As I have been doing so far, I wake up at 5:30 A.M. to get myself and my lunch ready for a day of work. Today is the last day of a full workday at La Posada Providencia, an organization that is an emergency shelter for men, women, and families fleeing their home countries because of political tyranny, natural disasters, and other life-threatening situations. I give myself time to relax before we head out by resting not just my body but my mind after I have breakfast. Listening to music is one of the ways I lighten my mornings and start with a good note. We left around 7:10 in the morning to go to the worksite.
We started where we left off the previous day with the fence. The poles were already inserted in the holes that were made, and the cement that was poured was dry. Some of my classmates helped in picking up the trash from the wrappings of the materials used as well as other trash that was lying around the fenced area we built. I and those remaining worked on the smaller details on the fence such as stretching it out to position it so that we can add the final wires.
Leslie Ortega and I using the pliers to twist the wires in order to secure the fence with the poles.
It was my first experience in this type of labor work since in my own culture men do it. Our group has been doing a great job in keeping up with the hard labor work that we have been doing for the past two weeks now. It has been progressing to the point where we dug up more holes in a new area of the land. This leads to more cement mixing in order to set the poles in the holes.
I was able to do a new task today apart from working on the fence at La Posada. I, with another student, got the chance to help clean a room that only had one resident. It was a good feeling to be able to work inside the buildings and help the staff with these tasks; it was also refreshing to be inside with air conditioning for a while. We would rotate tasks with other students to balance resting and equity in the types of work we were doing. Once I changed tasks, I was back at mixing cement and helping out with installing more poles. The other student and I rotated on mixing cement since most of the time we were exposed to the sun, and we all wanted to make sure that everyone was feeling okay and well hydrated. Everyone was able to have a water break before we left to go back to the church that is hosting us.
The afternoon did bring a lot of emotions to me and possibly to my fellow classmates. We had a group discussion amongst each other due to emotions of missing home, the topic of immigration, or the fact that we are in a new environment that we have never experienced. I empathized with how others were feeling because I did struggle myself. I have a daughter who is staying with my mom while I am taking this course, but I tried to be in a position that lets me be able to gain from this experience such as civic leadership skills. There was more communication about the course’s objectives not only academically, but our own personal goals obtained from this class. It was very important to know that the approach of caring for others is a major aspect of this course. It did make me feel better knowing that I was not the only one carrying emotions around. Ending the night with an expression of self was very helpful to me to continue the last couple of days of being here in Texas.
-Giovana Gaona, Goshen College Class ’24, Public Health major
