Monique has asked me to write something as a biographical entry for the Creative Corners website in terms of my experience in South America, and it is hard to sum up the awesomeness of the experience I had with this organization. First and foremost, this is a smaller organization that is alive with personality and personal attention as a result. Monique works with volunteers on a very personal level for you to get the most out of your experience and whatever you might be looking for. When I first explored about who I wanted to volunteer with in relevance to individuals and specific organizations, I was really interested in finding a project where I could have an immersion experience with a host family and work with children where creative expression was a large concentration in teaching the children. This is indeed one of the specialties of Creative Corners. I wanted to use my creative outlets to teach and impact children through possibly teaching artistic projects. While this was not my individualistic role entirely, I was given opportunities to express my own creativity. For example, at an orphanage in the Sacred Valley, I painted a mural of what I would consider the equivalent of a Colorado landscape with a cabin, a barn, some mountains in the background, and a fresh moonlit sky. The ladies in the business office often complimented the creation by commenting that it was much better than staring at a blank wall. I have always wanted to do such a project, and Creative Corners provided the opportunity to do such. You can literally design your own project. When I got to the orphanage, the facilitator of the orphanage literally asked me, “What would you like to do?” At that moment, I did not have an exact answer, but as I found inspiration from William P. Young’s novel, The Shack, my picture was complete in my head with a miraculous meeting the main character of the book has with Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God the Father in a dream the book so brilliantly depicts. My image slowly emerged as I began to draw the underlying outline of my painting to be, and it slowly formed into a creation I was blessed with the opportunity to create.
As you may deduce by such a mural, I am a very spiritual individual, and I was seeking to leave the States for a summer to spiritually revive and rediscover some things in my life that have been missing for quite some time. As you might say, I was looking for a renewal through a purpose in serving others, and even now upon my return into the States, it will take a few weeks to absorb all that has happened in Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. My trip and my journeys almost feel like a dream in of themselves. I am so thankful for what has occurred but at the same time still so shocked that it was so incredible! I experienced the beauty of nature’s creation firsthand in the projects I participated in, in the families I lived with, and in the surrounding landscapes of the beautiful places I was able to visit. Creative Corners and more specifically Cusco provided my escape to revive, reenergize, and reevaluate my current position in life between my first and second year of graduate school at Auburn University.
Another instance comes freshly to mind. I volunteered on three projects in three different sites…an orphanage in the Sacred Valley (as I previously mentioned), an at-risk program for street kids in the city of Cusco (often referred to as Inti), and a Deaf school in La Paz, Bolivia. At Inti, I would often work individually one on one or in a group with the teenagers with disabilities (adolescents, not small children). I have a background working with children with disabilities; so in some instances, I would almost prefer to work with disabled children more so than anyone else. I instantly noticed they took orders rather well, and while they did not always understand my Alabamian accent in my attempts to speak elementary Spanish, the gardening experience was so much fun! I have never worked with such an eclectic group of personalities with what I would consider very tedious work. Many of them formed blisters on their hands from working so hard, but the important thing is that when they were not goofing off just being boys playing with each other, they were working together and simultaneously having fun with a different approach to traditional education. Many unexpected surprises during my travels occurred when I was suddenly assigned a task that formed a new memory to take back home with me.
If you are looking for an adventure through creativity and new challenges, then you will not miss out by working with Monique, representing Creative Corners. You will change lives, and your life itself will be changed with exposure to new paradigms and new cultures. If your summer is anything like mine was, it may be one of the best times that life presents in your direction.
Go to South America and meet some of the most amazing people you will ever have a chance to encounter and work with. I did not regret my decision to go, and I had so much fun I may even be going back next year. Thanks for reading.
