What I've Got

I can promise you now, with an understanding, I did not come to change a thing. I did not come to "help." No. I, this one little "I", does not have much to offer this community; generations of knowledge and ways of living already established and blooming. Cycles of being mixed with a blend of tradition and new ways of doing. No, I cannot say I will change a thing. My hope, instead, is that I add to what is already playing itself out. That I can contribute to the development and vision of the people I have come to see as neighbors and friends. That I can leave here and say we are friends and from that friendship we worked together and achieved something, together. That I can say I have left with a greater understanding of myself and this world. That I have learned something, taken something from this experience. And in teaching me, this community learns more about itself. In being the new eyes and ears of this community, I offer a new angle. That is all I want. To contribute, to add to, to offer up myself with an open heart and an open mind. To reflect back the successes and potential all around me...the dreams in the making.

Our director, a kind and knowledgeable man uses this quote often:
"If you've come to help me, you are wasting your time! But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."
-Anonymous Aboriginal Australian Woman

True that.