The Shack Experience – Day #3
The Shack Day 3:I think today was a great day for the students. Some of them came to a realization of what “The Shack” actually is. The Shack experience is a demonstration of a life of lack. A lack of food, clean water, sleep, entertainment and long hard days of work.During the night there was some sort of marching band music playing in the street and it started raining out. Which is not great when your roof is a leaky tarp, and is the case for some families living in our area. So, I was not expecting much energy out of them during the day.Today they did some yard maintenance around the main Hero Holiday property. Most of it was laborious
work that we would normally hire out to a Mexican or two. First, we loaded the truck with dirt we got from mountains. We came back to the property, unloaded the dirt and started sweeping the driveway. Trust me, sweeping the driveway is not an easy task. It is a cobblestone road and it is rather large. I have seen it take a day or more to sweep. The the School of Leadership girls are hard workers and had it done in a few hours. Meanwhile, the boys were off in the corner of the yard cleaning up all the construction supplies, stacking lumber and bricks. All the students have a pretty good work ethic and finish all their work in record time. They always keep me on my toes trying to find more work for them.For lunch they had two hard boiled eggs each. Ouch. Not much when you are used to a double cheese with super sized fries and a drink for lunch. They were not happy when the “Gringo” boss came out with a cup of coffee in the morning and quesadillas with salsa for lunch. I explained to them, the feelings they are experiencing, may be similar to the feelings the Mexicans might feel when we flaunt our sandwiches and cokes in front of them, when all they got is a corn tortilla. I think they got the point.
After lunch I took them down to the beach… to work. There is an area of the beach that has a lot of rocks that are great for landscaping. Once again, we loaded the truck with the rock. I could see them starting to slow down, but I did not rush them they were really tired. We got back to the house, unloaded the rock and their day was done. Now all they have to do is go grocery shopping, pick up their “children” from school, start a fire, and cook supper.After talking to them later, they stared telling me about their realizations. The team came to a conclusion we eat way too much food in Canada. A person can actually survive on much less. But don’t worry. Part of their plan is to eat less the first few days so they can save up for a fiesta on Sunday. They also realized that when they were working back home, they spent most of their money on stupid stuff and not even realize where there money was going. I think this experience is making them think about life a bit more. Listening from the side lines, I hear them talking amongst themselves and they are having some great debates about life. I believe this is the moment, where caring individuals become world changers.~ Brett Dyrland, School of Leadership Staff and Shack Supervisor
