Staying for Community
Written by: Sloane Barlow
I joined GIVE for the travel, but I stayed for the community.
I had just begun university when I was handed the bright green GIVE flyer: “Travel the world with purpose.” I saw the trip listing for Thailand and was immediately committed.
The first time I traveled to Thailand was in 2019 with my now-late grandmother, my Yai. She shared her childhood home with me in Takhli, a town in central Thailand. I remembered how she would hold onto my arm as she showed me the bustling night markets, the school she had to drop out of to support her family as the eldest daughter, and the garden where my parents planted a tree after their Thai wedding ceremony. I knew her heart still belonged to Thailand.
Two years after her passing, I felt an urgency to understand my ethnic background with an adult perspective—a perspective I never got the chance to share with Yai.
On a mission to find answers, I dove headfirst with GIVE Volunteers. I arrived in Thailand in work mode. What I didn’t know was the friendships I was about to build and the community I was about to experience. Without GIVE, I don’t believe I could have ever understood where my grandmother came from as well as I do now.
GIVE helped me recognize and act on the desire that was truly in my heart: to honor and to understand the place my grandmother came from. This GIVE experience allowed me to once again smell the makrut and chili of my Yai’s cooking. To sleep on kapok pillows like the ones Yai used to make. To take my shoes off when I enter a temple and hear the monks chanting at sunrise. To help build terrace farms and feed the school children with food from their own land. To take care of my Yai’s home.
But it was more than just a trip about my grandmother and my lineage. GIVE showed me how to give back to a place I didn’t even truly know yet. And, I craved wanting to learn more about the land so I could make a more positive impact.
As we traveled through the northern mountains of Thailand—among the elephants, the bright and energetic young students, the kindhearted volunteers—I recognized the spirit of my grandmother. Not from any particular sight, but from the way I sensed the spirit of home while traveling through and giving back to her country. I sensed her in the trees and mountains that watched over me then, realizing all that this country gave me, guided by her teachings and her remaining spirit. I started to understand, knowing that I had come to be a part of my grandmother’s land, and knowing I was blessed to discover a significant part of my personal identity.
I was overwhelmed with how I felt being in this place, full of gratitude to have a piece of me come from somewhere as beautiful as this—Thailand, but also GIVE. GIVE has become a home that resonates with my spirit. The same spirit that is awestruck by traveling the world, not just with purpose, but with a community of like-minded humans who desire to give back to the places they are unexplainably drawn to.
On our last night in the land of a thousand smiles, we shared our “aha moments”. In that moment, I wanted to prioritize sharing my gratitude for discovering and giving back to my heritage. Although over time, I realized that being with this amazing and kindhearted GIVE family held space for me to have that life-changing experience. With GIVE, I learned how unconditionally loving a place and its people allowed us to quickly grow to know and love each other’s souls and hearts.
It was more than just about the place. It was about the people and the community we grew together.
