Magic in Sumba

By : Kathie Armstrong Founder of the Quiksilver Foundation

A heartfelt mother-daughter experience outside a village hut on a remote jungle island proves that women of all ages, from many different backgrounds and cultures, can indeed change the world one moment at a time.

Do your part to better the world.

I glanced at my seventeen-year-old daughter with apprehension. Was I was doing the right thing taking her to a third world country with primitive tribal rituals, a jungle environment rife with malaria and dysentery?  How would Abbie relate to indigenous natives who lived in grass huts without electricity, running water or toilets?

When we volunteered to work with other families in Sumba that summer, it seemed like a good idea, exciting, even glamorous, but now that we were on the plane preparing for takeoff, it was scary. Indonesia was rocked by a large earthquake earlier that day!  The instant we set foot on the island, Abbie and I experienced a culture so foreign that it felt as if we had taken a gigantic step back in time.

I was astonished to see how quickly my daughter, the product of a sheltered and privileged environment, adjusted and thrived. She threw herself enthusiastically into every available activity: painting murals in schools, playing soccer with the kids, distributing clothing and malaria nets in villages and dispensing discarded eyeglasses.
Abbie was most excited about her assignment working with the volunteer dentist, a job that entailed holding a “spit bucket” so villagers with infected teeth, rotted from chewing betel nut, could eject blood and mucus accumulated during extraction. I couldn’t bear to watch and was relegated to sterilizing instruments. But my daughter graduated to pulling teeth by herself!

We noticed how many villagers waited patiently for their turn to be treated and had to come back day after day.  Abbie decided that she wanted the money she had collected from a fundraising effort prior to our trip to go toward the training and education of a young Sumbanese nurse. However, we learned that most Sumbanese, if they go to school at all, usually don’t progress beyond third grade.

The president of the Sumba Foundation said he had met thousands of villagers. Not one had ever left the bush for school. Motor-biking through a small village about an hour later, he came upon a celebration in progress—a young girl had just passed a test to attend nursing school in another town, but her parents didn’t have the means to pay for it. As if by magic, the perfect candidate was found that day!

I’ll never forget our gathering on bamboo mats outside a village hut. Abbie smiled at a shy olive-skinned girl named Margaretha as it was explained in Indonesian that the American teenager with the fair complexion and red hair would pay for three years of nursing school.  I still get chills just thinking about it.

Margaretha was stunned! Her family jumped up to shake my hands and hugged and thanked Abbie.  It’s impossible to describe the depth of my emotions as I watched these two young women knowing that from that moment on they would always be connected.

Since Margaretha doesn’t have a postal address, she and Abbie are only able to correspond when mail can be hand-delivered. Abbie’s latest package contained a photograph of a proud young student nurse in a white uniform and a simple handwritten letter that began with “Hello my Sister …” Abbie, who has been preparing for her own career in medicine, has recently received a grant to research malnutrition in Sumba!

I have always believed that doing your part to better the world would bring its own reward.  Now I know that doing together it with someone you love is reward enough.
 

Kathie Armstrong is the founder of the Quiksilver Foundation, a nonprofit organization sponsored by Quiksilver, Inc., a multi-national apparel and accessory company for youth. The Foundation is committed to benefiting and enhancing the quality of life for communities of surfers and board riders around the world with a special focus on children, education, science, oceans and the environment.

Source : http://www.lifemomentsforwomen.com