Blog 2 | How I re-met my Mother | Yasas Vithange

Update to Vlogs: My software crashed so I will be uploading my vlogs when I come back to Wichita.

Blog 2: How I re-met my mother…

I always volunteer to lift heavy things because I love lifting heavy things. This is a fact that my team always choose to laugh at, but I say know your strengths, and my strength is my strength. This will be the theme of this week.

I met Mrs. Hicks at an organization called A Wider Circle, she reminded me of my Ammi (mother in Sinhalese). A Wider Circle is an organization that helps families at risk of falling into poverty or in poverty get out of that cycle by either helping them furnish homes, or get clothes, or to receive interview clothing and training. Mrs. Hicks is a 56 year old African American who is a single mother of 2 older sons. She needed furniture for her new apartment far away from the city. Her job doesn’t pay enough for her to keep the house she raised her children in, and her boys are married and no longer can fully support her as she gets older. My mother on the other hand is a 50 year old Sri Lankan house wife who raised my sister and I while my father was abroad winning the bread for our family. My sister and I have since moved out and she now lives with my father in Dubai. Mrs. Hicks and my mother share two very important traits, they have an attitude of modesty and strength. Mrs. Hicks was picking her furniture and would say “that would look fantastic in the corner by the kitchen… please, please, please I need that in our house, our life would not be complete without that”, which are all things my mother would say. My mother and I are very close and I haven’t got to talk to her for a few weeks and that really made me miss her and was a quiet reminder that all families are real people with everyday problems. I see her strength through her continuous hopeful nature, finding the positives out of every situation. I see her modesty through her love for all the people around her and honesty about her current situation. She is a timid woman in a harsh world with no problem standing up for herself.

I, of course, helped play heavy furniture tetris (my favorite game other than regular tetris) because I like lifting heavy things. At one point when our tetris leader said we couldn’t fit any more furniture in her 2001 Toyota Hilux and I didn’t buy it, he was terrible at tetris. Thus I proceeded to repacked the truck to fit all her furniture. It was nothing short of exhausting but Mrs. Hicks was so thankful and she looked at me with her a kind brown eyes and gave me a warm, loving, motherly hug and told me to keep her in her prayers. I fell to pieces. I was overwhelmed with emotions because all I saw, felt, heard, or felt was my mother and I didn’t want to let go. Knowing that I will never see her again made me feel numb because for a second I had my mother next to me again, and I felt loved for the first time in a long time. I live in America, alone, and she will be as well. We were both far from family and made a connection that we hadn’t felt in a long time. I had to walk away to collect myself and when I came back she was gone and I had missed the opportunity to take a picture with her, but it was okay. Remembering that I helped Ammi (mother in Sinhalese) was enough satisfaction for the day.

To feel love from a stranger for a single moment is preferable than to feel nothing at all. She filled a little part of my heart that has been empty for a long time. Ammi, I love you.

WAKE UP! | Yasas Vithanage

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When I started this program I just wanted to go to Washington, I just wanted to escape Wichita, I just wanted to be apathetic. It was just easier. I felt like I had been fighting for the past year for causes I believed in and I was burnt out. I wanted to be a bad student. I was a bad student, papers and readings are not my strength, I learn by doing and shared experiences. Nevertheless, I tried to put into words social issues I had no grasp on. I was just looking forward to Washington so that I can see the sights and explore the local coffee shops but as soon as we stepped on the flight to Washington my mood immediately changed. Here I was sitting next to these students who were so excited to be an active part of the social change that we spent the past 8 weeks contemplating about.

We land in DC and I was handed a folder and told by Trip Coordinator, Chelsea, to take care of 8 young adults for 5 days. Don’t get me wrong I loved my team (shout out to team Serving Stallions!), but I had prepared myself to be a passive member of this trip. Suddenly there was a personal stake to be more knowledgeable, more trusting, and less apathetic. Like a scene from Saving Private Ryan, it was almost as if Chelsea touched my shoulder and told me “I need you, I need you to help guide these troops”, and that was just the shot of espresso I needed to wake up for this trip!

Our first day of service was a great eye opening moment when all my emotions and motivation struck me at once. Here I was playing furniture Tetris with a truck, laughing, learning, and hugging. A stark contrast to how numb I felt reading in preparation for the trip. Seeing Mrs. Hicks as my mother made it more real, it made it closer to home, it made it important for me to learn and be a change agent.