About Me
- James L. Cartee iii
- I am one of the most random people you may ever meet. I do my best to enjoy life in general, and I try to be content with what God has blessed me to have in my life. I am a blunt, honest individual that will give you an honest opinion if asked. Relationships are the most important things in my life. I am concerned with only the opinions of close friends, family, and other close relations of people who care about me. Otherwise, I tend to not care what other people think of me. I am not here to please the world. I am on this planet to serve others in hopes that God finds favor with my efforts to do so at the end of my Earthly existence. I am a good-natured person that lives for the moment. Even though not always successful, I try to look at things in a positive light with a productive attitude and world view. I am thankful for each breath that I take because each breath that is taken is a blessing in of itself. Make the most of what you can while you can. You get one chance at this thing called life. So try your best to Glorify God and Enjoy Him Forever. If you have any questions about me or my BLOG, don't hesitate to ask, and I will give you a straightforward answer.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Mixed emotions on a voyage home…
I have had mixed emotions since my return to the States. I am happy to be home because I have anxiously missed my close friends and family (more specifically my brother-in-law, sister, papa, and mama). I cannot begin to accurately describe how excited I was to see my mother in the airport as I came home. It was like I was waiting in a candy store to grab that lollipop that every child jealously stares at through the window seal, hoping to have a delicious taste. Strangely enough, I miss Peru. The Peruvian family in Cusco of Waldo, Estella, and Marcello slowly became what felt like my family. Marcello had many difficulties in the pronunciation of my name. He could not say the typical “James” in its American, English form. He even had a little trouble pronunciating “James” with the “H,” spoken in Spanish instead of the “J” spoken in English. It would sound literally as if you were saying “Hi-May” in the English language. Marcello referred to me at “Chi-May.” I do not know why he called me Chi-May, but I knew what he meant. I miss his nickname for me as well as his little adventures looking to break everything in the house or seeking any sort of trouble his tiny hands could grab.
I also see how abundant my life is here in the States. This is by no means a bad thing. The culture shock does not come for me when I go to another country. The culture shock comes when I arrive back into my own country because I guess I have gotten use to life from wherever I am coming from to return home, even if where I am coming from is several different places involving many different cities in many different countries. I come home, and it is like everything here is so different. I do not mean different like it has changed so drastically since I left. What I mean is that perhaps my perspective has changed. I walk into a grocery store or a mall, and I am blown away by all the nice things we easily have at our disposal for purchase as Americans. Sometimes we have things so good we do not realize how good we have them.
As a continuation of this thought, a good example is one child (or really an adult in his late 20’s and possibly even in his early 30’s) that I met while working with street kids in Cusco. This child has forms of antisocialism, schizophrenia, temperaments that were and still are sometimes very aggressive, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, and so on. Some of these behaviors are mild, but some are what psychiatrists may consider the extreme. I have bipolar disorder and only bipolar disorder. This illness has certainly presented its challenges in its manic manifestations, but I cannot imagine living thirty years with the struggles of more mental disabilities than I can count on one hand. I do not type this to point out as flaws in the characteristics of those who have disabilities but rather to show that my mental struggles and situations in life are very minor compared to what some people face every single day. My handful of responsibilities is minor, and I have been given more gifts in my personality that I even want to go through right now. The bottom line is to be thankful for what God has given you. I have learned to be appreciative because I have seen many lives of the disabled, and even though I may be classified with a legal disability by the Americans with Disabilities Act, I have it so good that my disabilities are very minor in comparison to many of those who I met on my journeys through South America.
Some of my sad thoughts come from the fact that many Americans just quite frankly seem ungrateful. We, including myself, often want more after we already have so much. This may be in the form of something as small as a new DVD or perhaps even bigger with a personal new car. In Copacabana, Bolivia (town near Lake Titicaca), I witnessed families, friends, and couples celebrating the fact that they had a new car. A personal car is so rare in La Paz and perhaps even Bolivia in general that people celebrate the blessing of having one. In our society, it is almost expected that you have a car, unless you live in a publicly mobile city like New York or San Francisco. People will say, “I am so thankful,” especially when Thanksgiving is around the corner, but do actions represent such a thought? In the same instance, we will complain because the turkey is not cooked well enough. We eat so much food at Thanksgiving that a South American family could probably live off such for three weeks or possibly more, and the bad thing is that half the food is usually thrown out because “it goes bad.”
Please realize all these realizations apply to my life just as much as they may other Americans; maybe that is the reason why I am struggling as such. How do I apply such actualized thankfulness in the form of an example? Less complaining is probably a start.
