Island of Adventure                                   1   2   Next

Jessica Leu

 “Congratulations on being accepted to the 2007 AID Summer Volunteer Program!” Taiwan had so many surprises in store for me ranging from “no biggie” to “eye-boggling” to “sincerely touched”. What I had expected was far from the experience I actually went through. My first small surprise was the insisting knocking at our door that occurred half past midnight on the first evening. No one wanted to get out of their beds to answer. We were all too exhausted from the activities and the shock of having to hand-wash our clothes on the first day. To our surprise it was not a counselor but, our missing roommate!

        In the first week of training at Taoyan, we listened to the military men give their accounts of their teaching experience with underprivileged children. One after another, the same phrase was emphasized, “…those kids are so NAUGHTY”. When I got to Neimen Middle School, I kept in mind what we had learned the week before, that we should come off as authoritative in order to gain respect. On the first day of class, the military men’s phrase resounded in my head which caused me to brand a few kids as “naughty” before I even got to know them. This was my mistake, these kids were far from naughty. They were incredibly intelligent and kind-hearted. The material that Archie had given us to use for these two weeks only lasted two days!

        Within the first day, I had already begun to appreciate my life back in the United States. How luxurious it seemed compared to the conditions in these mountainous areas where there was no air conditioning and snakes roaming in the grass at night. In our dorms at the school, we had plenty of uninvited guests such as a hairy spider the size of person’s hand and an army of ants in our refrigerator. However, I quickly adapted to this new way of life and concentrated on why we were really here. At first, the kids were extremely shy to the extent that they shook their heads when we asked for their English names. However, the ice was broken and we quickly bonded with them. They really appreciated having us as their teachers. We tried to help them interact with the English language through fun activities and not by staring at grammar books all day long. As the last day approached, it became difficult to part from these kids. To our surprise, two students had got on stage to give a speech. Within a few words, the first student broke out in tears and as the other student tried to continue the speech, she too began to cry. Some of us started to cry as well when it was our turn to give out speeches.

        From this program, I realized teaching was not as easy as it had seemed. Everybody had their own reasons for joining the program, thus, you really had to challenge yourself and take initiative. I felt the program was very rewarding as I not only got experience in teaching, but I also got to learn more about Taiwan’s culture. It had been ten years since I had gone back to Taiwan. Through the AID program, it was a perfect way of making my second visit possible.

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