Shack Day 6 and 7

Sunday was a day off for the students in The Shack. The goal of that day is for them to feel what its like to go through a day with nothing, not having an income for a day but still having to buy food and water and to go for a period of time with none of their regular entertainment items. As I am not sure if many of them have ever gone without their computer Ipod or Xbox for very long.The day before, they knew they were going short on cash, because they were not working, so they went to a neighbor and asked him if he had any work for them. He did, so the next day, instead of taking the day off, they got up bright and early did what they had to do.  They started working on what he had for them. Detailing some vehicles and cleaning out a shed. That kept them busy for the morning and after that they went back to their shacks, had a Sunday afternoon nap, sat around for a bit and made supper.Monday was another day in the fields. A friend of a friend has a small field just out of town that needed to be de-weeded. They got up early that morning not knowing what to expect. All they knew is that it was another day in the fields and they were not looking forward to it. When we got out to the field it was a small bean field and the “Rancher” showed up in an old beat up Suzuki Samaria. A little different than the typical F-350’s the other Ranchers have. We soon realized that we are helping a regular guy weed a piece of land that he would have normally done himself. The guy gave them some hoe’s and they went at it. It only took them a few hours to weed the field but our new friend was extremely thankful for helping him out. The students felt good about helping him out because they realized it probably would have taken him days. They were done early, so they came back and finished up the day doing some yard work and then got off a little early. Later that night they invited the neighbors and their boss over for a feast. They saved money for a few days to be able to do that, but I think by the end of all of this they really got the sense of what it might be like living in poverty. They realized some of the stresses involved, unpleasant living conditions, and the value of a community and sharing the little that you do have with the community. I believe they have grown a lot this week and I think they will take the values they learned from this experience with them for the rest of their life.Brett: Mexico Facilitator – School of Leadership