Undergraduate /
"My time with her count." - CommonApp essay - Evaluate a significant experience [7]
This is the first draft of this essay - I just finished it, and haven't edited it AT ALL yet. I basically want to know if I'm headed in the right direction, and if there are any suggestions, etc. Thank you!
The doors of the white van were finally closing, and the last of the kids were finding a seat, lap, or piece of the floor to sit on. I squinted in the mid-afternoon sun, trying to find her sweet little face through the grimy windows. My eyes scanned the faces, all of them a deep brown with dark eyes and, as of today, with huge grins plastered on their faces. I couldn't help but smile as I looked at them all, but there was only one I needed to find. Just as the panic crept its way into my chest, there she was. She was pressed again the very back window, her pink shirt stuck to the glass. As my eyes met hers, I realized she had been looking at me the entire time. My smile widened, and I waved at her. The van rumbled to a start, and just as it began to pull away, she shot me a thumbs-up through the window, and my heart nearly fell to pieces.
It had been three days since we had first set foot on the farm. It had taken a two hour plane trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, a five hour bus ride to Battambong, and another two hour van trek on the unpaved paths of rural Battambong to finally get us to this farm, located in the middle of absolutely nowhere. We had arrived that first day sweaty, tired, and more than a little apprehensive. As we stood on the outskirts of the farm, our translators told us just one simple fact. "These people, especially the children, have never seen any type of foreigner before," they said, "and it's very likely that they never will again." In the silence that followed, one thing was left unspoken - so make it count.
We were told that we would be rotating through three "stations" each day. We would alternate between creating a compost pile, planting a new field of crops, and playing with the local children that had come to visit. Of course, all twenty of us were most eager to play with the kids - it was the primary reason we had all come on this trip. My group, made up of four girls (including myself), drew the lucky card and were first to play with the kids. Our instructions were fairly simple. We were to do something easy to follow, because the kids didn't understand a word of English. We had opted to do the simplest thing we could think of - we were teaching the kids how to dance the YMCA. I had been nominated, mostly against my will, to lead the instruction.
As I stood in front of them, my friend Julie hit the play button of our boombox. Suddenly, thirty pairs of wide brown eyes were staring at me, clueless as to what to do and not a hint of amusement present on their faces. I felt like a complete idiot as I jumped, clapped, and disco-pointed my way through half of the song, praying that eventually, they would start to follow me. My prayers were soon answered as one little girl in a bright pink t-shirt jumped to the front of the group, shouted something in Khmer (the Cambodian dialect), and started copying me. The shift was miraculous - in seconds, they were all mirroring the two of us, smiles sneaking across their dirt-streaked faces. I grinned at the little girl next to me, wanting to badly to thank her. Without words at my disposal, I did the only thing I could think of - I gave her a thumbs-up. Her brows knit with confusion - she clearly didn't recognize what I thought was an international symbol - and she finally grinned back at me. I had a new dance partner, and a new favorite child.
For the next three days, our group returned to dance with the kids, choosing new songs every day. Each day, my little girl stuck right by my side, teaching her friends and peers what we were failing to teach them. I watched as all of the kids warmed up to us, their giggles bursting the silence that had previously existed because of our language barrier. Each day, I thanked my little helper the only way I knew how - my classic thumbs-up. Though she may not have understood it, she always smiled back.
Before we knew it, our three days were up. The compost pile was complete, the field was tilled and full of seeds, and we had thirty very tiny new friends. That afternoon, a filthy white van pulled up to the farm to take all the kids back to their homes and away from us. The tears welled up in all of our eyes as we watched the kids we had grown so fond of pile into the van, their smiling faces blurred behind grimy windows. My eyes finally landed on my little helper, and I waved at her. The van was revving up to leave, and I watched in awe as her tiny little hand formed itself into a thumbs-up. A single tear rolled down my cheek as I realized that in one tiny action, she was thanking me. I had made my time with her count.
So fire away. :) I can take criticism, no matter how harsh.
