(Ronny volunteered from February 02 until February 03)
The Maple Hill Community is a small, well-organized Camp Hill in the woods of New Hampshire. Very nicely secluded, it is far away from “stressful life”.
Anitra Sorensen is the housemother coordinates everything.
Besides the residents (presently Ken and Eric) Anitra’s son Tyler and two German volunteers are part of the Community. Every Thursday we had a coworker meeting when the next week was planned ahead and every activities discussed.
Our average week looked like this:
Þ In the morning prepare breakfast, help Eric with his shower, shaving, brushing his teeth and getting him dressed as well as take care of the animals
Þ Wake up Ken and give him his medicine (we had to pass a special med training – I was pretty nervous about that)
Þ When I arrived in February 2002, there was a third resident (Ike) who had to be brought to school like Tyler and to be picked up around noon.
Þ After breakfast somebody had the task to go for a walk with Eric and get the newspaper (his behavior is very autistic and would sit around all day without any encouragement to do something)
Þ Ken was picked up by Lincoln after breakfast whom he helped in the morning at the Community Farm
Þ The morning was differently each day, mostly with different work projects like cutting or splitting firewood, working in the garden, bread baking, building a fence for the goats, buying grains for the animals, little repairs, house cleaning, boiling down maple syrup, etc.
Þ After that somebody’s duty was to make lunch – usually we had leftovers from supper
Þ Till 2 am we had rest hour
Þ In the afternoon we did another work project or brought our garbage to the recycling center or went to the Wellness Center with Eric
Þ In the winter we did a lot of snowshoe-practice with Ken and Eric for the Special Olympics (those are Olympic games for special-needs people, very well organized – almost like the real Olympics)
Þ At 4 pm we started to make supper and everybody helped to conjure up a nice meal – for us civil service volunteers the cooking is already an experience as such
Þ Mondays we used to go out to the Community Dinner in a church in Peterborough
Þ Before dinner the animals had to be taken care of, then we sat down at the table together just as we usually did for all the meals and talked about the day that had passed
Þ After the cleanup the evening activities started like sports, singing, men’s group or movie night
Þ We volunteers had a meeting with other volunteers from communities from the area on Wednesdays at changing locations, where we were told lots of interesting things about life in a community or about the life of Rudolf Steiner.
Þ Every Sunday looked a little different, but we could sleep in, because a neighbor took care of the animals and the morning was supposed to be a relaxation period. In the afternoon we always did something together like going to the museum or some street-festivity. In the evening there was a study group where books of Rudolf Steiner were read and we volunteers had an English lesson with a friend who was a teacher.
In order to be allowed to drive the residents we had to take a Defensive Driving course, which was like driver’s education in fast forward mode.
We three coworker had two days off a week, so that you could explore the local area or do something with other volunteers (Anitra mostly used her days off to get office-work done).
Furthermore each of us was responsible for specific tasks:
Þ Fabi and now Sebastian has been responsible for the plants
Þ I organized the food storage and did the recycling, jobs, which Sebastian now has taken over, too, because no new volunteer has arrived yet.
Þ Anitra was responsible for the office (something that in fact required a lot of her attention) and for cheese making (as we had enough milk from the goats), doing the laundry for the residents and all the little and big questions with which we always got on her nerves. She also helped her parents who did not live far away, went to thousands of meetings from boards she is part of. Furthermore she die the whole organization for our Special Olympics team and sometimes, by the way, her sons want to do something with her, too. So you can imagine that there were some conflicts among all those interests and duties, but I was always really respectful at how well she managed all that and ever and ever demonstrated strong nerves. I was able to learn a lot from her, which will be helpful to me in my future life.
Þ Ike set the table, unloaded the dishwasher and was responsible for grooming the rabbit
Þ Ken had to sweep the kitchen and the entry hall after dinner, brought in firewood and took care of the chickens.
Þ Eric carried his laundry for Anitra and brought up firewood into the living room for the woodstove.
I also liked working with the animals a lot, thus we got baby goats, sheep and chicks, which brought a lot of joy and happiness to us. In summer we did horse back riding with our horses, where also residents from communities around here participated. In fact, we did a lot together with our neighboring special needs communities, like doing sports on Mondays, the Special Olympics (during the year we participated in four events and each time the special needs people gave their best to win their medals – for me it was a great experience to share this joy with them) or the Christmas play. With a good friend we also learned pottery and made little things like mugs or bowls ourselves.
A principle task was building a fence around a new field for the animals. As the land was very uneven and as there are more rocks than there is soil in New Hampshire, we sometimes became desperate. But when the fence was accomplished we had a solemn opening.
Other activities in the house like painting walls or windows had to be done, too. Hence, I could learn for my future life and gained a lot of experience, because not everything worked out at the first try.
We volunteers got 150$ pocket money and 4 weeks vacation time, during which I investigated the surroundings with friends, of course.
Moreover, we had a house vacation, which we spent altogether camping at Cape Cod.
Furthermore Ken and I were in Walt Disney World in Florida, for one week.
We always had a lot of visits from a variety of people, so that there was always something going on and we got in touch with the most various cultures.
To conclude, I want to say that this year has been a swell experience that taught me a lot, that I found a higher self-confidence and a lot of friends with whom I will stay in touch forever.
Thank you,
Ronny Mehnert