If you read this entry, just remember where you live, where you come from, and what you have to be thankful for. We, as Americans, live in one of the greatest nations on the planet, and yet if you watch the news, broadcasters have nothing positive to say, except all the things our politicians are doing wrong. Let’s think about what is going right. Many of us have food, shelter, and clothing. Even with just those simple things, you live better than most of the world’s population. We are blessed, and God certainly deserves recognition for all.
I also see how abundant my life is here in the States. This is by no means a bad thing. The culture shock does not come for me when I go to another country. The culture shock comes when I arrive back into my own country because I guess I have gotten use to life from wherever I am coming from to return home, even if where I am coming from is several different places involving many different cities in many different countries. I come home, and it is like everything here is so different. I do not mean different like it has changed so drastically since I left. What I mean is that perhaps my perspective has changed. I walk into a grocery store or a mall, and I am blown away by all the nice things we easily have at our disposal for purchase as Americans. Sometimes we have things so good we do not realize how good we have them.
As a continuation of this thought, a good example is one child (or really an adult in his late 20’s and possibly even in his early 30’s) that I met while working with street kids in Cusco. This child has forms of antisocialism, schizophrenia, temperaments that were and still are sometimes very aggressive, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, and so on. Some of these behaviors are mild, but some are what psychiatrists may consider the extreme. I have bipolar disorder and only bipolar disorder. This illness has certainly presented its challenges in its manic manifestations, but I cannot imagine living thirty years with the struggles of more mental disabilities than I can count on one hand. I do not type this to point out as flaws in the characteristics of those who have disabilities but rather to show that my mental struggles and situations in life are very minor compared to what some people face every single day. My handful of responsibilities is minor, and I have been given more gifts in my personality that I even want to go through right now. The bottom line is to be thankful for what God has given you. I have learned to be appreciative because I have seen many lives of the disabled, and even though I may be classified with a legal disability by the Americans with Disabilities Act, I have it so good that my disabilities are very minor in comparison to many of those who I met on my journeys through South America.
Some of my sad thoughts come from the fact that many Americans just quite frankly seem ungrateful. We, including myself, often want more after we already have so much. This may be in the form of something as small as a new DVD or perhaps even bigger with a personal new car. In Copacabana, Bolivia (town near Lake Titicaca), I witnessed families, friends, and couples celebrating the fact that they had a new car. A personal car is so rare in La Paz and perhaps even Bolivia in general that people celebrate the blessing of having one. In our society, it is almost expected that you have a car, unless you live in a publicly mobile city like New York or San Francisco. People will say, “I am so thankful,” especially when Thanksgiving is around the corner, but do actions represent such a thought? In the same instance, we will complain because the turkey is not cooked well enough. We eat so much food at Thanksgiving that a South American family could probably live off such for three weeks or possibly more, and the bad thing is that half the food is usually thrown out because “it goes bad.”
Please realize all these realizations apply to my life just as much as they may other Americans; maybe that is the reason why I am struggling as such. How do I apply such actualized thankfulness in the form of an example? Less complaining is probably a start.
If you read this entry, just remember where you live, where you come from, and what you have to be thankful for. We, as Americans, live in one of the greatest nations on the planet, and yet if you watch the news, broadcasters have nothing positive to say, except all the things our politicians are doing wrong. Let’s think about what is going right. Many of us have food, shelter, and clothing. Even with just those simple things, you live better than most of the world’s population. We are blessed, and God certainly deserves recognition for all.
Temperamental natures of different cultures…
While meeting so many people on the road, train, or the airplane, I was exposed to a variety of different paradigms. While some differences are clearly reconcilable, some differences do not appear to be such. It makes me wonder how growing up in different environments, countries, and geographies affects people’s paradigms. I have grown up mostly in the suburban South of wonderful Tennessee and Alabama, and I cannot help but think that my paradigm has been shifted, molded, and gifted for such. There are obviously going to be differences with Peruvians, Bolivians, and Argentineans with what is normal for us in our lifestyles, thoughts, and ways of viewing different subjects. What we consider normal is clearly not going to be normal for someone else, and they may feel the same about our culture in a continuously reciprocal realization.
