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had the opportunity to return
to Arizona at mid-service.
I signed up to the World Wise
Schools Program at Pre-Service
Training in September 2003. I
had not heard about the program
before but as an avid letterwriter I was excited to know that
I would be connected to a group
of students with whom I could
share my experience. I received
my first email from the Grand
Canyon Middle School teacher
Jillian Worssam right after becoming a volunteer in December
2003. She informed me that she
had been a volunteer in the Philippines and that was one of the
reasons why she had decided to
incorporate the World Wise
Schools program
into her teaching
curriculum at Grand
Canyon. The Grand
Canyon School
system is not very
big and thus the
students whom
Jillian teaches in the
7th grade continue
to have her as an
instructor in the 8th
grade. This was
great for me because it meant that I
would be corresponding with the
same group of students for the majority of my service.
I really looked forward to the big
packet of letters that I received
once a month from the students
at the Grand Canyon. I learned
all about their families, their
pets, and the things they liked to
do with their spare time. In turn,
I shared my experiences here in
Macedonia with them. I told
them about the holidays, the
food, Macedonians, and my
vacations. The experiences were
not always favorable and I commend Jillian for her ability as a
teacher to incorporate the difficulties that I was experiencing
into the curriculum she was using. Writing the letters was not a
big deal and so I had no idea
what the impact was on the students until I actually visited the
P a u z a
Grand Canyon.
I returned to the States around
Thanksgiving and on my first
day in Arizona, it snowed. I was
visiting the Grand Canyon the
next day and, because the Canyon is about 90 miles north of
my hometown, I called Jillian on
the morning of my visit to make
sure that the roads were open
and navigable. Jillian assured me
that the roads were fine but to
hurry because all the kids were
zooming to the window every
time that a car pulled into the
parking lot to see if was me.
My dad and I arrived around
noon and we spent the whole
afternoon with the students. I
was shocked at the effort these
kids had put into an event to
honor someone that they only
knew through letters. Their
classroom was completely decorated with banners, balloons, and
streamers and they had prepared
a feast with each student bringing a homemade dish to share
with the rest of the class. A lot of
the students come from diverse
backgrounds and so even though
it was close to Thanksgiving, our
meal was less than traditional. I
was really touched when I noticed that some of the dishes
were those that I had specifically
mentioned in letters when discussing the foods I missed. In
addition to the feast, the students
had put together a whole gift box
with t-shirts and other things from
the Grand Canyon and this fabulous
photo album with pictures of their
class, the Grand Canyon, and the
surrounding area. Jillian had arranged for all of them to be excused
from their classes for the day. We
used the opportunity to talk about
Macedonia, to walk up to the North
Rim of the Canyon for ice cream
cones, and to play Grand Canyon
Middle School's special version of
dodge ball. It was an unforgettable
day and there are not enough words
to describe how thankful I am for
having that experience.
There is no doubt that we will continue to have to fill out quarterly
reports because as a federal government institution Peace Corps must
continue to have
statistics to reflect the impact
of the organization on the communities that we
work in. Focusing on concrete
activities intended to
achieve the first
goal is also going to be necessary once we
reenter the job
force as well.
Nonetheless, the
things that are
going to make
this experience
valuable to you
are those things
that are not quantifiable. How do
you measure the impact of having a
great na gosti experience? How do
you measure the impact of your
letter on your friends and family at
home where you tell about the effect of celebrating an imenden?
How do I measure the appreciation
I feel for those kids at the Grand
Canyon for making me feel proud
of being a Peace Corps Volunteer?
The fact is that we don't, and we
don't have to. The point is to remember what Jillian wrote to me
and I included as a quote at the
beginning of this article: you are
not a failure.
( "I'm good enough, I'm smart
enough, and doggone it, people
LIKE ME!"
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