My Story
Adventure Times – Laos By Sallie Geary, 18, an explorer, volunteer and high school student
A Note From The Editor: Meet Sallie – she’s a high-school student who has a passion for exploring the world and working to help communities less lucky than her own. In upcoming issues of unleash, we will be getting to know Sallie and finding out what overseas volunteer work is really like. In this edition, Sallie tells us all about her work with the World Challenge team in Laos. World Challenge is an organisation that teams school students with projects, hoping to aid personal growth while assisting communities in need around the world. Details about World Challenge can be found at the end of this article. After spending eight days sleeping on bamboo floors, eating plain sticky rice and not showering, surprisingly I wasn’t missing Western civilisation too much. In the past eight days I, along with my ten other World Challenge team members, have helped to ensure that the 43 children in the village of Ban Naluang, Laos, no longer have to trek two hours each way to get to school. That is, if they were lucky enough to be able to attend at all. We had been waking at sunrise to mix clay and straw with our feet to make homemade mud bricks, and laying older stones in order to construct the three-roomed school. We were far from accredited brickies, but we put in all of our effort to construct the straightest walls possible. By the end of it my feet were covered in scratches and scabs, but to be honest I didn’t really notice the pain until we had moved on from the quaint jungle village and into Thailand... Probably because by that stage they were pretty infected. Nonetheless, one round of antibiotics later and I was fine!
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unleash June - July 2013
When we left, we had completed all but one room of the school - which was to be finished by another group the following week. On our last night in the village, we presented some of our fundraising money to the chief to cover the cost of furniture and supplies for when the school was complete. His speech in response to our week’s work was probably the most inspirational and humbling thing I had heard in my life. He said; “We are so thankful for the work you have done for us, through the translations we cannot accurately express our gratitude. As a community we have no items to give you, we have no money or jewels, but we hope our blessings and goodwill you will cherish forever. And with you we send our luck for a happy life and hope you will live it, and all your opportunities, to the fullest. Although we may be thousands of miles apart, our hearts will now always beat as one. We will never forget you, you have given us so much hope for the future and for our children, for that one day they may now receive half the education you have.” It sounds corny to say that moments like these cause some sort of profound realisation about yourself, the world or just life in general. But the truth is it does. From my personal experience, it doesn’t happen like you see it in the movies; where all of a sudden you’re hit with some sort of affirmation and the universe aligns. It happens when you get home, because when you’re sitting by the river at sunset, watching the shadows of tigers parade the jungle ridges above, you’re just trying to take it all in and convince yourself it’s real (and not pass out from exhaustion). Then one, three, six months later, you’ll be sitting at home in your bed watching Disney, in your ordinary life reminiscing about what was, remembering different details every time you think about it. I guess you don’t really realise the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.