I’ve done a lot of thinking about community in the last few years. It’s inevitable when you work as a Pacific Discovery leader, sharing a room or tent with another person for months at a time, constantly shaping activities to fit the needs of a group, meeting a group of 16 strangers and seeing them slowly become family. Living and traveling in a small group of people turns into a social experiment, as my co-leader Lee likes to say. You recognize how your actions have a direct impact on those around you, and how in turn your emotions and moods are a direct consequence of your group mates' energies. It’s a circle of mutuality that so often gets invisibilized or ignored in our giant, globalized societies.

In Agato, our community stay for the previous week, I’ve found a community that recognizes this link and builds from it. I see Agato as a community role model - a subculture to look to for guidance in the community building I’m involved in, and an example to hold close to fortify my own faith of what is possible when people devote themselves to generosity. Agato is a place that honors its indigenous traditions, a community that, thanks to a dedicated set of brothers, has retained its knowledge of natural healing ceremonies and plants, where children are taught to see the life and value in the nature and animals around them, where food is local, healthy, fresh and organic. The people of Agato continue the long existing tradition of the Minga - where a representative from each family unite every second Monday to engage in a project for the benefit of the community. The Minga is how Agato brought running water to their homes (coming together every two weeks for two years to lay all of the piping), it’s how we managed to move a giant mountain of rocks through a human assembly line, up to the community center we were re-habbing, and is symbolic of how so many of the families in the area are willing to take the time and effort needed to sustain a peaceful and productive community environment.

This is Pacific Discovery’s fourth time in Agato, and it has been an enormous privilege to be welcomed into the homes of our host families, to be fed by their crops and animals, and to be taught many of the beliefs and practices of the local cosmovision. I’ve been humbled by the opportunity to learn from participation in practices such as Minga and family dinners, as well as be able to contribute to the already tremendous work this community is doing through Pacific Discovery’s fundraising and service projects. So many of the students on my programs have come away with a deepened faith that it is not the money in our wallets, but rather the time we have with our families, the quality of food on our plates, the fresh air we breathe, and the smiles and greetings from our friends and neighbors that make one rich.

Our community organizer and partner, Sisa, says she hears the same phrase over and over in Agato, regardless of a persons’ religious background - that you receive what you put out, that we are always sewing seeds to harvest in the future. In Agato, many a seed of generosity and compassion was sewn in our hearts, and I foresee the communities of each of our students reaping the benefits of this harvest for years to come.

Thanks to Sisa and all of the families of Agato for their hospitality.

And thanks to you for listening.

- Laurel SAS-Agato


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Author Laurel Posted

Category South America Departure Fall 2015