Day Nine: Our Last Night on Andros!

           I am very sad to leave Andros. Today was our last day of service and it felt amazing to finish our project, but I wish we could stay on this island longer! We cleared a path and picked up the trash in the path in Blue Hole National Park that is about one mile long. We all worked really hard and finished early, so we were able to explore some of the town and buy some souvenirs. We gave Wavell an alternative break shirt, water bottle, and we made him lunch to thank him, but he could not stop talking about how impressed he was that we finished our project so quickly!

There is so much that we can take from this experience on Andros. First, we can take away the lessons we learned about the environment. Wavell taught us about the different plants and other things we encountered during our service. Today he pointed out a cuckoo bird that was chirping and the other day he taught us how to made a tea out of the plants in the park. It tasted really good! Although it was hard in the beginning to understand why what we were doing - cutting down trees to widen a trail – was good for the environment, we now see that we were aiding the beatification process of an already beautiful national park. Hopefully, the beautification of that trail can inspire others to conserve the environment.

The obvious issues that we can take home from this trip are environmental. We can take our experiences of picking up trash and preserving the national parks and try to impart the knowledge on our peers. Using all the lessons learned from the community partners and guest speakers, we can all try to do more to help the community and environment around us. By doing things as simple as encouraging recycling or composting, we can use the values learned from the Bahamas to benefit UMD.

Aside from the environmental issues we learned about, I think we all took a lot away from the Bahamians that we met throughout our trip.  Each person we met had such a positive outlook on life and embraced the simplicity of Andros and the rest of the Bahamas. I think that this is a quality that we can all embrace and try to spread to the people in our lives.

Day Eight: Working (and Living) as a Team!

            Working with everyone has been a really great experience. It’s interesting to see the different roles that have been taken on and how everyone has found their own niche. Some individuals have discovered a hidden talent of cutting down trees with machetes and others have crawled into the tiniest of spaces to claim bottles and cans that have been left behind. It’s amazing to witness how much we can accomplish as a group and how well we work together despite the short amount of time we’ve spent together. Our ability to work well translates into the way in which we’ve learned to live together. We quickly established a routine of shower and cooking schedules as well as sleeping routines. We’ve formed our own little family and it’s awesome that sixteen strangers can live together so harmoniously. 

There is a unanimous positive attitude on this Bahamas trip. Everyone is quite responsive and extremely enthusiastic during reflection. I speak for everyone in saying that reflection has formed into more of a deep heart to heart revelation of everyone’s inner feelings and thoughts as opposed to a mandatory nightly interview. With regard to working together, we take pride in our strong chemistry for which is expressed through our amazing teamwork. Another indication of the amazing positive attitude encompassed in our overall trip atmosphere is shown through the overwhelming feedback that we give to each other. I see teamwork occurring at each separate duty, whether it be group pulling of weeds or working together to capture and dispose of even a single piece of trash. It is truly amazing how a group of complete strangers can be so positive and enthusiastic about service, and that is something that I can say is why AB is such an amazing and successful program.

At this point in the trip, the group has really connected like a family. Reflections teach everyone new things about each other and our free time enable us to find out more about each other’s backgrounds. We all feel that we can tell each other anything, which is an amazing feeling after a week. Everyone works very well and more importantly we consistently encourage each other to be the best they can be. At this point I can truly say that this has been one of the most amazing opportunities I have ever had in my life and it has been an honor to do community service with the people around me. The craziest thing is that I have been working with individuals I already knew but it wasn't until this trip that I really got to know them. The team works very well together and we never forget to have fun, making every day memorable. I really do not want the trip to end but at the same time I cannot wait to see what the remainder of our trip has for us. I know we will do great things together, I am just anxious to see what we have left. 

Day Seven: Looking Back at Pre-Trip Service!

Today we continued to clean and widen the trail with Wavell. Some people picked up trash and the others used machetes to cut down trees and bushes. After lunch we all worked together to clear the trail and Wavell was extremely impressed because we far surpassed his expectations of our group. Originally, I didn't believe we were helping the environment by cutting down trees and didn't really want to use the machete. However my reservations were removed after talking to Wavell who said that the trail originally had natural beauty, but with all of our work we enhanced the beauty.

During pre-trip service some of us did trash pickup and some cleared out invasive species – I was on invasive species duty. Today during service I ended up on trash pickup duty for the first time. We went to a site that was discovered the previous day but not completely cleared. After machete-ing our way in, we cleared out a bunch of old car parts, a bike, and bags of discarded cans. Some of the cans had dates ranging from the late 70s to the early 80s on them – indicating that the trash we were picking up had been dumped about 30 years ago. We spent almost the whole morning on this one person’s trash – really making the impact that one person can have on the environment stand out in our minds. It felt good to be able to clean up this trash, but it was eye-opening that it took a group of American students 30 years later before it was dealt with.

