Spring
breakers rebuild together over clear
sky
Othman Ramadan
It feels ironic in a sense. I spent the whole spring break away from my real
family but still, it is my Louisiana family I miss. I feel proud to know I was
a part of a group that traveled some 2,000 miles, leaving all the comforts of
our homes just to give strangers back the comforts of a home.
The members of Rebuilding Together 2006 left who we were in California and found
out who we could be in Louisiana. But now I am home. I am in school. I am back
at work.
In my room Simon and Garfunkels’ greatest hits soothe me. The music induces
me to swim through my mind, only banking on the shores of my spring break memories.
I see it all, but it is fleeting.
I see Chau pushing the wheel barrel of debris and rubble, smiling as if a watermelon
were lodged in her mouth. I hear Louis snoring like a grizzly bear in hibernation,
while a group of fully grown men wonder who will be brave enough to wake him.
I reminisce about the week of hard work shared, the tears of joy and sorrow shed
and the laughter boisterously bellowed. In my heart I am warmed as I weep over
the memories of this experience and in my mind I still wonder how it all happened.
How did 32 students and three faculty members come to the point where the minutia
of their everyday lives stopped and were purposely interrupted for a week, all
for the sake of people we never knew existed?
Countless sacrifices were necessary and regardless of what responsibilities existed
beforehand, all were laid aside for this one week when “I” failed
to equal the importance of “us;” a collective us that included more
than the members of our trip. It was an “us” who incorporated the
victims of the Iranian earthquake of 2003 and an “us” who included
those washed away by the tsunami that struck the southern coast of nearly all
of Asia in 2004. Perhaps most of all, it was an “us” who included
all those who lived through and perished because of the annihilation that was
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Cal State Long Beach students didn’t simply give up their spring break
to go to southwestern Louisiana; we went across the world.
That became apparent to me early on as did the character of the people I sweated
alongside. Each of the 35 members had a deep understanding of civic duty amalgamated
with an empathetic heart.
Nobody personified these traits more that Christopher Rosales, a former Marine
and lifetime poet. It was while speaking to him that I learned perhaps my most
substantial lesson of the trip.
One day while working outside, we both simultaneously stopped to gaze upon the
Louisiana sky. It seemed boundless that day, above our head, to our west and
our east, almost below our feet. Yet as grand and magnificent as the sky seemed,
we were both struck by one simple and profound truth. The sky that startled us
with its endlessness was the very same sky that stretched over us in Long Beach.
We understood then, perhaps better than ever before, that we are all tied to
each other in this world. For better or worse, we are each others’ brothers
and sisters. And in that way, when we help one, we help all.
When assisting our brothers in Louisiana, we are lending our hand to our sisters
in Iran. We are all one people separated from each other by arbitrary lines.
I do not mean to advocate an irreverent disregard for culture. I recognize, appreciate
and respect the diversities between people. I merely mean to point out we must
keep in mind our differences but hold to heart our similarities.
Othman Ramadan is a senior journalism major.
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