What does an ancient Chinese game called Tangram, the First Unitarian Church of Rochester, the University of Rochester, and thirty primary school educators have to do with sustainable development in the rural, isolated communities of San Marcos de la Sierra? Everything.
No one knows how many millennia ago the game Tangram was invented. Its genius is its simplicity coupled with its enduring applicability as a paradigm for life and learning. Seven geometric shapes — five isosceles triangles of three distinct sizes, one square, and a rhomboid or a parallelogram — are cut from a large square. Putting them back together is the first challenge. It sounds easy enough, but it is a brain squeezer without a diagram. Even with the diagram, it takes extraordinary concentration. The rebuilding of the square is the first, and simplest, task. There are thousands of geodesic designs of animals, persons, flowers, etc. that can be created by re-arranging the seven pieces. This game, this simplistically profound art form, is being employed as a motivational learning tool in a wide swath of disciplines and enterprises. Primarily, it is being employed as curriculum in primary, secondary, and university level educational institutions.
It teaches plane geometry. At the surface level, this is obviously true. But, subtlety, it teaches so much more. It teaches relational play between logic and creativity. It demonstrates spatial relationships and the use of symbol and design in making connections and communication. It unites logic, mathematics, and art to self-expression and self-understanding. The builder builds and at the same time the builder is built. This all happens on an individual level. When the dynamic of simple design creation is placed into a collaborative, team model, a great deal more is discovered. Some recognize their talents for thinking and problem solving. Others realize gifts for organizational skills. Yet another finds support as a motivator, a team builder. The articulate spokesperson, the story-teller, emerges from the group. As the simple game requires the rearrangement of the seven tiles into a cohesion, so too the players take note of their unique shape and how they fit into the whole. Besides all that, it’s fun.
Or at least I was having fun. I and Laura, about thirty primary school educators, a number of medical residents, doctors, and medical students from the University of Rochester brigade, and three or four translators packed into a small classroom to play Tangram. The First Unitarian Church of Rochester had developed the curriculum to share with the teachers. The church has been developing curriculum, teaching teachers, providing educational materials and supplies, and sponsoring students’ education for many years. The First Unitarian Church, the University of Rochester, and the people and associations in San Jose are all pieces of the Tangram puzzle. In relating one to another, they begin to discover their unique shapes and roles, and how they fit. The design they are creating might be called sustainable development.
As I sat there playing the game, getting to know the teachers, brigade members, and translators, I thought of how utterly different these persons are. Some speak English, some Spanish, and a few both. Their cultures and environments are divergent, almost to the point of being exclusive. They don’t look alike. I doubt that they think alike. They have little by the way of shared references. How do they come together? Isn’t it our sameness, our commonality, that binds us one to another? But then again, a square doesn’t look like a triangle. A rhomboid is after all only a deformed rectangle. But putting these pieces together leads to discovery and creativity. That which didn’t seem to fit, fits extraordinarily. And the discovery of that fit yields harmonious beauty.
The University of Rochester brigade has been in San José, San Marcos de la Sierra, Intibucá, Honduras for the past two weeks. More importantly, they have been there for the past decade. Apart from the medical brigade work that they offer so generously, their development projects are building a Tangram of sustainable development. Micro-financing, micro-business, clean and reliable sources of water, nutrition, health care, and education are a few of the pieces of the Tangram. They bring people and resources to the community of San José who are perhaps of a different shape. But they find a good fit. The people of San José have found their fit as well. Divergent shapes find a unique means to mesh into a creative beauty.
When we build together, we are built. That which we create sustains us and empowers us. We overcome that which impoverishes us. We are enriched by our commitment one to another.
Read more at:
University of Rochester, San José Partners, initiatives: http://www.sanjosepartners.org/who-we-are/initiatives
The First Unitarian Church of Rochester, Honduras Partnership: http://rochesterunitarian.org/ministries/social-justice/honduras-partnership/
Doing Good
April 9, 2015
The University of Wyoming saw over 300 persons at their clinic in Agua Salada last week. Being Holy Week we had some concern that they might not have as many patients as they would on a normal week. But, Wyoming’s clinic is well established with developed relationships of trust. Regardless of the week, the people turn out. Laura and I visit them twice, but because they are so busy, we have little time to engage with the brigade members. Mostly we just observed the coming and goings of the residents and their interactions with the students, nurses, dentist, and doctors.
We recognized an older woman who had also come to the clinic when Wyoming was last here in November. She would be memorable to almost anyone; that soft, grandmotherly look and manner that inspires you to want to care for her. She’s trying on reading glasses. She had done the same thing at the last brigade and I recalled that she didn’t have a need for reading glasses. Perhaps her memory is a little challenged. This time as before, two or three brigade members come to assist her. I inform them that she doesn’t need reading glasses. They ask her if she has difficulty reading and she answers that she doesn’t read. “What about sewing? Can you see the material and the thread?” “Yes,” she responds, “I can sew just fine.” She’s disappointed when they explain to her, as they had at the last brigade, that wearing reading glasses for her poor distance sight would not help her, and might even hurt her. Still, she and the brigade members are having a great time, laughing and conversing. Solicitous of her, the brigade members search out ways to help her. I think that they already had.
