With the trip concluding, it’s time to reflect. On the day of our arrival, we briefly met Denise as we arrived very late at night. Denise runs Samise Villa alongside her son Samuel, however, Samuel was out of town for the duration of our stay. Denise was incredibly hospitable during our whole stay and she made the entire trip very easy for us. She provided us with meals whenever we were there (which were delicious) and helped us effectively reflect on the work we were doing. After our brief introduction with Denise, we went to bed and we headed to the Nature Seekers compound early on the second day. The residence in which we stayed while at Nature Seekers made us feel like we were at home. It was set up like a house which made me feel very comfortable and that is what they said they were going for. Upon our arrival, we met Susan who is pretty much the head of operations at Nature Seekers. She has been with the organization since it started so she gave us a presentation about how they operate including their partners, funders, goals, and how their operations work. We also met Rhema, who was with us for almost our whole stay at Nature Seekers and ended up being the one who brought us to the beach to tag turtles. At their compound, there is a large kitchen within the residence that is made to cook a lot of food for a lot of guests. There were 2 ladies who worked in the kitchen while we were there and cooked us every single meal. The food was a lot different than anything I have had before but it was amazing. I tried things that I had never had before like goat and swordfish.
On the day of our arrival after the presentation, we were given a lesson by Rhema on exactly how they tag turtles so that we would be ready to do the same when we went that night. We learned how the metal tag goes on the inside of the back flippers and the tracker goes in their right shoulder if needed. We were taught how to measure the turtles (featured in my picture) and write down all the information they needed in order to input the turtles into their data-keeping system. After some practice, we went out that night to put our skills to the test. We had to go late at night because that is when the turtles come up to nest their eggs. Upon our arrival at the beach of Matura, we immediately ran into a turtle who was starting the nesting process. We quickly realized there was no metal tag, so Murph tagged the flipper and then Ben and I took the measurements. We recorded all the data, reported that there was a successful nesting, and let the turtle finish the process. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime sight to see a turtle that close to actually laying eggs. Not to mention, I had no idea how big they got (it was almost 8 feet long). We saw one more turtle, but some other taggers had already tagged it and there was a big group of tourists surrounding it so we let the turtle be. Not only was tagging the turtles an incredible experience but the Matura beach was absolutely incredible. The sky was perfectly clear so you could see all the stars and the ocean was amazing. There were trees that you’d never see in the States making the skyline beautiful and there was practically no trash in sight. The turtle tagging was probably my favorite part of the trip.
On the second day at Nature Seekers, we went on a kayak tour with possibly my favorite person I met on the trip, Anderson. Anderson took us out to the beach where there was a river (half saltwater half fresh) that went inwards into the island. We kayaked in pairs of two until we hit a point where we were forced to finish the journey by foot. The hike and kayaking both were in beautiful areas and again there so no pollution and amazing wildlife and vegetation. We ended up at a natural pool that we swam in and it was amazing. However, this wasn’t our only trip to a pool in the wild. The next day we visited the Mermaid pool with two different tour guides. To get to the mermaid pool we had to first take a truck into the wild where we then travelled by foot to get to the pool. The hike was also a nature lesson as we were taught about all the types of trees in the forest including which ones were indigenous and which were brought to Trinidad. The hike was a little more rigorous than that of the Kayak tour considering there were some steep points that required a lot of focus. However, it was worth it because the mermaid pool was extraordinary. It had a light blue glow to it and had rope swings and jumps which I could not get enough of. We spent a lot of time there but had an even more interesting activity waiting for us when we got back to the compound. Nature Seekers has another component to their organization in which they recycle glass trash that they find on the beaches of Matura and make jewelry out of it. I find it amazing how they take a problem that the turtles and their ecosystem faces and finds a way to actually make money out of it. After we were taught about the system, we got to make bracelets ourselves. It was really amazing to learn the full process of it then actually apply it and get a cool souvenir out of it.
On the final day at Nature Seekers, we worked with Chelsea to deliver food to people of Matura who needed it and to go over our deliverables. We had been in contact with Chelsea for some time now and had done so much work preparing our deliverables that we did not need to spend a lot of time going over them. Needless to say, she loved what we had brought her. We got a little bit of feedback from her on specifics she wanted but there isn’t much we need to change. After our discussion, Chelsea gave us instructions on preparing meal kits which included rice, fish, and lentils to hand out. Packing the food was easy, but handing out the food to people who lived in very rough conditions was the extremely hard part. It took a lot out of me to see people living in the conditions they were especially with children. I think all of us can agree that activity took a lot out of us even though it wasn’t physically demanding at all.
With that, our trip to Nature Seekers concluded and we headed back to Samise Villa. With our remaining time at Samise, we first went to Paramin, the third-highest point in Trinidad. The drive-up was crazy because the road was incredibly steep at points. The view was out of this world. We could see across almost the entire island and got a wild view of the water too. We spent a lot of time taking it all in and also had a bunch of foods I’d never had before including green figs. While up there, we also checked out a natural cave that had bats inside! During our time in Samise, we also took a tour of the city of Port of Spain. It was interesting to see how the city compared to that of cities in the United States. It is a lot busier there and there are definitely more people out and about. The last activity we did done our trip was our visit to Fondes Amandes. They are a reforestation nonprofit and they gave us a tour of their compound and taught us how they operate as a non-profit. We learned how they prevent forest fires with natural fire blockers in the forest and how they control heavy rainfall with man-made water tunnels along the sides of mountains. We were accompanied there by many local Trinidad primary schools so it was interesting to see all of the students on a field trip of their own. Something that I found interesting about that site visit was their excitement to find out we were business students. I noticed that almost everywhere we went we were told they need business students like us in their organizations.
To reflect, the culture that we were met with was amazing. Everyone was incredibly hospitable and friendly. To be honest, I expected people to look at us differently or maybe ignore us because we obviously stood out as Americans. However, even when we were simply walking on the street people would say good day to us. The members of Nature Seekers would talk to us endlessly and Anderson even taught us how to play the card game he plays every day. To put it simply, it felt like home away from home.
As I have reciprocated, the trip went incredibly smoothly. We didn’t really face any problems, but I would say the one challenge we faced was handing out the food. I won’t go too far into it as I already summarized it, but it was an interesting experience. It was hard to go face to face with people who aren’t as fortunate as I am because I feel incredible amounts of guilt for the position I am in. After the activity, we reflected as a group and we all felt similarly. Nevertheless, the work we did most definitely helped them and they will have plenty of food for weeks.
In terms of our class reflecting on what we saw while actually in the country, I think our discussion on effective Global service related the most. On our last day in the country at Samise Villa, we were accompanied by students of Rollins College who were also on a study abroad experience. We were able to talk to some of their students and compare our experiences in the country. What we learned is that, even though they visited Nature Seekers, they did not do work like we did. We were able to create a system that they will use hopefully forever and even help the community as I talked about. Our time spent there will be reflected in our work and our work is implanted into their system and culture forever now. The comparison with the Rollins students made me think back to our discussion on actually leaving an impact and made me realize we did just that.