Meaningful Moments:)

I’ve been keeping moments and memories replaying in my mind for months now…..knowing I wanted to share them with you, but for some reason I was feeling reluctant because Im not sure why my moments would be important to share…or worth reading to you..Or to anyone but myself and the people who are in them.
However, one of my favorite thoughts revolves around the word UBUNTU.
UBUNTU in my own definition by thought means we are people because of other people
My moments are meaningful to me, and I know that when you share your moments with me , I will change in some way ;just as others will if you share your moments with them. Maybe your moments will be inspiring to them, or they will be hurtful/bring pain,possibly they could push them to do more, or help them believe again or want to…..
Either way, I hope these brief descriptions of moments of my recent life help you, push you, hurt you, make you laugh, make you think, help you remember, help you see life in a different point of view, help you see someones life and be grateful for what you have, or work harder to get what you want, but most of all, I hope they challenge you to love the moment and people in it.

#18
It’s the end of June and I walked into my baby blue School to meet the eyes of Nazim. Nazims eyes are starving ….he is starving for attention, for good nutrition, for love, for education, for life. He is sitting in the HMs office on a velvet type couch being questioned, but it sounds more like interrogation, by her. I walk in and im sure my face automatically turns to a concerned frown like position, and I ask both of them, “what’s going on? Everything ok?”
“Nazim slept out on the street last night”. The HM said. My heart starts beating fast, not because she is yelling at him for being so irresponsible and making his family worry and He is just sitting there with lost eyes and shame….but because I am sure that the reason he slept out on the street wasn’t because it was an exciting time to run away or be grown up.
I sit on the couch next to Nazim and say “It scares me to think that you slept out on the street, was it scary for you? Why did you?
“Yes Miss”he says with his soft lisp.
The story summed up to being the fact that there wasn’t enough food in the house, only enough for 3 out of the 4 children, and his instinct of hunger led him to the streets during the wee hours of the night when drunks and rum shops are open late and people are more apt to give. It seemed like a good choice for him. Food and maybe making some money. He is hungry and had to make a choice. His choice was sleeping on the streets. He is 12, this is his worry.


Nineteen
Zumba is sassy and fun and so is one of my favorite friends here, Terrianna. We get together after teaching weekly to rock out and dance. This is one of the highlights of my days….salsa dancing, shaking what my momma gave me…and doing moves that make my body look like I have so many of the biting kind of ants inmy pants…Sexy…..

Twenty.
I was at Shell Beach for my birthday( one of my favorite experiences ever!) but the Monday that followed was filled with celebration with some of my closest kids in the neighborhood. 10 of them came over and sang to me and had all sorts of “HAPPY BIRTHDAY JILLANY” cards and sheets of paper. I looked at each one as if it were Shakespeare and then kindly said thank you. When the cards were given and all the kids were huddled around the outside of my door stoop sitting and standing and looking at me, they slowly handed me over a napkin and inside was the cutest piece of cake. They told me they celebrated my birthday yesterday and ate the rest, but they saved me the piece they each thought I would like the best. And to be honest I don’t think I’ve felt that special in a long time….and so I did what I knew best, I took one look at them…staring them in the eyes…..one look at the cake, and pushed the whole thing in my m outh. Volcanic eruptions of laughter continued until I was able to swallow the day late cake.

21.
It’s the Monday of the last week of school and I walk in to it smelling the sweetness of persaud and the fatty fry of fish. YUM I think. I make my way into the kitchen to see one of the teachers families in there cooking up for the whole school. Fish, persaud, plaintain chips, cake, sweeties…they brought it all…including….the rum??????
…….HMMMM I thought to myself. Interesting.
They asked me if I’d like a drink and I kindly declined saying I don’t drink during the school hours .
They looked at me and questioned whether or not I was being serious. I laughed it off and then walked out saying thanks so mucho for cooking for the kids! ----ill find my rum after school if I need it.

Twenty-two.
UNICEF wanted surveys to be done for the Region to find out which special needs were most common in the mainstream schools as well as what they need to help support these students. This lead to days of getting to travel around Region 6 and meet with teachers, some I knew, some I didn’t. I truly enjoy the feel of walking into a school . You can feel how it is run, how the kids are, the energy of the school encompasses that very first entrance, and it’s a high that can be felt for days if it is good. Gavin and I got to drive up to Mara(up the bank-they call it) Gavin is one of my good friends here…He is a driver and often takes me everywhere and anywhere I go. In these travels we talk about …religion, love, education, Guyana, work, food, pretty much everything and anything…But this day up to Mara the topic was friendship and having true friends. Being able to trust your friends here, is hard, he said. Then he continued to give example after example of how money or the chance for advancement or the issue of being used have gotten in the way of many of his friendships. I listened and was quiet for most of the conversation this time, for I’ve been lucky in my life to not have experienced too many untrue friends. We continued on until we reached the first school I needed to go into. He stopped the car close to the gate of the school entrance and turned the car off. He sat there for a moment before saying, “But Jillian, you are a true friend, and I feel I can share anything with you.” And for that brief moment I smiled as I reminisced of all the true friends I’ve had throughout my life and realized then that I am a good friend because I have had so many good and true friends. I looked at him and simple said and thought “You are true to me too.”
When I got home I replayed in my head the conversations of the day, the sights and sounds and feelings in the words he spoke. I knew that in his words he was honest. I also could feel in my heart that I was too. I am lucky in my life to have so many true friends. True to the heart that I can feel in my being they are good. I am lucky to have the ability to feel this most of the time when I first meet someone. To know if I should put energy and time into a relationship. I know you can’t always predict the future, but I’ve realized my gut feelings to people have been pretty accurate all my life. Maybe I should trust my gut more in love?

