By William Lee, William & Mary Canterbury
"Toes" by Zac Brown band plays in my headphones, over which
I've pulled my cowboy hat, as I and 23 other Canterburians ride
the Water Taxi from mainland Belize to the island of San Pedro where
Holy Cross Anglican School is located. Fifteen hours of travel total
to our beachside lodgings and hammocks. All last semester,
Canterbury raised $14,000 (which equaled $28,000 in their currency) to
buy the materials to build a palapa, an outdoor classroom with a
thatched roof, and reflective paint for some of the roofs of the
school.
The actual work consisted of painting the roof of the main school
building so as to cool down the classrooms, constructing the
palapa, and moving sand in wheelbarrows from one side of the school to
the other to reclaim the land on which the palapa was being built
from the surrounding mangrove swamp. Most days we also got to spend some
time in the classrooms with the kids, play games with them, talk, avoid
being pushed over by eight or nine five-year-olds all excitedly hugging
you at once. Something that stuck in my mind was a quote that
Lydia, a missionary at the school, shared with us from a book that she
had been reading: "Only the rich measure poverty in possessions." I
certainly witnessed the truth behind this. Several members of the group
received gifts from the children they befriended who had nothing;
some of the gifts were very sentimental for us and for them.
Those connections we made are what really made the trip as
emotionally overwhelming as it was. Not just with the kids, but with
each other too. After nightly Compline, most of the group would
go and sit on the dock and hang out and inevitably have a D&M (deep
and meaningful conversation). We became an incredibly cohesive group; we
couldn't go to dinner in groups of fewer than eight, and three was the
minimum number needed to be in any group going somewhere. I was warned
that the trip would have a powerful emotional effect, I didn't realize
how much until we left.
During one of our last dock conversations, someone asked,
"What was the most emotional experience you've had this trip?" I'm
not normally an emotional person, but this question took me awhile
to come up with a clear answer. The more I thought, the more
experiences I came up with. Everything from a sense of accomplishment as
I watched my effort translate directly to progress on the palapa, to
worry as I waited to hear whether the Town Council would
permit us to continue work and frustration at being unable to
finish what we started. I guess that means we have to go back now.
From excitement the first time I walked into a classroom, to sadness at
having to say goodbye to new friends. From the aliveness I felt
while watching the sunrise, to the tiredness I felt while watching the
sunset (both were gorgeous). The short answer I gave was the frustration
of leaving a job unfinished and the difficulty I had leaving the kids
at the school with whom I had bonded. The long, and probably more
accurate, answer I came up with after reflecting more on the trip is
"the entire thing." For the first time in a long time, I felt like the
work I was doing had meaning, and it felt good. I had a sense of real
contentment about where I was in my journey.
