Last weekend (14th-16th November) we travelled to Osun state for our Mid-Phase Review – halfway already?! How the time flies. The event was organised entirely by our own MPR committee (comprised of fellow volunteers), to whom we are very grateful and would like to thank again as it was such a great success – admirable to see your peers do so well, well done guys! Over the course of the weekend we evaluated and reflected on our journeys so far. We had the chance to review and share our personal development as well as trials and tribulations with respect to our home and work counterparts, our host-home families and the schools we have been working in by way of sessions planned and run by each other. It was refreshing and engaging to step back and be able to see that, hey, we’ve come so far already, and there’s still time left to work on the areas that we personally and professionally feel we can improve on. This work was all done between splashes of free time spent at the hotel pool, competing in a team quiz, a dance-off and a movie night showing of ‘Freedom Writers’, which I think struck a chord for all of us with regard to our efforts on placement with VSO – we care about the children in these schools and we want to make a worthwhile impact on their education: after all, education is nation-building and as our partner organisation OCDI rightly insists, every child matters.
So, feeling energised and motivated to fulfil our goals with another 5 weeks ahead of us, we set off on Sunday morning Kwara-bound once again, but not without one more stop: stepping off the bus and into the heat we began to head uphill toward our destination – the Erin Ijesha waterfall. It didn’t take long for the trek to test our strength, as the climb got increasingly harder with every step. We broke into smaller groups, taking different routes and paths along the way. I found that my sandals, which are perfect for usual wear, were not for this, so I left them behind. The bright-eyed beginning of the journey faded and turned into pure challenge, abundant with obstacles that tested our minds and bodies. Perspiring and tired, we pushed on. None of us reached the very top (though Jed and Harry came very close), but we all found the waterfall in all of its beauty, and celebrated by bathing and wading in the water before returning as one again, rejoicing in our accomplishment on the way.
Thus, it occurred to me here that our journey to the Erin Ijesha waterfall was very much like our journey with VSO, or any kind of worthwhile journey for that matter: you start out energised, bright-eyed and positive, driven to achieve your goal. But then you quickly meet your challenge head on, and the obstacles that come with it. The journey becomes difficult in ways you didn’t foresee, and you find you have to make changes to your approach in order to keep going. You choose different paths from those around you and they take you to different points along the way, but you all end up at the same place in the end. You grow tired, and the only thing which urges you on (when giving up would be the easier thing to do) is the sense and knowledge of accomplishment along the way, knowing that with every step you learn of capability and strength you didn’t realise you had, that you are not making this journey alone or for no good cause and also that you grow closer to the goal with which you started out for every moment you persist. Overall, when the journey is over, you look back at yours and your comrades’ journeys and it is suddenly clear as day that as much as you struggled and as hard as it was, you all achieved what you set out to do. In turn you realise that nothing that is worth having comes easily, and while the destination will always be important, it is the journey that matters the most.