Just a feel gooood one
Orealla is the type of place id like everyone in the world to experience, but not at all at once. It’s a simple place where simple becomes extravagant and everything you could possibly need. For me it’s a place that feels a bit more whole here in Guyana… a place that feels as If I just woke up in the house my dad and grandpa built and my mom is making pancakes and I can turn over and feel the sun on my face for 5 minutes more because I know when I wake my eyes they will see and feel comfort.
Orealla is also a place where I met a boy. An actual boy not a man, for all of you out there wondering if I am in love! I fell in love with this boy though, from the minute his eyes electrified me. His name is Reon and he is ten. He is animated in everything he does and finds humor throughout the day in little ways and games he plays. With the 5 days I spent with him, I often wish we shared a language that he could explain to me in detail his every thought that made him smile. Reon has 2 brothers and one sister. His parents and the four of them live in simple wood house. His mom makes cassava bread and his dad helps out with the church. Reon is the only one in the family that doesn’t go to school, but instead spends his days exploring his home land, running up unmarked paths, entering peoples homes for water, and picking up and taking everything he thought of as interesting. (sometimes id have considered it stealing, but no one seemed to mind, for the treasure he picked up was someone elses trash) He led me on one of these journeys one day….handing me sticks with leaves to swat away bugs when we were climbing through bushes, offering me his water when we got to a peak, stomping down “steps” that made me panic from the steepness, making me run and sweat and laugh along with him. We ended this journey back at the Guest House..where we sat at the table and enjoyed a warm pepsi and colored pictures together. This is also where we sat to learn a similar language.
Reon is the only person who is deaf in the whole community. No one knows signlanguage and his families communication with him is limited to eating and bathroom and pointing….which works, but to what extent?
I sat with him for those 5 days I was there and taught him signs, took him on my ideas of walks and showed him signs to go with the things he was seeing, colors, trees, birds, home, mom, friend, dad, letters, please, thank you: he was quick to learn, and on the 3rd day his mother and siblings joined us. We sat together at the table and went over some signs and words and things we had learned that week. We talked and laughed and I listened to her and him. We had countless conversations through our eyes. And the best conversation was to be had when the following day the mother came back and Reon had signed, Mom. She asked me what he said and I stated it outloud. Not once in her life has Reon called her that, or had she even imagined he would. I could sense the intimacy there would be in that word and the feeling that she was having. I carry that look and feeling with me now, and it makes me never underestimate the power of love and learning.

Twenty3
It was just any Wednesday morning, the sun was rising and that means the air was warming. I got out of the mosquito netting bed to reach a hammock overlooking the Corentyne River. Nothing beats a morning in Orealla, watching the sunrise and feeling the quietness thunder through your being to calm your worry and body for the new day. This quietness was change quickly this morning though by a YELP and a series of splashing. I look down from the Balcony and notice my friend Dan swimming in the most peculiar way with a sense of hurriedness in his eyes. He makes his way to the pier where he meets Steve(the amazing man who runs the guest house, approximately 5 foot and 130lbs.) He reaches dan and helps pull him out of the water…..apparently the piranhas were hungry this morning and Dan was breakfast. Steve easiy picks Dan up( Dan is 6’3” and 180ish lbs) and carries him like a he would a bride and brings him to the base and places him in a chair. I reach down their to meet Dans toe fate…a nub is missing from his 2nd toe and you can see straight into the bone. I run up and grab some ib profen and a camera per his request. People from the community quickly hear of the news and come rushing in. Standing around him and his bleeding missing toe nub. Dan is calm and smiles, apparently it happened so fast it didn’t hurt the way it looked. As people came in they held up their hands or showed us their feet of nubs they have accumulated and lost to piranha hunger.
Dan was then placed in a wheelbarrow and wheeled to the health post. There he was seated, given ibuprofen and iodined and gauzed up. He was then given 2 crutches, one that was made for his height but missing the bar inbetween where he was supposed to grip, and the other one he was given was made for someone approximately 5’2”-max.
He spent the next 6 days being taken care of by all who were around…and then spent 6 weeks in England getting it treated with more than gauze 

#twentyfour
Sometimes when you get going without thought you get caught up in the moment and don’t notice little details of the world around you. Little details like a baby goat sleeping in the shade, or a smile that crosses a babies face as you pass by, or cute squeak of new school shoes. In my case it was the little detail of cow shit and mud. And I just so happened to fall into this little detail….in front of a lot of people that had noticed that little detail.

Twenty-5
It’s 10:30 in the morning, day 5 of camp. I am exhausted and frustrated but can’t let it show. I have children around me and they are getting antsyyyyyyyyyyy to do something after our reading and art session…..we run into the heavy sun and the countdown beings…i10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1111111111111111 BLASTOFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!!! And in that moment l just let the breeze carry me and the sound of childrens laughter and waterbottle rocketships taking off guide my heart to a safe place and hold me there. Just for a while the stress can melt away from my skin and all that matters are these children, and this time, and these plastic bottles that have pushed their way into these precious childrens mind and made them imagine again. And it made me imagine again too…and helped me let go.