Learning from People

Text and Photos by Kumiko Takahashi

Last spring I went down to Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to help victims who were still suffering the damages caused by hurricane Katrina, which attacked the U.S at the end of August in 2005. I decided to take part in this trip on a whim. Before going on this trip, I didn’t know how much it would mean to me, but it became one of the most unforgettable experiences I’ve ever had.

Spring Break 2008: Students prepare to leave wintry Hancock for Mississippi, accompanied by Bill Melchiori, second from left, Director of Student Life and Housing, and Suzanne Van Dam, Assistant Professor of English, next to van. Click on photos for larger versions. (Photos © 2008 Kumiko Takahashi)

On the long way down to Mississippi, I learned how to talk with people I hadn’t talked with very much. Originally I was shy and not good at talking to people because I couldn’t think of what we should talk about. I could understand half of the conversations and jokes, but sometimes I didn’t understand why they were laughing. At a restaurant, for example, one of my fellow travelers started talking to a waiter very loudly. Though I couldn’t catch what she was talking about, everyone without me started laughing. They said to her that she was so funny, and I was smiling like they were, but inside I was sad because I couldn’t follow the joke.

Our church "bedroom" on the trip.

On the trip there were about fourteen people who I didn’t know much about, and they didn’t know much about me. I felt really anxious about it and I built a wall around myself. I was really afraid they couldn’t understand what I said. Soon, however, I realized that I was mistaken. Some of them started to try to talk to me. Every time someone said a joke, two girls would try to explain it and they also said a joke to make me laugh. They also taught me a card game which is called BS, so we played that many time in the Van. When there was something I had never seen, they always explained it to me. The long way, at least I thought so before the trip, became a very short trip because of their easy, funny jokes and the game. I learned the importance of the first step in making new friends and felt how their effort was courageous and how lucky I was to receive it.

Here we are doing yoga to get in shape!

When you go somewhere for the first time, you find many differences from the area where you live. That was my first time staying in another part of this country. Since I have lived only in the U.P., I had been used to “Yooper” English. The farther south I went, the more I was surprised because of two reasons. One was the difference in pronunciation from the northern part of the U.S. On the way to Hancock from Japan, I had stayed at some airports in the northern part of the U.S to change my plane, and I found that it was easy to understand what people were saying.

Here I am with friends in Mississippi.

In Mississippi, people spoke fast and unclearly. At first, it was like a new language for me. For example, when I went to Subway for the first time in the U.P., I ordered a sandwich and a medium pop smoothly, but in the South, I couldn’t. I was totally confused about what the saleslady asked me; she had just asked me whether I wanted French fries or not. To be honest, at first, I tended to dislike it there; but the longer I stayed there and worked around people, the more I enjoyed the way they spoke. Though it was hard for me to understand what they said, it was good practice to hear their different accents. In the end of the trip, I got used to them and I could order a sandwich a little smoother than before.

Suzanne Van Dam, my advisor and English professor, plays her guitar.

Another thing was the gap between the rich and the poor. I haven’t seen that big a difference either in Japan or in the U.P. In these places, people live in beautiful, clean houses and have cars, bicycles, or roller skates. Of course in Mississippi, many people had houses like in Japan or the U.P., but there were also many people who lived in broken or rotten houses. There was even a man who had lived in a car in the forest because his home was completely destroyed by Katrina. Our job as volunteers was to clean up his ground which was full of garbage, stray cats, and broken toys including a creepy, dirty baby doll. Can you imagine that he had lived at such a place for so many years? He was too old and poor to clean his own place or ask someone to do it for him.

Cleaning up to help hurricane victims.

This place needed some paint.

Three years have passed since Katrina came. People tend to forget about it these days. That is the real tragedy. Since going on the trip, I have started to think about the environment more than before. There are many problems facing us, like global warming and desertification; we can see climate changes even here today. There are also many things we can do about them. A new hurricane called Gustav has hit the same region as Katrina did. I’m wondering if it makes people think about it more seriously as I felt on the trip.

This was a house before Hurricane Katrina hit Mississippi.

After the trip, I have been thinking about what I got from it. I made many friends from this trip. I had many opportunities to go to places I’d never been such as the sanctuary in the church, and also I learned many words such as “surgery,” “eliminate,” and “snore.” In addition, of course, I determined to be friendlier than before -- not to be too shy, not to be afraid to talk with new people, and not to build a wall around myself.

With a lovely Grandpa ...

As a result of my little change in myself, I’ve made many friends so far, and they give me other opportunities to meet other people. I’m really enjoying the life with people this year more than last year. Now I can say I have changed, thanks to the trip.

You can see I'm not so shy anymore. It was a great trip!