The Third Wave_ A Volunteer Story - Alison Thompson [30]
James had become a valuable member of the team. He was a highly intelligent Englishman with a great sense of humor. He charmed all the female volunteers, which in turn kept up morale. He was always thinking of new ideas to improve the village life. One day he came up with a plan to delouse the children, which was a mammoth task. They used balloons and tricks to set about coaxing the children toward the water buckets. The children laughed and screamed, and after much drama, a lice-free victory was the hairdo of the day.
Our volunteers included CEOs and businesspeople, housewives from London, actors, teachers, lawyers, writers, surfers from Sweden, and even a stripper from Paris. Many people would declare that they had no skills, but we would tell them to do whatever they felt like doing, and it worked. We would see those same insecure volunteers playing with the children or contributing in other ways, building structures out of rubbish, cooking, acting as assistants in the clinic, or just cleaning up. One man with obsessive-compulsive disorder turned out to be the best person imaginable to have in a fly-infested hospital.
All of us volunteers would laugh about some of the cultural stereotypes that proved to be true. The Germans were very organized and had a lot of money. They had rules and strong ideas about leadership, but their hearts were in the right place. The Austrians were laid back, tech-savvy, and had a great sense of humor. The Italians brought stylish tents and good red wine.
Then there were those who busted stereotypes. Kym Anthony, a CEO from the largest bank in Canada, brought his eighteen-year-old daughter, Callen, with him because it was her birthday wish to come and help. They lowered their heads in manual labor and had an overwhelmingly positive family experience.
There was a cool English couple named Jo and Rob who were only twenty years old and on their way around the world when they stopped to volunteer for five months. Some days they would peel carrots, and on other days they’d collect bodies, build, and take on just about every task imaginable. Rob then encouraged his entire family to come over. His amazing father, Peter Nossitor, a builder with J. G. Gleeson, went on to bring over many of his co-workers as well as other family members.
The beauty of volunteering is that you don’t need any skills to give someone a hug or hand out water. Anyone can do it. People think that after a disaster only medical or construction help is needed, but there are also thousands of traumatized children sitting around, and they need friends, entertainers, educators, and mums and dads as much as medical and financial help.
As more volunteers joined us, the town became busier and our guesthouse noisier. Each night back at the guesthouse, volunteers would show off their daily war wounds of bruises and scrapes. The volunteer medics were constantly digging splinters and nails out from everyone’s feet. Volunteers looked scruffy, sunburned, unshaven, and uncombed, but they had gigantic smiles on their faces.
The volunteers were able to buy a new wardrobe in the street markets for under a dollar. Many of the men started wearing saris on their bottom halves just like the Sri Lankan men. The sari was the national dress code of Sri Lanka and in the coastal villages we seldom saw men in pants.
Most volunteers came and went within a week and had few responsibilities, so they stayed up late at night on the beach letting off steam and playing guitars around a blazing fire. A few of the surfer volunteers would disappear whenever