CFS in Trinidad & Tobago:
Building Homes, Hope, and Relationships
The the End-of-Year Classes and Service Trips in the Upper School are unique to CFS. They grow out of our founding as a school whose mission is to provide young people with the knowledge, skills, and values to make real differences in the world.
This year's End-of-Year Service Trips include students heading to France, West Virginia to study the effects of strip mining, and the service trip to Trinidad and Tobago that is featured here.
Teachers Elise London, Jamie Hysjulien, and Matt Jessee supervised 24 CFS students on the Trinidad/Tobago trip that lasted for more than two weeks. Periodically, Elise or another teacher sent us reports on what the group has been doing.
The first email from Trinidad:
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Hello Family and Friends ----
We are here.
We arrived safely at the Top of the Mount on Sunday, early evening. We ate dinner, played cards, dealt with some logistics and slept well.
Monday the work did begin in earnest, and we have been so proud of how well the kids have worked so far. We are in two groups of 12 each day... one to the Cyril Ross Nursery and one to Habitat for Humanity.
Yesterday at the Nursery students worked ALL day in the hot sun painting the outside of the building, fixing playground furniture, moving sand and in general making the space more beautiful and fun for the 39 residents here. The Nursery was so happy to receive all of our donations and these have been sorted out to be distributed to the children. During the day only one resident (a baby) was here and the kids took turns holding her and playing with her. At about 2:30 the rest of the kids descended from school. Most of them seem to be under 7 or 8 years old. The small playground in the front yard was bursting with kids. Our students were busy being human jungle gyms, pushing the new swings, playing basketball, bouncing on a small trampoline, and otherwise playing with the kids (who all seemed SO happy to see them and play).
Yesterday at Habitat down in the southern part of the island, the 12 students moved piles and piles of sand to form the base for the poured cement floor (that they will pour on Wednesday). They were very fortunate to be able to meet and work with the family who will be receiving this Habitat house that they are helping to build.
Today at the Nursery we are finishing the outside paint job and making an upstairs sitting room/rec room for some of the older students.
Today at Habitat students are mixing cement and pouring a floor on another house in a nearby neighborhood.
On Thursday, the groups will switch so each set of students can be involved in 3 days of service at the two sites. We teachers are sort of rotating between groups. For the past two days, Matt Jessee and I have been at the Nursery while Jamie Hysjulien has been down at Habitat. Tomorrow we plan to shake that up a bit so we can all spend quality time with each small group.
At night the weather cools off quite a bit and being at the top of the mountain, we have a great breeze. The view of the city below is pretty impressive. Our two nights have been pretty low key. Last night everyone was so tired that by 10 they were all ready for (or in) bed.
Students have been introduced to some local cuisine. At the Nursery, they eat the meal that is prepared for the staff (as Ms. Cross, the director, said: "We don't make American food here, we make food food") and each night we are eating at the Top of the Mount and they prepare a group meal (buffet) for us. We have also gotten to try "doubles" -- two doughy pieces of bread wrapped around a chickpea curry, pepper sauce, and mango sauce. These are so good that we bought some right outside the airport to eat before we drove up the mountain.
Trinidad is also having a record year this year:
-- There are a record number of turtles (more than in centuries) landing and nesting on the
beaches. This makes us very excited about turtle watching/service in Tobago. Apparently
some nests are also hatching so there is the possibility we'll see the baby turtles try to
make their perilous journey to the ocean.
-- It is a record year for heat, hotter than it's been in a century. In two weeks the rains are
supposed to come (it hasn't rained in 2 months). We are drinking tons of water, wearing lots
of sunscreen and getting very dirty. It doesn't seem quite as hot as it does in North Carolina
in July. There isn't really any humidity in the air and there is usually a pretty good breeze
off the ocean.
I hope you are all doing well. I will try to send another message in a few days.
~elise
The second email from Elise:
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Hello friends and family
The internet has been down most places recently. I'm stopping quickly at an internet cafe on our way back from service for the day. I wanted to give you a quick update and let you know how proud of our kids you should all be.
This has been an incredible trip and the work we have done has been difficult and rewarding. At Habitat for Humanity we have had the privilege of meeting the families for whom we are building the houses. Both service groups had the opportunity to mix cement by hand, carry it in buckets, and pour a concrete floor for two different houses. This is not as easy a task as it might sound. We each spent about 9 hours carrying heavy buckets of cement, mixing sand/stone and cement powder and then making the slurry that usually machines do.
