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more about LA MANCHA The Four Tools of La Mancha The theme of this La Mancha was “Learning to Believe.” A few weeks before they left the country, the La Mancha staff took the students to the Eagle Crest Resort where they spent two days in intense academic and personal explorations. Extensive time was devoted to considering, reading, and listening to different belief systems in the context of 20th century history. NPR’s “This I Believe” served as inspiration for this part of the experience and on a 24-hour train ride from Bucharest, Romania to Krakow, Poland, students were asked to take everything we had studied about beliefs and then create their own “I Believe” statement. These statements will be found in this portfolio. The places we visited and the people we studied were all seen through this lens of belief. What power is there in belief? Vanessa G. said it this way: “A belief can change someone’s life. Thoughts turned to action can change a country, like Ghandi did. His beliefs changed the way India is today. His own belief was so strong that it changed the world.” Preparation for La Mancha also includes research. Students select and research a topic, write a paper, and prepare an oral report with one-page outline to be brought on the trip. La Mancha is a seminar-style class, which means that in addition to presentations made by the teachers who accompany the trip, every student takes a turn as teacher at some point. This is an important part of the learning process for one of the ways we learn best is when we teach something. Every student on the trip was responsible to become knowledgeable in one area and share that knowledge with the rest of his or her peers. Topics for this La Mancha included the geography of Romania, Dracula: fact vs. fiction, Nicolae Ceasescu, The Romanian Revolution, Auschwitz, and the Holocaust from the perspectives of Nazis, Jews, and others murdered in the genocide. The MBA staff members who support this trip are continually looking for ways to help students make connections on the trip. The connections are on many different levels: connections with peers, family, and strangers; connections with history, both their own personal history as well as the history of nations; connections between lessons learned at MBA and life lived away from MBA. Questions are a helpful part of this process. To the extent students are willing to answer questions for themselves, whether out loud or in writing, to this extent they are able to make these connections and identify what matters to them. For example, students were asked what their lives were like two years ago. Nate H. admitted, “Two years ago I was high, running the streets with people who I thought were my friends. I was using so much that I couldn't get up in the mornings and somedays I just wished I would die. My dad and I hardly spoke. When we did it was to yell and scream at each other and then I would leave home and not return for at least a week. My purpose was not good. My only real purpose at that time was to get rich off of drugs and not get beat up or killed on the streets.” Things have changed dramatically for Nate who, on this trip, wrote that he loved working in the orphanage and giving of himself. “I have felt so great helping and doing something for others who have less than I do.” Connections come in other ways, too, as happened to Jake Shinder with his host family in Ploiesti. “At one point I was playing guitar and no one in the family besides my hostess really knew English, but I played my favorite songs for them and they listened and clapped and seemed to love it. That was one form of connection that is not divided by a language barrier: the language of tone, key, and rhythm, the language of music. They may not have understood what I was singing about but they could hear the passion in my voice and I could tell they were receptive to it. It was a beautiful and deep connection I don’t think I would have been able to make with just talking and hand gestures.” Jessie T. is proud of the fact that she “connected with a lot of people on La Mancha. I’m usually a shy person and I’ve been talking to people, reading aloud from my journal, and using my voice.” Family work is the fourth and final tool we have to make La Mancha more than just an academic exercise. Parents and family have a role to play, here. Before we leave, parents of the students going on the trip prepare a family history and write a legacy. These are done without the students’ knowledge and surprises for the students on the trip. What the family history looks like varies from one creator to another, but the substance is this—it’s the story of origins. Where does the student come from? What are his or her roots? Every family has a unique story to tell of sacrifice and success, of disappointment and sadness, of great courage and simple tragedy, of heroes and villains. Students share their family histories with the rest of the group. On the final day of La Mancha, legacies are read aloud to students in a ceremony. A legacy is a short, one to two-page personal letter from a parent or family member to their MBA student. It is an opportunity for parents to write from the heart. One at a time, students stand in front of their peers and these letters are read aloud by the staff. It is a poignant moment. With just weeks before the student leaves the MBA community and goes on to live their life, a legacy expresses hopes and dreams for the future.
Sahring hugs and clothes at the ORPHANAGE Romanian history on romanian streets What it’s like Parts of La Mancha are carefully planned, but then there are surprises along the way. For example, we knew we would spend three days in the remote Romanian village of Valea Plopului. We knew we would meet Father Tanase, the enterprising Romanian Orthodox priest who created Asociatia Pro Vita and the orphanage where we would spend time. We knew someone in the group would receive a shoulder massage (read “pounding”) from 72-year-old and still going strong Mama Bitz. What we couldn’t plan for was the morning our bus driver came to breakfast and informed us through our translator that one of the families in the village would be slaughtering a pig and would we like to watch. (Romanian villagers are much closer to their food sources than the typical American growing up in the city.) A number did, and as many students watched there were that many reactions. We couldn’t plan for a couple of our students, Amy Breliant and Steve Niggeman, to befriend a teenage girl in the village and to have this girl’s family invite them over for dinner. This family was among the poorest in the village—three generations living in a one-room home—but their hospitality was moving for Steve and Amy who accompanied the girl to her English class the next day. Unplanned events create multiple storylines for our students so that La Mancha becomes a very personal, individualized experience. Different people having different experiences and different reactions to those experiences means when you ask La Mancha students what was significant about the trip, you will receive different answers. Chessye C. said, “The best thing was the whole trip. I’ve never been out of the country and never witnessed another culture … never had to deal with being a minority.” Pat O’C. replied, “I’ve learned to be grateful for what I have. I’ve taken my lifestyle for granted. The village was primitive and yet people were so happy with the simplicity of it all. There’s a bigger picture than just the U.S. I want to see more of the world and feel connected to it.” Glenn E. declared, “In 13 days you get 100 experiences that will last a lifetime and teach you. Staying with a high school student in Romania you learn how Americanized and unlike Americans they are. Some of their interests are different—the girl I stayed with was really into string. Within one block there were five different string shops. They work with their hands. We have so many inventions that make us lazier. That stereotype of fat, lazy Americans is true in a way because Romanian students have to walk everywhere. In American no one walks. We want to make our lives easier in superficial ways.” Jake S. enjoyed his time with a Romanian student. “This was definitely my favorite part of the La Mancha experience. I have a lot of girl issues and I had a very pretty hostess and I was just able to be like a friend and not try to take it to another level. It was a culmination of all the work I did at MBA and I ended up enjoying myself, anyway. The time in Ploiesti was so worthwhile because you learn the most about yourself, co-existing with people who don’t speak your language, controlling yourself in the city nightlife, which is the work for a lot of kids at MBA, and seeing how teenagers live in another country.” La Mancha certainly changes things for these students. Vanessa G. says, “I see things more for what they are. I am finding joy in simple little things. The fact that I have parents who love me, a high school education, friends, food, and a roof over my head seem like luxuries now. I feel so blessed by it. I just want to give love and be loved in return. I see hope and joy.” We said La Mancha is a journey that signifies an end. But that end is also a beginning. As soon as the La Mancha students return to the MBA campus they are caught up with preparations for finishing classes and preparing for graduation. New journeys are just days away. Glenn Austin
Auschwitz prayer
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