I am trying to put words to my experience serving people with special needs in Morocco...it might be the hardest thing I've done in awhile, so be gracious and patient...
A couple Saturdays ago, the other Bonners and I volunteered with Charleston Parks Conservancy at Cannon Park to prune lots of plants for winter and to plant 2,000 daffodil bulbs. I grew up barefoot in my backyard during Southern summers, and I have beautiful memories of digging around in the soft black dirt with a white plastic spoon underneath my grandparents’ oak tree. When one of the Parks Conservancy guys handed me a trowel and a pair of gloves, I shoved the gloves in my back pocket and relished the feel of dirt on my bare skin as we dug deep to give each bulb a home. Later, the most painful and massive blister I’ve ever had formed on the stem on my thumb.
A couple Saturdays ago, the other Bonners and I volunteered with Charleston Parks Conservancy at Cannon Park to prune lots of plants for winter and to plant 2,000 daffodil bulbs. I grew up barefoot in my backyard during Southern summers, and I have beautiful memories of digging around in the soft black dirt with a white plastic spoon underneath my grandparents’ oak tree. When one of the Parks Conservancy guys handed me a trowel and a pair of gloves, I shoved the gloves in my back pocket and relished the feel of dirt on my bare skin as we dug deep to give each bulb a home. Later, the most painful and massive blister I’ve ever had formed on the stem on my thumb.
The process of healing feels very much the same for physical and emotional/mental/psychological wounds. The first day I had a blister, it hurt a lot. It was messy and I kept it covered with a Muppets bandage. The second day, a scab had formed over it, but every time I moved my thumb (A LOT), the scab cracked, and it was more painful than the first day. By the third day, things were looking up, and it felt like the healing process had really begun.
I had a similar experience in Morocco at my service site there. I volunteered in the special needs ward of an orphanage in the old, walled city of Rabat, helping the nurses there bathe, feed, and connect with the 27 people who live there. The first day was an utter assault on my sense: the hot, steamy bathroom smelled like human waste and was filled with people who were varying degrees of nude, most of their bodies twisted by physical deformities. I dove right in, and yes, it was unspeakably challenging. Feeding was a whole different round of difficulties, and I realized there is a learning curve that accompanies working with people with special needs because, just like any other human being, each person is unique with their own abilities and skills. When the bus came to pick us up after our first day, I felt frustrated, defeated, and downright disgusted with the way my brain was labeling the people I worked with all morning. I also felt like I needed a shower. My mind shifted back and forth between wanting to be callous, to do the service without letting it change me, and wanting to let the work change me even if it was going to be painful.
I had the next day off in celebration of the New Year, and as the group learned about the basics of Islam and toured Chellah, the Roman ruins in Rabat, I wandered along the line of change. After witnessing the tears and extreme frustration of one of the other women serving with me at the orphanage, I made my slow decision to let the experience change me. And I prepared my heart for a second day there.
The assault on my senses hadn't lessened at all. It was actually a lot more challenging (this word falls so short...) to look people--with whom I'd attempted to make connections two days prior and whose stories had begun to unfold (most of them had been abandoned, left for wild animals to finish off)--in the eye while bathing them, feeding them, seeing how the nurses treated them. I was physically queasy for the entire morning. My mind didn't know how to put language to what I was doing, what I was feeling, or even who these people were. I spent a long time singing to Kamal, one of the boys (he looked 8, but I think he was actually my age) who was completely bed-ridden, and I just didn't know what in the world I was doing there at his bedside. What would change in his life because of my actions? What would change at the orphanage because I was there? Would the nurses remember me? Was I helping at all or creating more work for them? I was full of questions without answers. (Story of my life, it seems.)
Later that day, I visited a traditional Moroccan bathhouse, or hammam, and had a really incredible experience that turned my day into a beautiful circle: I began by bathing someone else and I ended by having someone else bathe me. This launched me into the healing process. I realized it didn't have to be about a long-term change or about having people remember me/my service. I was there to create moments of joy for the people at the orphanage, to lighten the loads on the nurses' shoulders if only for a few days, to experience and let what I experienced rip me apart so I can be a different person. And the ripping began. I have struggled to put into words the pain, the grace, the peace, the frustration at myself in conversation and now here. I don't know that anyone other than the three Bonners serving at the special needs ward will truly understand the ripping and healing process I am still going through...
Now that I have been back for several weeks, I think I have finally been sewn back together. There's scarring, though, and who knows how long that will be present. I have been changed, so maybe forever. The blister just below my thumb is beginning to scar, as well. I stopped by Cannon Park on a run yesterday and saw that the daffodils are popping up from the dirt. Maybe flowers will be blooming by the time the scar fades away.
Later that day, I visited a traditional Moroccan bathhouse, or hammam, and had a really incredible experience that turned my day into a beautiful circle: I began by bathing someone else and I ended by having someone else bathe me. This launched me into the healing process. I realized it didn't have to be about a long-term change or about having people remember me/my service. I was there to create moments of joy for the people at the orphanage, to lighten the loads on the nurses' shoulders if only for a few days, to experience and let what I experienced rip me apart so I can be a different person. And the ripping began. I have struggled to put into words the pain, the grace, the peace, the frustration at myself in conversation and now here. I don't know that anyone other than the three Bonners serving at the special needs ward will truly understand the ripping and healing process I am still going through...
Now that I have been back for several weeks, I think I have finally been sewn back together. There's scarring, though, and who knows how long that will be present. I have been changed, so maybe forever. The blister just below my thumb is beginning to scar, as well. I stopped by Cannon Park on a run yesterday and saw that the daffodils are popping up from the dirt. Maybe flowers will be blooming by the time the scar fades away.
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| I think to bring about change, you must first allow yourself to be changed. Blisters must form for the soil to welcome daffodil bulbs. |
