Most Wednesday afternoons since we have arrived in Sólheimar, we have been participating in service learning, helping with various projects and workshops within the community. Some of these projects include the art and ceramics workshops, the troll garden, Sunna greenhouse, the bakery, the composting shed, and several others. Each week new shops are available to us and they rotate each week in order to allow all of us to get the most diverse experience in working opportunities. Every workshop or project is led by an individual that leads us volunteers with their passion and work ethic, making it a unique and enticing experience and sharing their works with us.
I have had the pleasure of being able to work in the troll garden a couple of times, each time a completely different experience. We worked alongside Valgeir, the garden being his prized project. He has put endless work in to that garden and has made it an environment in which people throughout the community are able to participate and work within. In the early months he had us help maintain the plants and herbs, and by the beginning of winter he was having us help convert the garden in order to prepare it for winter. No matter what job he had us doing, we were always greeted with kindness and enthusiasm, making every experience a pleasant one.
One of the most important things I have learned by watching community members has been that if you bring a positive attitude to any job, that job will get done faster and you will have fun doing even the dirtiest of jobs. My first service learning experience was in the vermicompost, and that turned out to be one of the dirtier jobs I have ever done. However, I ended up going back to work in the compost shed and turned it in to a project that would I would work on for most of the rest of the semester. I found that when the people I worked alongside were joking around and making light of a rather gross environment, we got the work done fast and actually really enjoyed it. That is a quality I have found in a lot of people within this community, there are a lot of jokes made and a lot less stress over small details, so work gets done fast and it almost doesn’t feel like work. I hope that I can reflect this attitude as I continue to work here and as I transition back home so that I might be able to look at any job I find myself in and see the good in it.
Being a part of service learning is an important experience for students, I think it teaches us to give in a very physical way, giving service with our hands is one of the easiest, most personal ways to serve. It is a way that we can give to the people who are allowing their home to be ours, and in a small way we can show our appreciation and respect for the work they put in to making this place as lovely as it is. I also think it is a valuable learning tool as a student, it puts everything we learn in to a physical example that we can experience personally. I feel honored to be able to participate in such work and feel that by serving as a temporary member of this community I have been able to grow in how I learn and have gained immeasurable experiences.
Serena Cueva