As I spoke more in detail with different individuals, these differences became all the more apparent to me. I would notice this, and the other person would notice that about Americans. Such observations provided some of the most interesting conversations but also illustrated the differences in paradigms. While these differences will not affect the trueness of relationship I have with some specific people, it might affect how we get along or what the end result of even future decisions are made in visiting specific places. A person is naturally proud of the place they are born, but that does not still change the existence of those places and the views that are shaped by such places.
I have always been amazed when people of two different cultures become romantically interested in each other, especially if something serious develops. You must realize that more than likely one person is going to leave their family behind to move to another country. Sacrifices are going to be made, sometimes even more so than you might like. People do strange things for love, but when involving two people from across the planet in different nations, those strange things might even be more so than originally anticipated or expected. The question is: how bad do you want to be with that person?
The separation of distance, opposing viewpoints, or differences in paradigms should not separate new friends. In fact, sometimes it can do the opposite, bringing you closer to that person. These differences are what make us who we are, doing what we do. It is in God’s eyes that we are truly unique in his Creation in the beauty of such. Those differences are what fascinate me, and that is why I enjoy hopping all over the world to see what entirely is out there for me to experience, to enjoy, to celebrate, and to love in the beautiful people of each new occurrence.
As I spoke more in detail with different individuals, these differences became all the more apparent to me. I would notice this, and the other person would notice that about Americans. Such observations provided some of the most interesting conversations but also illustrated the differences in paradigms. While these differences will not affect the trueness of relationship I have with some specific people, it might affect how we get along or what the end result of even future decisions are made in visiting specific places. A person is naturally proud of the place they are born, but that does not still change the existence of those places and the views that are shaped by such places.
I have always been amazed when people of two different cultures become romantically interested in each other, especially if something serious develops. You must realize that more than likely one person is going to leave their family behind to move to another country. Sacrifices are going to be made, sometimes even more so than you might like. People do strange things for love, but when involving two people from across the planet in different nations, those strange things might even be more so than originally anticipated or expected. The question is: how bad do you want to be with that person?
The separation of distance, opposing viewpoints, or differences in paradigms should not separate new friends. In fact, sometimes it can do the opposite, bringing you closer to that person. These differences are what make us who we are, doing what we do. It is in God’s eyes that we are truly unique in his Creation in the beauty of such. Those differences are what fascinate me, and that is why I enjoy hopping all over the world to see what entirely is out there for me to experience, to enjoy, to celebrate, and to love in the beautiful people of each new occurrence.
The girl from Buenos Aires…
I have not mentioned this particular individual more to respect her privacy, but I cannot help but now write about her after what she did for me in Buenos Aires. Of course, for privacy reasons, I will not disclose her name. We will just name her Katie for the sake of this blog entry.
When I arrived to Buenos Aires, Katie was there to receive my entrance to this magical city that pivots on the idea of tango-sexiness and wonders. The only problem was that she was at the wrong hostel or hotel when I arrived. I accidentally emailed her with the wrong web address for a hostel that had a very similar name to where I was staying. Nevertheless, the next day she was very gracious in forgiving me for my own stupid mistake.
I arrived on Thursday, and Katie had arranged a get-together, small party with her friends to introduce me to some of her closest friends. Her family opened their doors to my visit, but of course I did not stay with the family for “old-fashioned” reasons that I respect and consider a dying fashion in our accelerated society of liberalism where families are no longer concerned in the deciding factors of dating relationships. Perhaps fathers are meant to have an input to truly protect the hearts of loved daughters. I am very grateful that the family was so willing to have me in their house so that I could enjoy the company of polite, nice people.
Earlier that day I had gone to visit the Rigoletto Cemetery, which is approximately five city blocks in totality. It is huge in concerns for the bodies of those who should be held sacredly in their rest beds. The cemetery also contains the body of Eva Person, known more popularly as Evita. The cemetery was one of the most beautiful manmade creations I have ever seen, especially in respect to sculptures and casket enclosures. Some of the statues took my breath away as I walked around the cemetery in awe and inspiration.
