(Journaled on February 28, 2012)
On February 28th 2012, I went by myself to volunteer at the Recycling Center on the campus of Christ University for a total of two hours. The first thing that I realized when volunteering here was that I was going to have to learn how to follow non-verbal instructions, because the employees did not speak English. There are three full-time female employees that run the entire paper center of the recycling process. Essentially, they are the ones that take the recycled matter and make paper and in turn make products out of said paper.
The technology of the facility is very manual and basic, allowing for untrained individuals, such as myself, to be quickly put into production. I found this trend to be true for most things in India. Unlike the United States, where everything is assisted by technologically advanced equipment, India functions manually with all construction being conducted by hand and concession stands being carts that are pushed by hand from place to place. While standing in the paper center I looked around at the folders and cases being cut, folded, and glued by hand and I could not help but to picture the American version of this same facility being 10 times the square footage and being filled with unmanned machinery producing hundreds of folders per minute.
Since I had come to volunteer by myself, I had the opportunity to work directly with the full-time employees. They were making paper. This process consists of scooping the “slop” recycled paper mixture into a rectangle frame with a screen for a base that is submerged in water; then the frame is slowly raised, leaving the slop evenly spread across the rectangle screen; the screen is then pressed onto a damp cloth, where the slop is transferred and retains it's rectangular flat shape; once a large number of sheets have been formed, they are hung on a line outside to dry.
The system of making the paper was meant to work with three people, each doing a specific action in the slop transfer process. Therefore, I was working with two of the full-time employees. At first, they put in charge of pressing the screen onto the damp cloth, but I was re-stationed to a less-involved position after messing up the rectangular shape twice. Having to be re-stationed was somewhat embarrassing and I had the urge to tell them that I could improve if they gave me a chance to “get the hang of it”. But then I had an epiphany; they could not allow me to continue messing up just so that I “have a chance to learn”, because this is their job and their lively-hood. Any hiccup in productivity reflects onto them and they will ultimately have to work over in order to meet their quotas. After I had this epiphany, I felt a bit remorseful for intruding into their work place expecting them to alter their routine in order to train mer and allow me to participate.
This experience of volunteering left me feeling conflicted about my role and contribution. I had truly enjoyed my two hours working along side of the women, but I felt that I was being a burden on their job and they probably prefer to not have to be correcting a temporary volunteer's mistakes. Despite this, I wanted to believe that the soreness in my arms was “proof” of sorts that I had been helpful and contributive.
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