SL blog post 3

Activism:

This week was all about activism. I passed out all sorts of flyers , I spoke to people, researched countless topics and I attended events galore! Wednesday was the movie night that Chelsey and Kelsey set up. The video was very interesting and we had some speakers from YAYA come to talk about the farmworkers as well. Saturday was the symposium event. Although this event essentially fell through and we weren’t able to get our message across to very many people, it was an excellent learning experience. I’m assuming that our marketing wasn’t in the right place and we probably could have done more to get the word out, but we all conducted a lot of research about the information we would have presented in regards to the farmworkers and became very knowledgeable on how to better plan a successful symposium for the next time. Finally, Sunday I attended the community gardens event AFTER I RETRIEVED MY KEYS THAT I LOCKED IN MY FREAKING CAR!!! This was amazing. It provided us with a firsthand experience of the world these individuals have to do every day. We were able to sit and talk with the women about certain topics that affect them and their daily lives and how they are treated in the fields because they are women.

Reflection:

This week gave me the opportunity to apply everything that we have been learning in the books to real life situations. Talking with these women one on one and actually hearing what they go through and seeing with my own eyes what they need help with was a real eye opener. Although the symposium turnout was rather upsetting, it was firsthand knowledge of exactly how difficult it can be to organize locally much less get people together on a global level.

Reciprocity:

This week was amazingly eye opening for me. My privilege was slapped in my face several times throughout the week (especially at the gardens) and I realized just how difficult it is to organize things that involve more than two people. I learned that SPF 40 is simply not enough when you sweat all the time and horse poop really doesn’t smell as horrible as one might think. I always knew that working on a farm was hard work and it takes A LOT of knowledge and skill to make sure that everything works and all the plants grow properly. I realized today though, that I have always taken for granted my ability to just go home at the end of the day and not really have to worry about the garden or the food growing there if I really didn’t want to. Also, for the first time in my life I locked my keys in my car, which made us an hour late… so I this week I learned to MAKE SPARE KEYS.

Words: 475