊喜。因为我正在想着如何支持将在印度开始的长期志愿者。这是第一个可以给他们将来看的讨论了。在征得Miranda的同意后，我把它放到论坛上来分享。
Dear Randy,
My name is Miranda, volunteer of the Big Friend program. I attended the interim training early this summer. I know that we were expected to write a feedback afterwards, sorry it took me so long to do so. It was truly touching during the training and many of the ideas i've been thinking all the time in my daily life.
I went to Baituyao to visit my little girl both in May and last week. Different feelings for two experiences. I generally know my expectation on this girl and I also understand my role in being accompany with her at the same time. Soon I realized I had a mistake on my approach. Here's a small example, when we first started to write letters, she told me she wish to become a fashion designer in the future. I think it's interesting, even though I know how brutal the competetion reality is in that industry and how lack of her resources is in her environment comparing with kids who growing up in big cities, watching fashion shows and reading Cosmo magazines, still I made her encouraged on that. I was even considering to do something to help her accomplish her dream. Later on through further communications I was aware that she is not interest in either art or drawing pictures at all, which normally are considered the foundation of being a fashion designer. A few days after that she told me she's now more interested in being an actress after watching some entertainment show on TV. ---------- I suddently realized this is just a teenage little girl !! I considered her a mature thinker too much more than a youth who needs guidence from us !!
I don't know whether this also occured to other Big Friend volunteers. At the very beginning, knowing nothing about this 100% stranger, It's more likely to treat them as equal as adults even though I know the fact that she's just a kid? So since then I changed my approach, by telling her you're growing up everyday, you will know deeper and deeper about yourself as well as the rest of the world, you will see more amazing things at the same time find your own best interest. Then even though you may encounter many difficulties yet you still want to devote yourself to that path. Before that you need to get ready for it by building your knowledge base well, expand your experiences widely then work hard on every day !!
Sometimes she wrote to tell me that she failed on her school test. Me personally I don't really care about her grades. I always think there are much more important things for a teenager to acquire, integrity, ability to think independently, courage to solve problems, will to learn new things, and of course, a healthy body. Yet meanwhile I know the crucial fact that study well then good grades is the only way for a rural girl like her to leave her less-developed hometown and try to survive in big cities. Therefore I could only encourage her to find the reasons of the failure test and do harder next time. To be honest I feel very sad about this.
Last week I went to visit her again. I noticed she was organizing the cleaning job in her classroom and she told me she's the Communist Youth League (CYL) leader of her class. So I'm going to dig a little bit deeper on her management skills in future communications . And she told me some of her classmates quit school recently and started to work in restaurants as helpers, she felt sorry for them and she is not going to quit, she's looking forward to get into high school in Zhangjiakou then university in Beijing !! I'm very happy for her decision and strongly support it.
Through talking with her I can still sense the gap between my expectations on her and that from herself.
I don't really have chances to go to rural places all the time and the animals (pigs dogs chickens) always make me exciting. We started to talk about the animals which she told me her family have some. Surprisingly she doesn't really know more than me about them (like what to feed them, how to milk the cows, or how long it takes for them to grow up. ) Later on I heard other volunteers talking that their little friends told them their family farm are not doing well this year due to the drought. I asked my little girl about that and she said she had no idea about her family's.
Therefore I realized she does not have that many knowledges about real rural life. We used to have an ayi from sichuan some country town that was helping out at my family. She told me she has two girls who were 6 and 9 years old respectively, both of them can cook really well and also help out a lot with other farm work at home. I was impressed by how practical rural kids can be even though they may not be as wide eyeshot as city grown kids.
Of course I understand we should never judge people by only these two sides, and I also tried to find out her interests or hobbies. I told her that she could ask me any questions she wants to, like how the outside world is like , any questions. She thought for a while , and replied she doesn't know what to ask, and she also told me she does not have any hobbies, except study. I sometimes consider myself her window to see the outside world before she could do with her own eyes, and I wish I could do more about this.
The other thing I'm trying hard to do all the time is to find her strong points, and help her to make them bigger. During the second visit It happened. Like I said above I found she is really working hard on school tasks, joined the CYL the first batch in her class, has been selected the leader of it, which means she is willing to help others and has certain management skills. She is a very nice kid. It seemed I've been expected too much on her? I am just considering how she is going to compete with her same ages outside her little town in the future, I wish her to be outstanding, successful, and happy.
My boyfriend Paul says I am not her parent and some of my thinking are not my responsibilities. I can see that, she has her own way of growing up, her own definitions of happy and success, and there might not be THAT much I could do about this. I agreed I should let go from certain degree. Dear Randy, what do you think about this?
Looking forward to your email.
Have a nice weekend. Best.
Miranda |
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发表于 2009-9-15 10:20:39
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发表于 2009-9-15 10:46:11
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发表于 2009-9-15 16:59:32
真的是珍宇啊？我还以为是外国人呢，汗！
发表于 2009-9-16 10:30:59
