Fifth week

This week was very interesting. On Tuesday our class played a fun game where half of the class had to walk blindfolded and the other half had to guide them (teams of two), then we interchanged roles. I don’t really know the name for it, but let’s call it “blind trust”. For the first part we were instructed to guide our partners to walk to a nearby lake (100m + 50m of stairs, 150m) pretending that they where the most precious thing in life. When we changed roles the other teammates where instructed to do whatever they wanted to (the blindfolded people did not know).

For the first part I felt that I was giving protection and that the responsibility of my partner was on my shoulder. While I was walking I felt somehow happy and powerful. That feeling was great and perhaps that is the most powerful charm for helping other people out, Satisfaction!

For the second part my partner started walking me around, but for no apparent reason my partner left me without saying a word. I was thinking that perhaps my partner had to do something but was to shy to say anything. Then all of a sudden someone grabbed my arm and made me run for no reason. Before this event, I was expecting some kind of unexpected situation because it wouldn’t make sense for the teacher to tell them to be kind to us. Although I don’t know for sure, I’m positive that the person that made me run was not my original partner. Since I felt the texture of the ground, my hearing increased and I remembered the scenery I could tell where we where with a precision of 5 to 15 meters of error even though we were running. Since this person did not bring me to far places, he/she had to be from our class thus I started trusting him and started running around at the same pace. After this, this person left me too.

Then a third person made me walk around this area. I think that he just wanted to have some fun bringing me to difficult places and at the end leaving me nearby another blindfolded person. Although the teacher told them that they could do anything (without me knowing), this person cared when I was about to crash. -_-;;

After we finish this exercise we returned to the class and discussed. I think that what we can get out of this experiment/game is that helping other people feels well. We must also remember that it is always a good idea to let people (who are receiving help) know how much time are we going to expend with them so when we leave (if we do), they don’t feel abandoned.

Another thing that I learned is that the majority, if we are given the freedom to do something, we won’t question if that action is right or wrong and instead, we tend to do what everyone else is doing. In my case I think that it is always better to question our actions and think about the situation, we must not rely on our rights/privileges or on our limitations.