Querida Cochabamba:

Last week was a bit difficult for me. I came face to face with the fact that I’m new to this. New to this language. New to this place. New to this teaching business. Teaching the chorus to We Are the World/Somos el Mundo was easy enough, but the verses proved to be much more difficult and harmonies were next to impossible. There’s one girl here that I’ve become pretty close to because she comes in every day, but everyone else comes in so sporadically that it is really difficult to have any kind of continuity in the lessons. That is probably the one thing that has bothered me the most about Bolivia in general, the lack of organization. With the one who comes in every day, I was able to teach harmony, but with the others, the lessons are too intermittent to stick. Compounding this problem is the fact that while I know more Spanish than most of the volunteers here, there are many things that I try to teach that I just don’t know how to explain well in Spanish. And even when I should know, when I think “C’mon, Laurel. You know how to say this. You know how to teach this.” I just freeze up and my mind goes blank. I’m not even sure I know what music is anymore. What are these note things? What are the words to this song? What am I doing?

But even with all of these problems, I still thought I was making some kind of progress, that it’s still a good thing that I’m here, that I am still helpful.

Until Thursday.

A new volunteer showed up. She is really nice and super helpful. She’s from the United States, but her family is from Mexico, making Spanish her first language. She is actually a music major in violin at her school, so she is also really knowledgable about music. In fact, she got her start in a mariachi band, so she also knows a lot about singing. Even more than that, she can actually communicate it really well to the children. She’s a natural. We made so much progress, but I hardly feel like I even deserve to attribute myself as part of the “we.” I could play some of the chords for the song on the guitar and I told them to open their mouths more and breathe with their diaphragms. That’s it. She actually got them to sing out more. She was able to get them to jump the hurdle of self-consciousness. I mostly stood there, singing along sometimes, playing along sometimes, but mostly standing there, trying so hard to smile. I feel so obsolete.

I know I need to change my attitude. I know that she is here to help, just as I am, and that if we work together, we will do so much more than either of us could do alone. But I can’t help but wonder if that second part is true. I know it’s true on my side. Thursday already proved that. But, does my presence here actually help her, or am I just getting in the way? Am I a valuable addition to this teaching team? Why am I even here?

I felt so positive before. What happened? Before, I felt I was making such a difference. What has changed?

And then it hit me.

Before, I measured my success by looking at the children. Now, I’m measuring my success by looking at myself, by comparing myself with someone else. This may seem like a weird tangent, but the other day I was watching Friends with my host family and Joey actually said something profound: There is no such thing as a selfless act. Even when we do things for other people, we do them with the reward of feeling good about ourselves. From the beginning, I’ve recognized that this service trip is just as much for my sake (if not more so) as it is for the children. I’ve known that it would be naive to consider this completely selfless. Yet, never had the benefit for myself been so much of the focus as it was last week. In focusing so much on how I was feeling last week, I completely disregarded the children. I had been asking myself over and over, “How can I change my attitude about this? How can I feel needed again?” Now, I know. To change my attitude, I must redirect my focus back to the children. Whenever I feel like I’m not doing anything to help, instead of thinking “Woe is me. I am not needed anymore,” I need to think, “Hmm…what is something else I can do that will help the children? What is something that would need an extra pair of hands?” or even “I should ask the other volunteer what she needs help with.” Only then can I not only stop feeling so useless, but can I also start really helping again.

I will try this today and then I will be sure to let you know how it goes.

Chau!

Laurel Bingman

P.S. Shout out to my cousin Mitchell who just graduated this past weekend! Woo hoo! Congrats! Sorry I wasn’t there to see it.

P.P.S. Sorry for all of the questions in this post. I kind of just wrote in as I was pondering and decided to leave it that way.