As you start your journey, what do you fear?
Thu, 03/13/2008 - 4:05pm — bellrr
Hey all you going to Mexico!
Some of you came to Hopedale Unitarian Universalist Community a few weeks ago and told us about your trip. Good wishes on your travels. I would be interested in hearing what are some of the fears you have going into this adventure. I look forward to checking in to see how everything goes.
Robert Bell
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Fears
Robert-
Thank you for following our blog!
In response to your question, I didn´t come to Mexico with many fears about our time here, but I have fears about what will happen when we return. I want to take the information we are learning back to my community and work to create concrete change. That is why we came. I fear that as we ease back into our routines the stories we have heard will slowly fade into the background and the passion we feel here will subside. I fear that people will be uninterested or unwilling to listen. I fear that nothing will change and that our trip will have been no more than a regular Spring Break trip to Chiapas with a few interesting meetings thrown in for our personal edification, but little more. It is encouraging that people like you are reading this blog and are interested in hearing about our experiences and in accompanying us on this journey from afar, and this gives me hope against these fears.
fear
Hello Robert, sorry this is such a delayed response, I hope you check in again and can read it.
Coming here I had the same fears you get with any trip. It was explained to me once that you have assumed fears before you leave. These are things that everyone tells you to be afraid of. So of course I was worried about the water (ha, but of course), I was worried we would get here and we would fall apart as a group or people would be scared and not enjoy themselves.
But once you get somewhere, those simple fears are instantly lost. You get here and you see that these are just people that live just like you. So you adjust, you adapt and you no longer worry about those silly things. These hundereds of people live here everyday, they´re not afraid of being robbed, or kidnapped why should you? But you do take on some realized fears. There is a conflict here. These people we´re meeting with are under heavy low intensity warfare and it can be scary.
But i have been endlessly impressed with the group of students we have here and the international team. We all feel so safe, and interested. Although several students are enjoying this ¨"free lance " learning so much they may not be able to return to a normal course of study with out it being EXTREMELY painful, we shall continue on.
I´m excited to come talk with your congregation again, we had a wonderful talk last year, see you soon!
Hi Robert, Thanks for
Hi Robert,
Thanks for asking!
To be honest, I can't really think of any specific fears about the trip. I think it helps that one of our group members, Jon, has already been to Chiapas. He stayed for a week in the same city as we'll be in, and he's told us all about his experiences there. Along the same lines, we've done a lot of preparing and getting to know the background of the region.
If you ask my parents the same question, I'm sure they will be able to list a lot of fears... but i feel pretty comfortable with the whole thing :)
Angela