realizations.

i'm sitting here in my house in williamsburg, still in my robe (even though it's 2:45 p.m.), nursing a cup of coffee, and listening to bon iver, and feeling strangely nostalgic for last semester and our time in ayiti. we talk in branch out a lot about the concept of reorientation - and dealing with those emotions of missing our team's togetherness, missing our community partners, and not knowing how to process them in our daily lives here at william & mary. and as team leader, i'm educated on how best to evaluate those feelings and turn feelings into action. our process of reorientation was so different in may - mainly because it was hard to properly reorient with all of us all over the place. but now, we're here in williamsburg, back at school, and yet i'm still struggling just a little bit in getting acclimated. i think a lot of that comes from the fact that i graduated in december and am caught in this awkward place in my life right now between undergrad and grad school. but nonetheless, i decided to turn to my journal from ayiti and reflect on things that were said by different people we interacted with during our time in ayiti.

one of the moments that i enjoyed the most while we were with international child care was the opportunity we were granted to meet with wesley romulus, the director of ICC ayiti. during our meeting with him, he addressed an issue that many of us had been dealing with - how are we supposed to empower ayitians and help when we aren't doctors or nurses? his response was powerful - he said, "you don't have to be a doctor or a nurse or this or that - you just have to have your heart." those words struck me - as long as we are aware and have our hearts with the people of ayiti, that matters much more than the physical skills that we can bring. in fact, the most powerful forms of empowerment come from people who are emotionally invested. that is something that i have to continually remind myself of - to be emotionally invested. granted, i'm known as the token crier so being emotional isn't a problem for me, but the genuine quality of investment is something that cannot be faked, and i respect that. i think that that is the quality that many other groups that travel to "SAVE" or "REDEEM" or "RENEW" ayiti lacks - the genuine emotional investment. they lack the proper cultural education that leads the way to understanding and emotional investment.

as we start recruiting our team for january 2013, i know that that will be a quality i search for - the ability to be emotionally invested in a project like ours - because that's something special and worthwhile.

xx -

kylee