For Kayak groups 1 and 2, now on campus and working on their SCUBA certification, we challenged them with a different prompt from Orientation, asking them to consider which moments have been the most vivid and meaningful from their short time here. Enjoy these personal insights with more to come tomorrow.

Kelly McCarthy 

It’s raining. And I mean REALLY raining. It’s raining the kind of rain that chills you to the very core, even though only moments before I was sweating buckets paddling under the hot sun. We’ve only just brought our kayaks on shore, only just pulled out the tarp for us all to sit under, and here I am crouching in my soaking wet rash guard, my drenched soccer shorts and my sand-filled water shoes. Here I am with eleven other students balancing precariously on our life-jackets, or Personal Floatation Devices (PFDs) as we call them here, to serve as a barrier between us and the ground should the lightening overhead actually hit our little place of refuge. We’re soaked, in case I haven’t made that clear yet. We’re packed tightly under the make-shift tent that our trip leaders made for us out of a tarp and some kayak paddles, shivering and getting as close as possible to stay warm and out of the rain (shivering? In the Bahamas? Is there something wrong with this picture or is it just me?) Rachel has been having us count the seconds between the thunder and the lightening to figure out how close to us the storm really is. All of a sudden, the thunder cracks. The loudest thunder I have EVER heard.  It sounds like it is coming from all sides, just filling my ears with that incomparable thunderous noise. Without even thinking, I shoot my hand out and grab hold of the hand of the person next to me. She looks at me and smiles; asks if I’m ok. I just nod. Continue reading →

Lilly Ganske

Acclimating to a new culture thousands of miles away from my hometown could not possibly be an easy feat. Therefore, I have experienced the rigorous transformation of being disoriented to oriented over the past week. Both physically and emotionally, the changes that I have endured between my hometown and The Bahamas have transformed me into a person who strives to understand and deal with the “adjustments or alignments of oneself or one’s ideas to surroundings or circumstances.” When being placed into a community where the “temporal, social, and practical circumstances in life” are entirely divergent of those practiced at home, disorientation is inevitable. From having such a sudden wake up call about how your actions can have detrimental effects on the environment, or realizing that there is not always one right answer, becoming oriented to a place certainly sets forth challenges by “introducing a new situation or environment.”

On the first day of legitimate morning exercise, the revered ‘run-swim,’ I encountered one of the most disorienting experiences of my life. After just arriving to the island, I was expected to run and swim what I consider great distances. Finding myself completely out of my element, I struggled to find reassurance that I would be able to orient myself to this new environment. However, after beginning to process my whereabouts and comprehend that this is what life would be like for the next three months, I began to realize that not being in my comfort zone is part of the process to becoming oriented to a new community. And after sitting through days of classes that were specifically designed to instill knowledge about my location to the rest of the world, I began to collect my bearings and adjust to life on Cape Eleuthera. Continue reading →

Last night we introduced Island School students to our blog and talked with them about opportunities to have their voices and experiences heard over the coming months here. Then we asked them, from the perspective of Orientation Week, just what it means to become oriented to a place, to this place. Enjoy their thoughtful responses, a new 12 posted each coming day.

Fiona Cerf

Here I am on the Cape of Eleuthera, a destination where few could point out on a map. A place where up until a couple of days ago, I still questioned why I’m here and how I made it. A little lost, and a lot nervous I wake up to a 6:00 sunrise filled with pink and orange brushes of color, and a curious smile. For the first time in a while, I felt excitedly lost; comfortably disorientated.

The last week here has been spent orienting students to the surrounding environment, schedule and community; showing us everything from the dining hall to the seemingly endless exploration spots. I find myself in awe of my surroundings, but more so myself as a whole. In the one week that I’ve been at The Island School, my emotional compass has fixed its magnets and now faces a steady north. With a few spins of the arrow now and then, through guidance from the people, ocean, and air, I find myself. Yes I know where I can go to get a Band-Aid for a booboo, and some GORP for my growling stomach, but more so through conversations and experiences over the last week, I know that the next 100 days will be the most incredibly, terrifying, beautiful and transformational experience of my life.

Watching my bubbles slowly rise to the surface from 40 feet below, in my first even open water dive today was such a new experience. I look at my surrounding, realizing that I’m literally in a new world. I couldn’t help but let some salt water seep in through my regulator as I smiled. Completely worth the burning throat, because is such a disorienting circumstance, I felt like it was the final step of my orientation here in Eleuthera.

Beyond the obvious plethora of rubrics and tours we are inevitably exposed to during the all mighty “orientation week,” the curveball was when I realized how the faculty did a fantastic job of quietly allowing us to orientate ourselves. Continue reading →