Laura spoke with one of the brigade members, thanking him for all the good work Wyoming is doing. He asked, sincerely, if in fact they really are doing any good. It’s a jarring question. A lot of brigades either never ask it, or answer it quickly and affirmatively to avoid their personal insecurity. But the question is the beginning of discernment, the beginning of mission. Everyone wants to feel helpful. It’s another thing entirely to actually be helpful. The former is about ego. The latter is about commitment. The question itself provides the map outlining the journey from ego to commitment.
On our second visit there was a meeting with the community leaders. The clinic has never been part of the Honduran health system and therefore has only been open when the University of Wyoming is present on brigade. The situation has changed now and there is a possibility for the clinic to be operational on a daily basis. This would mean regular health care for the inhabitants of Agua Salada and the surrounding areas. The community leaders expressed gratitude and praise for the committed individuals who have been coming to their village for years. They even spoke about memorializing them by hanging their photos on the walls. Then the community leaders expressed the fear they were feeling. If the clinic becomes part of the Honduran medical system would that mean that Wyoming would stop coming? Wyoming answered the question definitively. No, they would continue to come. They would continue to provide health care. They would stand by the side of the community as they developed. This response eased the fears of all present.
Is the University of Wyoming doing any good for the community and individuals of Agua Salada? Well, they built a clinic here. They’ve provided health care for years. The community is now poised to obtain regular, ongoing health care. They are known and respected by the residents. The community wants them to continue coming. Wyoming is committed to standing by their side. But even with all of that, the question is a scary one to ask, and even more elusive to answer. Though it is so tempting to document proof of our generosity, “good” is not subject to empirical measurement. It is only and always a thing of the heart.
When Wyoming next returns to Agua Salada, I suspect we’ll see the older woman return again. She will again search the reading glasses, again be dismayed that the glasses will not help her, and again find comfort in gathering around her two or three young Americans. They’ll talk and laugh and gently lead her about, searching out ways that they might help her. Once again, the question will be asked. Once again, the answer will elude us. The question, however, is so much more important than the answer.
Holy Week
April 3, 2015
Every brigade arriving here brings particular gifts as individuals and a particular dynamic as a group. Baylor College of Medicine has been here during this Holy Week under the direction of Dr. Sandra Williams. Laura and I present ourselves to brigade groups as advocates, both for their time here as well as for their continuing relationship with Shoulder to Shoulder. We attempt to discern why they’ve come to Honduras, what they want to achieve, and what are their reactions to being in an unfamiliar world. The Baylor brigade presented a great challenge to answering those questions.
Sometimes the discernment is easy. We meet an eighteen year old pre-med student with that deer-in-the-headlights sort of look and immediately know to give support and guide her experience. On the other side of the coin is the veteran brigade member who comes with great passion and energy. With him, we celebrate his sense of commitment and service. No one from the Baylor brigade fits either type. It is not that they present as distant or defended. On the contrary, they’ve been very engaging. But, their experience and background has well seasoned them. They are grateful to be here, and though the experience here is a new one, it is not something to either frighten or astound them.
They specialize in emergency medicine and work the emergency department in a Houston Hospital. They are familiar with tragedy and trauma. At the lunch table, they get along so well that I ask if they met with one another prior to coming to Honduras. Dr. Morrical answers me, “No, we didn’t do any team building. We just know one another because we work together.” From there the ER stories begin, punctuated with gallows humor that offers them a refuge and a sense of community. They know how to be kind to one another and how to be compassionate towards those in crisis.
They bring this with them to Honduras and the persons they see and treat. Still, there is even more reason for the aura of ease and familiarity that surrounds them. No one is from Texas, all of them imported there from other parts of the country and the world. Different backgrounds, races, and cultures have formed and honed their personal values of human dignity and respect. Theron, the Medical Resident from Arizona, and Rachel, the soon-to-be Yale Medical Resident from Maryland, are from mixed-race backgrounds. Gursaran’s gift is her Indian culture and she jokes of Western medicine and its insistence that there be a pill for every ailment. Angel is from the Dominican Republic, but wittingly comments that he is the only Domincan that spent a great portion of his life in Wisconsin (he has a weakness for cheese curds). I watch Angel giving a consult to a pregnant woman that has just had an ultrasound. His Spanish is excellent, of course, but rings with Caribbean flavor. He is poised, confident, and competent. He is accepted and accepting. They bring all of this also to Honduras and the persons they see and treat.
It is Holy Week in Honduras. Almost everything closes down and patients are not lined up at the clinic doors. They see patients, however, and they are likely seeing the patients in the greatest need. It is important work, specialized work in ultrasound screenings and emergency medicine. Still, they have some free time. They walk down to the waterfall and the river. Not a long walk, but a steep hill under tremendous heat. On vacation, the families have gathered there for picnics and fun. The brigade group must seem out of place among them. They are probably aware of how different they are. But then again, they are not here because they are the same. They are here because they are different; knowing, as many of us still have yet to learn, that diversity is not something to be feared and shunned, but rather, something to be embraced and celebrated.
They’re only here for a week, this Holy Week, and that’s too bad because any one of them, or all of them, could just as well live and work here. Their openness and respect to the diversity of human life and experience is a gift to the persons they are present to here in Honduras. Then again, it will be a gift to whomever they meet and serve wherever they may be.