The pride on all of our faces was pretty evident as the seemingly impossible task started to take shape. The owners of the houses have worked right along with us, brining us lunch, inviting us back for a visit once the house has been complete... it's pretty amazing. Exhausting but amazing. It was probably the hardest work that any of us have ever done but incredibly satisfying.
The work at the Nursery has also been wonderful. The kids have started to form real connections with the residents and each day as we load onto the buses the kids who live there say "you come back tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow?"... Each day we can step back and look at the place and see what a difference our work has made.
Tonight we'll go to see a steel drum band. Very exciting.... Tomorrow we are off to a Nature Center (Asa Wright) that is apparently one of the ten best nature centers in the world. It has started to rain every once and a while now so the rainforest will be a happy respite from the sun and weather.
The Trinidad version of public television was so excited by what we are doing that today they sent a crew down to Habitat to film the kids in action. The US Embassy was so excited about what we are doing that on Tuesday we are going to go there and meet people (maybe not the Ambassador but maybe).... ALL of this has been arranged by our host at the Top of the Mount, Adrian James, who is so impressed by the kids that he is trying to publicize their good works to the island. Two newspaper stories for the local papers are in the works. It's all pretty amazing and sometimes leaves me speechless.
That's all I have time for now. I hope you all are well. We will try to be in touch after the weekend. All of our kids send their love.
~elise
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The third email from Elise, this time from Tobago:
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Hello friends and family ----
We are here in beautiful Tobago. This is a spectacular country. The landscape is very different from the land in Trinidad. The country seems completely focused around this absolutely orgeous ocean/sea.
We are staying on the very northern tip of the island about an hour and a half drive from the airport. Our set up here is pretty wonderful. We are in a few cabins that are right on Man of War Bay (the beach is literally about ten steps from our doors). There is lush and flowerful plant life everywhere. We are on the Caribbean Sea (not the Atlantic Ocean), so the water is calm and salty enough that you don't need to put in any effort to float.
The town of Charlotteville is pretty small. There are a few little shops (I'm in one right now) and one main street. There is a park/playground area that we are hoping to put some work and time into making more functional.
We spent the morning swimming in Pirate Bay, a secluded cove over one ridge from where we are staying. The water was turquoise and the sand was silty... all and all this is very much like a nice vacation within a nice vacation.
Our work starts tonight with the Save our Sea Turtles Foundation. There are three different species of turtle that land here on these beaches to nest. Some of them get up to 10 feet in length (the leatherbacks). We will be going out to a secluded beach (a little ways away from the town) at around 4:00 p.m. We will do some trash clean up and then set in for the night to wait and see if a turtle comes to nest.
We are working with two locals from the organization (Heather and Dasa) who
will be with us all night, will give us information, and will help us with our observations. We will be working hard to keep all 27 of us quiet enough that a turtle feels comfortable coming up to nest. We will be out most of the night on the beach as a group waiting for turtles. Apparently the leatherback turtles are very docile and according to Heather can be kissed as the leave their nest to go back into the water. Some kids are quite excited about the possibility of kissing a sea turtle.
The group is still getting along extremely well. One of our students said that we have moved beyond bonding into super bonding mode. We are looking forward to 5 more days together.
Just a few last notes...
We had three separate and moving goodbyes before we left Trinidad. On our last day at the nursery, the entire group (our kids and their kids) got together for a little celebration and many, many tearful hugs. Some kids formed particularly great bonds with some of the older students. One of those, a 13 year old named Marcus, was so connected to our kids that he made paintings for every one of us for our last day.
For our last dinner the people from Habitat came up to our house to give each student a certificate and to thank everyone personally for all of their hard work. They were very moved by our commitment and how much we were able to get done.
We also had a wonderful closing silent meeting in Trinidad that we invited our hosts at the Top of the Mount (Adrian and Chad) to join. They loved our group (they said in 10 years of hosting, they were a favorite) and they decided they want a group of Quakers to move to Trinidad and start a meeting (any takers?).
Our day on Tuesday was spent at the Embassy (actually a very interesting experience) and on the beach (Maracas Bay in Trinidad). There we enjoyed "Bake and Shark" and the waves for a few hours.
Best to you all, More soon.....
Maybe next time I can tell you about a turtle....
~elise
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Lots of other interesting doings are going on in the Upper School.
The Trinidad & Tobago trip is just one of many unique End-of-Year Experiences offered by CFS over the last 16 years. To learn more
To see teachers who are taking on interesting new endeavors
Five CFS rising seniors have been accepted at the Governor's School
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