Day 76 ❦ Thank someone with a gift

Day 76 ❦ Thank someone with a gift

The Gift: An African Skirt and Matching Jewelry

Have you ever had someone come into your life fleetingly who in the end made a life changing impact? So many of the people who have come in and out of my life have changed me in a myriad of ways, I can’t imagine what I would be like without each and every person’s influence.

As a child many of the adults I relied on and who surrounded me were not kind nor caring and I have grown to appreciate the lessons I learned as a result of their influence. They helped me build character, compassion and resilience and I know that I am the person that I am today because of those lessons. They helped me identify and connect with those angels who came into my life early and who helped me live through some very dark times - I am the person I am today as a result of their influence. I am alive today because of their care.

As an adult, I am continually amazed at the number of people who on a regular basis influence and change my life dramatically and impact me in ways that they will never know and today I am going to thank one of those important people who came into my life for a brief moment and changed thousands of lives as a result.

I grew up with an itch to travel. My grandparents would go on trip and I would be one of the few grandchildren who would willingly sit and look at every single slide they had to show of their travels and adventures, over and over, and over, and over again. My Uncle and his friends loved to travel and he sponsored my family to come to New York City to see him off when he went on a cruise on the Queen Elizabeth II (I believe it was the QEII’s final voyage). It was magical to ride in a carriage around Central Park, go into FAO Schwartz’s and my favorite magical memory of that trip was going into his stateroom with him for the first time and seeing his luggage already there, ready to be unpacked and meeting the gentleman who was waiting for him so that he could unpack his luggage. To this day, I fantasize about traveling that way, although I come pretty close when I get to hire a driver for my trips to Africa, okay, that is another story. But actually, this story is about the person who selected me for my first trip to West Africa, Karin Treiber.

Inspired by the travelers in my family, at a very young age, I would get on a bus and go downtown (actually singing that famous song, “Downtown”). I loved seeing where it would take me and my favorite memory was that one of the routes I loved to take took my by a Planter’s peanut shop where I could stop and get a bag of warm peanuts, salty and delicious...I can still taste them today. I did get in trouble one time when I thought it would be fun to go to Boston and got there at the end of the Boston riots in the 70's. Then I discovered trains and realized that they could take me places faster and expand my adventure horizon - allowing me to slip out of school on Wednesdays, get to NYC in time to buy a half price matinee ticket to anything, and get back in time to not be missed at home. Washington DC, NYC, the world began to open up for me.

My Grandfather was one of my biggest supporters and when I graduated from High School gave me $500 and told me to “go have an adventure” I bought a plane ticket to England where I spent three weeks, mostly alone having all kinds of adventures. My first international plane ride. Lots of lessons learned.

In 2003 I was selected to be a Rotary Group Study Exchange Team Leader, which meant that I was going to be leading a team of four young professional non-Rotarians to Ghana, Togo and Benin for five and a half weeks to live, work and interact with Rotarians in those countries to build goodwill and fellowship, develop international friendship and study alternative vocational methodologies and strategies. Our experience was beyond words and my team was the best, and although most GSE Team Leaders say that, I really mean it; they continue to be the best GSE Team ever. Karin Treiber was the GSE Chair who was responsible for helping us prepare for the experience. During the training, she gave me the name of a Rotarian in California who had recently traveled in Ghana and Karin thought connecting with her might be useful. The day Karin gave me that phone number, thousands of lives were about to be impacted.

I did connect with Kay Bliss from Ojai, California at Karin’s request and Kay shared some of her passion and care for Street Girls Aid, an organization she visited while in Ghana. This story will fill another book, but all of the subsequent work that I have done at Street Girls Aid in Ghana is a direct result of Kay’s passion and Karin’s sharing a thought. Today I am honoring the impact that Karin has had on thousands of people’s lives by giving her a skirt I had made for her while In Ghana and some matching jewelry. Not even a close way to thank her, but I am also aware that even this simple thank you will overwhelm her. Her humble graciousness abounds and she will never know the impact her one action will have on thousands and thousands of people, nor will I.

❦ Today, just thank someone because you can.

Day 45 ❦ And...give again...

Day 45 ❦ And...give again...

The gift: An African necklace

I am certainly getting a lot of giving mileage with the African jewelry I brought back from Ghana, Togo and Benin and today I am going to continue that trend...

The other night I gave Sevy a beautiful African beaded bracelet for helping with book group and it just looks striking on her. She is from Bulgaria and has that same dark olive skin that I have that lends itself well to wearing certain colors and jewelry. Sevy comes from a family that has very little and did not grow up with an expectation of having material items. Living in Bulgaria post Russia she shared a communal bathroom with the other tenants of her apartment building and her family ate out of one bowl at meal time.