On Saturday, Katie and I went to an exhibition for the Star Wars movies (with models of the space shuttles, costumes, art, and more items used in the movies…awesome for actual Star Wars fanatics like myself), an art museum, the Evita museum (I was interested in her livelihood and legend of which I am still learning more about as I have returned home, doing more research), some Botanical Gardens in Palermo, and did some shopping for crafts and gifts for friends back home. That night we went to a tango show, which I would compare it to the equivalent of a Broadway show in New York City, just with better dancing. The show was concentrated mostly on dancing, singing, movie epilogues, and small portions on dialogue. It was a show meant to concentrate on the background and celebration of this beautiful form of dancing.
On Sunday, Katie and I went to Tigre, a small town about fifty kilometers from Buenos Aires where there is one of the largest weekend markets in northern Argentina and a delta (Nature Preserve) that is one of the largest in the world. Katie and I also spent some time together Monday night before I left Tuesday afternoon eating dinner and just enjoying each other’s company.
Katie spent all her free time making me feel welcome in her home city, and I could not let that go unrecognized. She also planned that little arrangement of friends for me to meet once I got there. Much like the people in Peru and Bolivia, it was just incredible to be greeted by such kindness, politeness, and a willingness to make my stay in BsAs so enjoyable.
If you do in fact visit some of these beautiful places, I hope you also experience the friendliness of the people and culture wherever you are.
When I arrived to Buenos Aires, Katie was there to receive my entrance to this magical city that pivots on the idea of tango-sexiness and wonders. The only problem was that she was at the wrong hostel or hotel when I arrived. I accidentally emailed her with the wrong web address for a hostel that had a very similar name to where I was staying. Nevertheless, the next day she was very gracious in forgiving me for my own stupid mistake.
I arrived on Thursday, and Katie had arranged a get-together, small party with her friends to introduce me to some of her closest friends. Her family opened their doors to my visit, but of course I did not stay with the family for “old-fashioned” reasons that I respect and consider a dying fashion in our accelerated society of liberalism where families are no longer concerned in the deciding factors of dating relationships. Perhaps fathers are meant to have an input to truly protect the hearts of loved daughters. I am very grateful that the family was so willing to have me in their house so that I could enjoy the company of polite, nice people.
Earlier that day I had gone to visit the Rigoletto Cemetery, which is approximately five city blocks in totality. It is huge in concerns for the bodies of those who should be held sacredly in their rest beds. The cemetery also contains the body of Eva Person, known more popularly as Evita. The cemetery was one of the most beautiful manmade creations I have ever seen, especially in respect to sculptures and casket enclosures. Some of the statues took my breath away as I walked around the cemetery in awe and inspiration.
On Saturday, Katie and I went to an exhibition for the Star Wars movies (with models of the space shuttles, costumes, art, and more items used in the movies…awesome for actual Star Wars fanatics like myself), an art museum, the Evita museum (I was interested in her livelihood and legend of which I am still learning more about as I have returned home, doing more research), some Botanical Gardens in Palermo, and did some shopping for crafts and gifts for friends back home. That night we went to a tango show, which I would compare it to the equivalent of a Broadway show in New York City, just with better dancing. The show was concentrated mostly on dancing, singing, movie epilogues, and small portions on dialogue. It was a show meant to concentrate on the background and celebration of this beautiful form of dancing.
On Sunday, Katie and I went to Tigre, a small town about fifty kilometers from Buenos Aires where there is one of the largest weekend markets in northern Argentina and a delta (Nature Preserve) that is one of the largest in the world. Katie and I also spent some time together Monday night before I left Tuesday afternoon eating dinner and just enjoying each other’s company.
Katie spent all her free time making me feel welcome in her home city, and I could not let that go unrecognized. She also planned that little arrangement of friends for me to meet once I got there. Much like the people in Peru and Bolivia, it was just incredible to be greeted by such kindness, politeness, and a willingness to make my stay in BsAs so enjoyable.
If you do in fact visit some of these beautiful places, I hope you also experience the friendliness of the people and culture wherever you are.
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