My name is Zoe Booth and this will be my fifth year traveling with Children’s Global Alliance. I began my journey with CGA at 13 years old when I traveled to Cambodia. This trip forced me to realize that not everyone has the luxury of living a life the way I do. There are millions of people who surmount countless obstacles to survive to see the next day. It made me much more appreciative for everyone and everything I have. This trip instilled in me a sense of responsibility to help others that has carried me through trips to Tanzania, Morocco, and Nepal with Children’s Global Alliance. In these countries we help teach English and work to instill hope in the children. We show them that someone cares and that we believe they have the potential to be something great, which is important because that reassurance is not given in many of their households. This year I am traveling to Nepal again as a student mentor. This means that I set an example for the other student volunteers I am traveling with and am the person they can reach out to when they need help lesson planning, blogging, fundraising, or mentally preparing for the trip.
Last summer, the “Second a Day” app allowed my best friend to take a one-second video clip every single day of our summer and combine them into a 2 minute video which filled my heart (and tear ducts), even through the 76th time watching it. My appreciation for this life grew stronger as each image flashed across the screen. I saw high mountain peaks, the reflection of sunrise on a still lake, my friends feasting on chocolate chip waffles. The background sang of rivers rushing by, music from Red Rocks concerts, the crackle of a fire, and belly laughs--a direct result of my display of uncoordinated dance moves. The video clips only lasted a second each, but their collection told a whole story.
I had this idealistic version of a video I could create that would capture my favorite parts of my world- Mr. Dupree passionately explaining how wild and wonderful the process of photosynthesis is, the sound a soccer ball makes hitting the back of the net, my mom leading me up a 14er, discussing the importance of creating a poem that has the power to move an audience, doing overspeeds with the boys at hockey practice, and standing in front of a chalkboard in classroom filled with students who so badly want to learn about adjectives.
I decided I would start this video the day I left for Nepal. But the minute I met my first student in class four, the video-making process became impossible. I wanted all of their faces to be included in my story. It wouldn't be complete without the dance moves we created to remember the different parts of a plant’s life cycle and the pictures the students drew to contrast area with volume and footage of them planting seeds in plastic bottles to help reduce the air pollution we were learning about.
I recognized this feeling immediately but didn’t fully understand it until I was welcomed into one of my student’s home. During this home visit, I came to understand how detrimental the 2015 earthquakes had been on the entire Dattatreya Square community. It dawned on me that the bricks they used to play musical chairs weren’t parts of construction sites, they were a parts of the millions of buildings that crumbled to the ground. The cracks in the wall next to the bed where I slept wasn’t one that had appeared gradually, it came when the ground shook so violently that the foundation was tested.
The people I was working with in Nepal made every second worth living in because they knew all too well that everything can be taken away in an instant. The common practice of living fully in the present was the reason it was impossible for me to pick which “second” was important to include; everyone lived as if each moment was the most important moment they’d ever have.
This year I am traveling back to Nepal with Children’s Global Alliance because I want to once again to be reminded that it is not only scarce and spectacular moments that are worth capturing, every moment is significant. In addition to wanting to experience the culture once again, I cannot wait to be reunited with the students I worked with last year. I am thrilled to see how their English has progressed and how time hasn’t weakend, rather strengthened our relationship as we both anxiously anticipate more time with one another.
