My First Trip

        

March 2nd was my first time volunteering for my service project. As I arrived that morning I received directions to go downstairs and work in the clothing areas at King's Harvest. After getting downstairs I met the person who was on of the leaders there. He told me that he was a minister at Heritage Bible Chapel, which was interesting because I have been to Heritage before, although I had been to his church before I didn't recognize him. After chatting he told me what I would be doing, I was really glad I was down stairs that day because it was a lot a more relaxed atmosphere down there. My jobs while volunteering was to take boxes of donated clothes and put them according to gender and age. This task was very simple; as I worked I was able to have little conversations with people. Unfortunately, these conversations weren't anything more than surface level. Then, after everyone left from lunch, the other volunteers and myself cleaned up the area and started to set up for that night. After completing the tasks at hand I went home around 1 o'clock. 

One thing I thought was obvious was, most of the people there were not concerned with time. Which I thought was a depressing thing. For myself I never feel like I have enough time in a day. I believe this is what makes people believe they have a purpose; without chronemics* I would feel very disorganized. It is obvious these people there are not concerned with organization though. The reason I feel that the most of the people their didn't put value on chronemics, is because they walked around lackadaisical without aim. This lack of aim proved to make the process of people getting clothes difficult, because only certain amounts of people were aloud in the shop at one time. 

My first experience at King's Harvest was a successful one. After seeing a fraction of these needy people's lives, I have assessed (from the way the majority of them move around and walk) that there isn't a big importance on time and the management of it. However, I don't blame them. I mean really, what is the point for them caring about time when it doesn't really matter, besides the fact they have to go to shelters at certain times. I do think it is sad but in a way I bet it is freeing to not have to care about the thing that determines how long we are around on this earth for. 

   

Chronemics- one of the 8 nonverbal codes; how humans use and structure time.