Service Learning Journal - Essay Example

I hoped learn how the elderly folk felt about the situation, how they managed to cope with different people and form new relationships so late in their lives. When I arrived on the first day, I had to go to the administration offices, and they had a vet check out my dog. The dog was healthy, I strolled over to the park/park where many of the senior citizens were resting under shady trees and some playing chess. I had not been in the park for more than 3 minutes when three elderly women beckoned me with charming smiles.

One of them was on a wheelchair, and I helped her put the dog on her lap, she seemed immensely pleased and brushed it coat contentedly with a wistful look. She told me that she liked pets because they never judge, besides, her pets did look down on her because of her disability like people used to do before she came here. From this, I surmised that, at some point people had discriminated because of her condition. The fact that she was sitting with her friends now grooming dog and seemingly enjoying herself brought to mind the ideas of Ruth Benedict on ethical relativism.

While her disability made her looked down upon among “normal” people, here among many elderly and some with worse conditions she was accepted, and no one discriminated her (Benedict 49). I spent most of the afternoon with the woman and her friends she was quite talkative and told me a great deal about her past, I observed that, despite the fact that she was by far the frailest and of the trio, she seemed to have authority, and they seemed to take every word she said very seriously. This juxtaposed her story about being neglected and ignored by her family, she said that her life was much easier here than at home, and nurses and orderlies were exceptionally kind and ensured she took her medication.

In my opinion, it embodied action oriented ethics since the nurses were ensuring they give her and the rest of the patients in need of drugs get them since not doing the same would result to absconding their moral and official duty hence(Taylor). The next day I did not go to the park, but walked to the cafeteria with my dog, I sat with two elderly men, but unlike my friends of the previous day, they preferred to talk to me and did not pay the dog much attention. I asked them if they would not rather stay at home and be looked after by their families, one of them told said that he asked his son to take him home because he felt he was being a burden since the young man was starting a family and had his hands full.

The other was very happy about the situation and told he would rather have stayed at home, but his children had convinced him to go home and they would visit him frequently, which they rarely did. He realized it was just a ploy to get rid of him, but though it hurts him, he would rather remain with his new friends. I realized that the residents felt differently about being away from their families, and when some felt they were burdening their families, others felt they had been betrayed. However, all who I met well happy living with their peers though some were nostalgic about their homes.

I talked for a while with the men, and they bought me a cup of tea and taught me a few clever chess moves. I took Sally who was busy chewing at the buttons in Lewis’s shoes, I had tried to stop her, but the old man said it was quite all right and seemed to enjoy the