Experiencing Empathy

Showing empathy towards others can be life-changing for the one who is experiencing it. In LA class, we are reading A Long Walk to Water. 

In the book, we are taken through two 11 year olds’ POV on living in Southern Sudan in 1985 and 2008. Each with their own struggles, they have never known anything else. Salva is separated from his family in the middle of a Sudan War. Nya takes the long walk each day to get water for her family.

The project for this book was an Empathy Challenge. The challenge I accepted was walking in my backyard to get to the creek and collecting water in a 2 gallon bucket. The amount of water I collected was the amount that I could use on Thursday. Walking down was difficult, as my backyard is extremely steep and downhill. So, I definitely felt the empathy there. I only collected around 1 gallon, cheating in .5 gallons extra for a sum of 1.5 gallons. Yes! I know that it was technically failing and I am NOT sorry. You’d understand if you did this project.

How my Thursday went? Pretty darn ok. I don’t have that dramatic tale of how I was practically hallucinating because I was SO thirsty. I took my shower and by the end, still had almost all my water I’d collected. I take very short showers when not washing my hair, but when I do have to wash it, that’s a different story. Drinking was a bit more hard. I’m not someone who doesn’t enjoy eating food. I don’t even know anyone who dislikes eating food! Plus, I just got a new bag of Salt and Vinegar Lays. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO IGNORE THAT? Anyways, the more I ate the thirstier I was and if you’ve ever had those Lays, you know the struggle of always needing water. Don’t worry, I DID flush. It was an ok from our teacher Ms. Mack. Yet, I did include the washing hands part and that’s when I lost a majority of my water. I will add a side note that it sort of sucked because I wasn’t able to get my full hour of Essential Oil Diffusing.

This project really made me feel the empathy. As a Slytherin (blog post coming about Harry Potter and My Connections soon), I still have a bit of myself that didn’t completely feel ‘empathized’. Nya had no idea that there was a world other than that which made me feel like our idea of showing empathy wasn’t true to the tale.

Follow Up Questions Like They Have At The End Of Novels:

-If you are in my class, what did you do?

-Would you do this?

-What would you do?

-Do you think doing this is enough?

Totally let me know, I’d appreciate it! That’s a good comment starter that I’ll try and add at the end of posts.

Photo By My Dad. This is when I fell in.
Photo By My Dad. The amount of water I got and my dirty shoes.
Photo By My Dad. Walking down to get water.

2 thoughts on “Experiencing Empathy

  1. Lily,
    As a person who has seen your backyard in real life, I applaud you. That hill is really steep, I know I couldn’t go it. I enjoyed reading your posts, I think the empathy project you did was really great. I went a day without eating anything except a handful of cashews. Long story short, I failed. By a lot. Good job on the post.
    Betsy

    • Betsy,
      Thank you for your kind comment! Yes, my backyard is quite open and steep. I remember you eating the little baggy of cashews during lunch, boy you were struggling. Again, thank you for reading!
      Blog on,
      Lily

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