Personal narrative

After two exhausting hours of driving, we arrived at our destination where hundreds of old ladies with mental and physical disabilities were waiting for us. Since I was 14, I went volunteering to sanitarium 2~3 times in a month with my family and neighbors. Our job was to give play psychotherapy, helping their daily life and provide some refreshment.

I still clearly remember my first visit to the place. My parents first took me to the sanitarium just to show me what they do every month. Most of the people living there couldn't speak and express their feeling by words and some of them were even deaf so alll the other volunteers used sign language to communicate, They also had physical disability so that they couldn't move freely alone, and everyone seemed to feel awkward about me, the stranger in their own shelter, It wasn't only their problem that made me feel awkward. I had the prejudice toward the handicapped people then. It was so hard to approach the people without hesitation because they seemed to be so different from me, and they seemed a little terrifying because of their physical problems. It was also the very first time for me to meet so many people who are different, and whom I cannot communicate with and it was approached as a big shock to me. Watching them getting play psychotherapy, I could feel how hard their life is, but how hopeful they are about their life and I felt so certain about joining the volunteering club with my parents.

Helping other people wasn't that easy, especially when the subject of the help is deaf. For the first two months, I learned how to let deaf people know about my feeling by Hangeul hand writing. My parents gave me big help while I was learning it. Even when I knew how to express some words with my hands, I couldn't understand deaf people's fast and inaccurate sign language so it took quite a long time and effort for me to have a short conversation with them. As time flew by, I became adopted to their life and got much more comfortable when facing them, and they seemed to be much more friendlier to me too. We spent really long time together by going to camp, swimming, hiking and many other outdoor activities and I felt them just as same people as me who has different personality and feelings without even realizing it. My prejudice and bias started to break down because of my precious experience in the sanitarium.

Three year has passed since I started to go on volunteering. I met group of people living in the sanitarium for more than a hundred times, and now I almost feel them as my family. They were much older than me but was a good friend, family, and teacher in the same time. They taught me how to help and consider about others' conditions and how to treat different people, how to accommodate amongst people who are so different from me, and how to look others without any bias. When someone asks me about the best choice I had made for the middle school years, I will definitely choose the time when I decided to participate in volunteering every month when I first visited the sanitarium.