Taelor, Hanna, Arizona, Ben - Expedition Club Members
Topic: Why go back?
Taelor- Kids here are different. If you went and volunteered at some elementary or middle school it wouldn't be the same because of the sense of community, I guess. They just love you from the minute you get there. The language barrier helps that, you have to learn how to get to know people in a different kind of way. You feel so connected to them on this different level—I can't not go back.
Ben- Sense of the community. There's something I experienced while I was there that I don't experience when I'm here. Everything there seems like it has a place. I felt very connected despite the language barrier. It felt like not really being able to talk to people but being able to interact with them and play with them made it so there was less of an intellectual bond and more of some other kind of connection.
Taelor- "It comes from right here."points to her heart
Hanna- You really have to go there feeling open to this stuff. You've gotta go there and be ready and be open to making relationships with everybody.
Topic: Impact on village
Hanna- Hope that they'll be able to continue with school.
Taelor- Inspiration. It's to inspire there.
Ben-I think that a large part of the impact that the Expedition Club has on the village and the kids is giving the kids a positive association with learning and with English. Positive reinforcement that learning is fun.
Taelor- I think with the language clubs at the high school, if there was a group that came from that country every year and they didn't know English so the only way you could talk to them was if you learned that language, that would make me learn so much harder.
Arizona (Riz)- It made them so much more excited to learn English because they wanted to talk to us and answer our questions and tell us things. So it definitely made them more interested in English and want to learn it.
Hanna- I love that we go there to teach them but they are always looking for new ways to teach us things as well. It's so fun to sit down with the elderly ladies make baskets and learn how to do Thai massage. That was a lot of fun for me.
Riz- They're really open and willing to share their culture.
Taelor-The kids in Phapang much more advanced in their speaking and outgoing than kids of same age from neighboring schools. Not as excited about learning English.
Hanna- My life would definitely be so different if I didn't write that application. Being back now, I sit in class and I just want to be in Phapang, I just want to be helping people. If there are classes I'm not as serious about that are required, I just wish I could doing something else that makes me really happy and is beneficial to others. There honestly isn't a day that we don't think about it.
Riz- I hadn't been out of the country before so I was really eager to travel and help people. There was no way to know what it was gonna be like. It's really hard to anticipate. There's no way to know until you get there. Definitely have a different appreciation for things when you get back. Friendships and respect of other people. The Thai people definitely show more respect and teach you how to do that.
Hanna- It definitely makes me realize there's not just Port Townsend, there's not just the U.S. There's so many different ways to live.
Ben- I got involved because it sounded cool to go to Thailand, but it turned into something that I didn't understand at all before I went. I had no concept that that sense of community exists naturally in the world, because I'm very used to American culture and the American sense of community. I guess how that affected me was that it made me more aware of the differences in culture and psychological norms. What is normal in my life? It's very normal, especially in my life in Seattle, to go get on the bus and not talk to anyone and have everyone staring at their iPhones and poking at the screens. Just sort of veg out and be extremely disconnected from the world. What I became aware of is that there are entire cultures where that is not the norm. There are cultures in other places where a family's heritage is extremely important and how that concept is very different when compared to American culture where everyone is moving around all the time and being disconnected from their past and making their own future. And that's not to say American culture is bad or anything, but there are very different things out there that I don't even know exist and would never even think about unless I went and experienced it for myself. A very strong awareness of the existence of ways of thought and ways of living that I'd never considered before.
Taelor- There's always those stories about people who go and do these fantastic things (like Greg Mortenson 'Three Cups of Tea'). I think, 'I wish I could do that, I wish that could be me, How do people do people give their whole lives to something like that?' Then going to Phapang you realize they're not forcing themselves to do it. When I was there it didn't feel like I was doing any work, it didn't feel like I was helping anyone. I just wanted to do it. When you find a passion it's not hard to help and make where you are a better place.
Hanna- No matter who you are, you just have to go there and be open to trying everything.
Topic: School and Robbie
Riz- Completely different sense of support. He brings a grounded feeling. He's like everyone's parent and friend and mentor. In school, 1 in 10 people want to be there.
Taelor- It's different from school because at the high school I feel like no one cares. The teachers don't really care—it's an easy A because they don't really care. And all the kids who don't care who don't try to learn who don't try ot make it a better environment. Where with the group we all volunteered ot be there, we all want to be there, everyone cares. I feel like when everyone's trying so hard for each other.
Ben- Apathy definitely doesn't have a place in Expedition Club. The Expedition Club is engaging and high school is not. What's the defining feature between Expedition Club and high school? Robbie is very good at creating environments that are engaging.
Taelor- You don't mean to learn. You're learning through experience. It just happens. I just lived that and learned so much from it.
Riz- You learn a lot from yourself, too. You learn how far you can push yourself and what changes you are willing to make to help the group and help the village.
