Audrey: progress comes with hard work

“Progress does not come on the wheels of waiting, progress comes with hard work.” Vincent stated an abridge version of this quote while wrapping up our weekend at Goegetasch Farm. After a long and mentally straining weekend this may have been the best thing he could have said. Although I found this weekend to be rewarding and useful throughout the weekend I had many different thoughts throughout.

           

Starting off on Friday I was tired and unprepared to be surrounded by sixty other people for 48 hours, my excitement for the weekend was very little. The setback of the bus being late and the antsy behavior of every other person did not help me but the minute the members of Africa Unites stepped on the bus I felt the atmosphere and my mind set change. With in the first few moments a woman turned towards me and began talking about her life and my interest for knowing and learning others stories struck immediately. When I arrived on the farm I was intrigued to meet other people as well.

           

But then the first activity came up and my interest for the weekend began to dwindle. It seemed as if no one wanted to agree and there was no way we could agree, something I should be use to by now. Although I left the activity a bit annoyed and unsettled because we could not agree upon an agreement I reminded myself that this is probably the point of the activity. I began to understand why there are so many human rights issues unsolved throughout the world.  

           

This continued to be my overall realization throughout the weekend. Human beings can NOT agree on anything. At times this made me feel powerless, pointless and just plain out tired. Human rights seems like a simple job to many outsiders but this allowed me to understand that it is far from glamorous career and like many other career leaves you wanting to rip your hair out.

           

On Saturday I began to notice I wasn’t connecting with the others the way I would have liked to. To change this I started to put myself in situations that I would be the only UConn student, although sometimes uncomfortable it always led to fascinating conversations. But the most interesting aspect of my weekend was when I was asked if I was mixed. This question confused me at first so I asked the person what she meant; she then explained that she was Xhosa and Zulu. I then began to explain to here that we refer to our ancestry/heritages back in the state to identify ourselves and proceeded to explain that I was Irish and Italian. In the midst of saying I was Italian she raised her voice in excitement and said, “I knew it.” I had no idea what she was talking about I was already a bit shocked that I was asked if I was mixed and now she was in awe that I had two different heritages. I asked her why this was such an intriguing fact. And then the most surprising thing came next. She started to explain to me that I had strong eyes and that was because I was mixed. Although I am still confused on why my strong eyes would come from being mixed, I found it a compliment. At the same time I realized that people truly do recognize with their race and heritages here so much and allow it to identify themselves.

           

Yeah this trip made me rip my hair out. Yeah this trip tired me out. Yeah this trip made me feel helpless at times. This trip was one of the most enlightening conferences I have ever attended. No longer all the beauty isn’t being shown and each week the poverty and hardships of this country grow in my perspective.