I think one of my successes over this trip is getting to know some amazing people from our team and from our service days. Nathan, a  man who happens to be homeless on the streets for 17 ish years just loved homeless. He loved that he got to travel places and that he learned a lot from the streets. Dressed like gentlemen, he thought of himself very highly but he was never afraid to try to make friends and share his love of 1990s Madonna. If anything he was just so human it scared me, he kind of reminded me of me. Me, with all my privileges, was just as much human as he is. Being in a class learning about social issues does nothing unless you experience it, because the experience of being human can only be observed when you are 5 feet from one an other.

Personally my biggest failure was being too complacent. To be truthful I did not complain a lot other than about the food we were eating. I personally could not leave that one privilege of choice of food behind for one week. The work we’re doing was self-less and in that I found a way to be selfish. I hope I move away from that mindset next year.

In the end my eyes are open. I love my team, I love the people I met, and I love the city. I came back home and spread the word to everyone who brought up the topic. It has personally made me a better advocate for other causes I support because I know that change can only come from self-less acts and a true engagement in the community it affects. If you have the chance to be immersed in a community I encourage you to do so. Life is a combination of experiences and the more experiences you have the more of your life you’re living and the more life you are spreading to others. I like helping others and I just don’t want to say I am, I want to do what I can.

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Literally too Excited to be here | Yasas Vithanage

Today I just could not focus. This city is beautiful and i decided to enjoy as much of it as i could before i dug deeper into the underbelly. For full resolution images visit my website : http://yasasdahotsauce.weebly.com/photography/asb-dc-day-1

Pre-trip Feels | Yasas Vithanage

I’m not the best when trying to elicit emotions through writen text so I thought I’d make a Vlog instead.

EPISODE 0: ASB | PreTrip Feels

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER | Yasas Vithanage

Yes, Yasas is posting about about an athlete, how typical right?

Why Arnold? Well, his story resonates with me. He’s an immigrant with dreams bigger than his home country who had a work ethic that bought him great success. Success in the sense of influence not riches. He had a vision for himself and other around him and he didn’t make excuses, he did something about it.

It is so easy to ask for an easy life but no one is willing to take risks, and his message to the world is to take every opportunity that comes up to you. It may not turn out the way you wanted it to but you can always learn from it. His rules to success are what inspires me, and I have a VISION.

Why is Reflection Important for Humans? | Yasas Vinthanage

Reflection takes a climatic role when learning anything new. To do, reflect, and improve, is the most effective way for most animals to gain new information. Outside the need to survive this has helped humans to evolve their sense of intelligence, to form concepts and civilizations which undoubtedly has pushed our species forward, but has also created the problems our Alternative Sprig Break trip is trying to help with. Reflection is especially relevant in service learning were there is no curriculum, text book, or sitting down, the central focus is ‘doing’ something that matters. Reflection matters because it helps us monitor our actions.

I came across a short YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGAmULg6cMM), that gave me new perspective on why reflection was important. In this video Adam Geller, an Entrepreneur, discussed why he thinks reflection is important. He stated that his personal success/growth has always resulted after he took a step back to see the impact he has made on himself and especially others, and this is the key. Perspective taking, whether in the form of sympathy or empathy, requires reflection of self. A service learning environment is a roller coaster of new people and experiences and we may not learn from our actions until we take the time to be sympathetic, dare us be empathetic.

As a master’s student in counseling I use reflection extensively in my career. In Existential Counseling, the core concept is to help clients seek balance between their limits and realities of life, whether it be the good or bad aspects. This method grew out of a need to help people contemplate on the dilemmas of everyday life, including finding meaning in the work you do and it is my favorite counseling theory. We need to find meaning in our actions and thus life, humans crave it. Reflection allows us to make sense of the impact we had on a community, especially after falling into a routine as we so often do. During this trip, I foresee our team fitting into a grove of hard work that may inhibit their ability to enjoy what they came to do.

In conclusion, I believe reflection is essential to the growth of a person, and what is service learning if not an opportunity for growth, in communities and ourselves. Humans are a destructive and selfish species that would consume everything in its path if not for the reflection we do to keep ourselves in check and thus the make improvements to ourselves and society.