Spring
break volunteers find the truth within
Othman
Ramadan
The alarm is too loud.
It is 4 a.m. Sunday morning. Sundays are supposed to be for sleeping in, not
for beating roosters to the punch. But lack of rest would come to be a theme
for me and the members of the trip.
We all met at The Walter Pyramid a half an hour later, where a bus transported
us to LAX. The quiet bus ride gave us all time to either catch up on our sleeping
or sink into the magnitude of what we were about to embark upon. We were unsure
of what relationships would develop, what work we would take up and where our
journey would take us. After an uneventful flight, we landed in Houston. From
there it was a two-hour van ride to Cameron, La.
Cameron is a city located on the western end of Louisiana. It has received
little attention on the news because it is viewed as historically insignificant
when compared to New Orleans. However, and I want to be clear that in no way
am I utilizing hyperbole to emphasize this point, Cameron was devastated by
Hurricane Rita. Rita left 90 percent of the city in ruins. The water level
was said to be 16-feet high and had winds well over 100 mph.
In our van to Cameron, the group members excitedly got to know one another.
We laughed, sang and regaled one another with personal stories. We had forgotten,
for just a moment, our purpose. That all changed when the first of an erratic
line of dilapidated homes came into our view. Witnessing such destruction changed
us.
From that point on, our energy was renewed, our focus sharpened, our purpose
intensified. That night, three cold and oversized tents were our homes and
35 undersized and uncomfortable cots were our beds, but we couldn’t have
cared less.
We woke up Monday morning ready to work, and work we did. We may have cleared
out the rubble from the houses in Cameron, but the memories from the homes
remained.
Our day consisted of more than six hours of backbreaking work. Lifting mud-soaked
beds on which families once lovingly shared their nights is an undertaking
both physically and mentally taxing. The refrigerators and stoves, which nearly
ruptured our spines from lifting, once fed and nourished the bodies of these
intrepid people.
Perspective, like an ocean’s tide, washed over us with wave after unremitting
wave, humbling the most prideful of our members. It lead me to realize I must
never again give credence to any ephemeral or inconsequential matter. I understand
better than ever before what truly matters. It isn’t finals.
This was only day one of our workweek. We spent the rest of our time in Lake
Charles, La., where we were assigned two homes and broken up into two teams.
There we became a family. Egos were checked and aid was delivered. No more
than a handful of the 35 of us had ever worked on a home before, but that fact
was no longer germane because we were driven.
Whether hammering, drilling, cutting or stapling, our zest could not have been
more potent. We did more than we knew we could and left with a feeling of fulfillment.
Concluding the trip, we were sent away with a four-page letter written and
read to us by one of the daughters whose parents owned the house. Needless
to say, her letter of gratitude left the girls crying and the guys trying to
get that something out of their eyes. Our only disappointment was the insufficient
time given to finish what we had started.
Since then we have been told a new group has already picked up where we left
off. They are now doing the hammering, the bonding and the learning. Let us
all remember a connect-the-dots of good will reveal a masterpiece Leonardo
Da Vinci couldn’t have replicated.
I am still waking up early, conditioned by the trip, but I don’t mind
it so much anymore. It just gives me a couple more hours in the day to reminisce
about Louisiana and the lessons that have forever enriched my life.
Since returning to California, the question most often posed to me has been, “What
did you learn?” But this question suggests I have learned only one thing.
In actuality, I have learned a countless number of things.
I learned the small things like how to hammer. I learned the big things like
how I work alongside others. But from each of the questioners, I have yet to
feel I would be given sufficient time to answer that all-encompassing question.
Instead, I see in their eyes an impatient longing for one brilliant truism
to wow them.
Well, here it is. What I have learned relates to what renowned author Ralph
Waldo Emerson once said and that I can now fully understand. “What lies
behind us and what lies before us are small matters in comparison to what lies
within us.”
Othman Ramadan is a senior journalism major.
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