The pre-trip service somewhat prepared me for the upcoming trip to Andros. Removing the invasive species from Magruder Park was foretelling of the kind of labor that was to come later on the trip.  Here in Andros, however, we are clearing roadsides, which is different in that you don’t need to distinguish between invasive or native plants. All of it is cut down, which some of us on the trip have mixed feelings about. The general consensus in the end was that, although we are cutting down trees, our purpose here is to help BNT and support ecotourism. Also, the trees are going to decompose right back into the soil where they came from, so we are not damaging the environment in the long run. 

Day Six: Our First Day of Work!

            As a team, we were all ready before 8 AM as we were instructed but island time meant we ended up waiting 45 minutes to get picked up for the start of service. The ride there was a dangerous for the few of us sitting in the bed of the truck. We had a series of obstacles to dodge by ducking and moving around in the truck. On the way to our site, we saw the work done by previous AB groups from UMD. Upon arrival to the site, many of us were anxious and eager to use the machete. We split into two different groups and work started. After getting shown how to use our tools we split into groups and started service.

            A partition of the group was delegated to clear back brush and trees from the side of the path. We were instructed to, as a guideline, move the brush back to about an arm span back into and above the cleared forestry. Participants described the task as very liberating and very fun, although blisters slowed the group down as the day went on. As fearful and weary we were about the looming threat of poisonwood, we were not daunted nor slowed down in our work.  At the start of the day, we were all very skeptical of the impact that we would make upon that of the overall task at hand. Throughout the workday we moved very swiftly in our bush whacking and viewed the task as one big team building activity. As the end of the workday quickly approached, we barely wanted to stop working, for we had built up very good chemistry and a good bit of momentum.  The work that we did was not fully appreciated and gauged until we stepped back and saw the clarity and wonderful pathway that we cleared. The work that we did instilled a strong sense of pride and confidence in our work that will continually drive us throughout the trip to work extremely hard.

            The other group was designated to remove trash by the roadside and nearby wooded area.  At first glance, there didn’t appear to be much litter on the road.  As my group walked along the path, we began to find random bottles, caps, etc.  Alex and Becca found buried “treasure” of a mound of rusty cans and glass bottles.  Later on, another group found a site of a car crash, with metal and glass strewn around the area.  We spent a lot of time there picking up the remnants of the rusty car as well as parts of a bike.  After a while we walked back to the other group and spent the remainder of the time clearing away plants that the other group cut down to widen the road. 

            The most satisfying part of today’s work was how the park officer commended our hard work.  We exceeded his expectation by doing a lot more work than he asked and rewarded us by showing us some new blue holes in the area. It was satisfying knowing that we worked above par. We also learned later in the day that there is a UMD legacy in which our sites in this forest are becoming prominent. It is amazing to know that we are part of this legacy. As a group we are going to keep moving forward to make a huge impact on our site.

Day Five: Meeting Our Community Partners!

Today we had the privilege of visiting other organizations on the Bahamas that are working to protect our world and teach others about the natural beauty of the world to inspire others to work towards environmental conservation. ForFar conducts marine biology research on Andros. In addition to enjoying their beach and taking a tour of the native plants, we jumped off a bridge! It took a lot of courage to get over the railing, but the thrill of the jump and the snorkeling in the water made it all worth it. Afterwards, we visited Green Force, which is a non-profit organization from England that surveys the coral reef. Meeting with all of these dedicated individuals has strengthened our resolve to protect our environment. If we all work together, conservation is easily obtainable.

So far, I would still describe myself as a tourist on this trip. We have not started any service, and have spent the past few days touring the islands and learning from different conservation agencies. I can personally connect to many of the conservation issues in the Bahamas since I grew up on the beach in New Jersey. I have seen the impact that trash can have on shore areas and the local marine life, thus making the work of ForFar and Green Force more relatable to me. Green Force was a very interesting organization to me, and is something that I will seriously consider partaking in in the future. One of the biggest lessons that I have pulled from the trip so far is that we should never take things for granted. After seeing the living conditions and infrastructure on Nassau and the more extreme conditions of Andros, I have learned to appreciate what I have in the US more and will attempt to rid my life of the excess and unnecessary commodities.

Today during reflection we all had the opportunity to reflect individually on our day and our experience thus far. It was an interesting twist to our usual circle conversation, and it helped to truly reflect on our own personal experience. We also had the opportunity to share how one person in our group influenced us personally, which showed how close and comfortable with one another we have become. It was interesting to see how one small action someone made had changed someone else’s view on a topic or idea. As a group, we are not only culturally diverse, but our interests vary as well. We all benefit one another differently and it was really comforting to see how familiar with one another we have become.