There are always cultural transition stories that we have to tell about the first time this happened or when that happened with students - such as our student from Paraguay who took cold showers for weeks because she didn’t know how to turn the hot water on and had only had cold showers in her native home, or our student from Denmark who cried when we told her she would have to make her bed...realizing later that she actually thought she would have to use wood, hammer and nails to “make her bed”, as opposed to dressing her bed in the morning. Sevy presented some of those stories too, for example in Bulgaria shaking your head up and down means no and shaking your head from side to side means yes...but her first cultural issue happened at her first meal with her first host family.

As dinner was served, Sevy picked up the serving bowl and began eating out of it. Fortunately her host family was very experienced and realized that this was something they were going to have to get to the bottom of carefully...and quickly...and as they were working this out with her, they learned that her family had no plates or bowls for individual servings and that they all ate out of one communal bowl because that is all they had.

Now I am telling you this story because it is not often that we in the United States have children in our lives who have so little that they are sharing a bathroom with hundreds, or share one serving bowl with their entire family. This is the life that Sevy came from. Receiving a bracelet was a huge gift and the pride with which she wore it was so moving that I decided to gift her with the matching necklace. Her delight in being gifted was fun to witness.

 ❦ And...give again...

Day 44 ❦ Give again!

Day 44 ❦ Give again!

The Gift: 6 African bracelets

Last night we had book group and I gave two beautiful African bracelets to my daughter and exchange student for helping cook the meal. When they opened their gifts and the girls from the book group saw them, there was a collective ohh and ahh that made me feel a little bad that I hadn’t thought to bring one for each of them...but instead, thinking of that experience has given me the giving opportunity for today.

I wrapped up 6 African bracelets and deliver them to all of the girls from book group and to my delight, they ohhhed and ahhhed all over again! It was super fun!

❦ Give again!

Day 3- ❦ The value is in the story

Day 3

The Gift(s): African necklace and matching skirt to our exchange student; United States & Denmark lapel pins and African suns for our exchange student and host parents.

Today, was a challenge because I had so many giving opportunities, I had to face several questions early in the day:

• Are multiple giving opportunities okay?
• Can multiple giving opportunities count against future days that may not offer as many opportunities?           
• Is it okay to count birthday gifts as part of the daily giving mission?

Because I had not established any rules or guidelines to this giving exercise (including how long I was going to try this) and given the fact that I am a rule-oriented person this entire process has been a huge leap of faith for me. I am actually surprised that it wasn’t until Day 3 that a conflict arose in my mind about multiple giving opportunities. The question created enough angst in me that I realized that I did not want to have to go through this question every time a multiple giving opportunity presented itself. The angst was derived from the fact that I knew if I created a rule that said one giving opportunity is all I am doing that I would be creating a perpetual conflict with my very core. Giving is a crucial part of my being and my purpose and to set arbitrary limits would pose many problems. Needless to say, I felt a great deal of relief when I settled upon establishing my first guideline that allows for multiple giving opportunities.

GUIDELINE # 1 - Multiple giving opportunities in one day are okay.

But because I thrive on a certain amount of angst, right away establishing Guideline #1 created new challenges regarding banking multiple giftings. Okay, probably not angst, but a little laziness slipped in. Just think how easy it would be to keep track of the multiple gifts and count them on the tough (or dry) days? And as easy as that would be, the ethical part of me decided that I needed to take the more difficult road on this one and that it might actually be fun to see what I pulled out of the air on those dry days.

GUIDELINE # 2 - Multiple giving opportunities can not be banked to be counted toward future credit.

Okay, now that I have that worked out I still need to deal with a stickler - where does giving for birthdays and other celebrations fit into the exercise? I had to go for a walk to work this out. When I was done, I landed on the concept that giving for birthdays might be okay. Now, keep in mind that I have already determined that today I have at least two other giving opportunities and do not feel pressured at this moment to really answer this question. However I answer the question will not have a net effect on the day - I will still give the birthday gift and have other opportunities to give. That being said, I know that this will continue to come up as a dilemma so I decided not to decide, but to ruminate about it and allow the gift to be included in my daily giving mission.

As it turned out, all of the gifts that were given that evening were really fun to give. Our exchange student enjoyed the African jewelry and skirt that I brought back from my recent trip to Togo and Ghana and I got to tell the story about Street Aid, a refuge for girls who live and work on the streets with their babies who are learning a new trade like batiking, sewing, making jewelry where I had purchased the skirt and necklace as a means of supporting their efforts. It was fun to give a thank you gift to the host families who had hosted our student with so much caring and compassion - and while a simple lapel pin may seem like a pretty cheap gift, I really used them as a means of publicly thanking each of them for their dedication and commitment to our student. I realized during this evening that I often use the gift as a means of telling a greater story or thanking someone for something far greater than a gift can possibly match in value.


❦ The value is in the story.