The following cacique update was written by Hope and Olivia describing their day as cacique, Monday, June 27:
My nervous toes tightly clutched the porous honeycomb limestone. The cliff hovered about 20 feet over the light reflecting crystal clear Bahamian water. I could see an area of white sand and several dark spots consisting of seaweed and coral. If I waited any longer to jump I’d fill my head with fears. Trusting the people around me I shut my eyes and leaped forward. Breaking the water feet first gave me a tingling sense of relief at the end of a wonderful high. This simple act of letting go of my fears and trusting others helped to teach me an important lesson. I can hear the fears and worries if I let them happen, but I have to just jump into things trustingly. I know I am in for an exciting adventure. The experiences we are all going to have at The Island School will definitely push our comforts. Each day, however, a new sense of confidence is being built within us. As we continue to try new things, we will strengthen our knowledge of Cape Eleuthera and how we have an impact in our communities. I look forward to which jump we’ll be taking tomorrow.
After our run to high rock and thrilling jump into the water, we headed back to the presentation room to start sharing our Who Am I? projects. From practicing the sport of Parkour to collecting baseball caps for cancer, we learned that each one of us has unique qualities. We spent the next couple of hours exploring different research topics including Flats Ecology, Aquaculture, Shark Conservation, Lionfish Exploration, and Conch Conservation. Everyone chose their favorite topic to research and was very excited to get into the field and start exploring.
The Lopez seminars followed this intro to research and focused on using collaborative thinking to understand and connect the text to our world. We discovered what a querencia meant, our special place in nature to relax out mind and feel connected to the earth. We all started thinking about our own querencia on the island to call our own.
Arguably, the most relaxing time of the day was our free time from 4 to 6. We explored a designated area in which we chose to sign out too. The more ambitious chose to run, bike or swim. Others escaped to the Marina Store, which was disappointingly closed.
We ended the day with dinner circle where we took a moment of silence to reflect on the quote by Albert Einstein “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” The quote the defined our day and gave us all insight for the days to come.