A World we View Pt1

From 1st grad to Senior year in high school I went to Catholic school. Having a Catholic education meant having a lot of social and moral ideas constantly thrust upon you. One of these was of course volunteering and giving back to your community. Community service is a major Catholic tenement that anyone who had a similar experience as me is familiar with. Having this as such an important part of your education often meant mandatory community service hours each year in order to get your grade report. In my case it meant 25 hours each year that had to be signed off by your parent and by your community service supervisor. Im usually a very stubborn guy and when something is mandatory that tends to disincentive me to do it, so I did my mandatory hours begrudgingly but did not go above or beyond. Because of these mandatory hours I often had a negative association with community work. However, there were two separate (and very different) experiences that I had that not only opened my to the power of helping your community but how influential one person or idea can really be.

The first experience came in the winter of my junior year of high school. My family had a trip planned to South Africa where we'd spend a few days in Cape Town checking out the sights then eventually go up to the Krueger National Park where we'd do a safari for a week. This safari turned out to be one of the most magical and amazing experiences of my entire life. With our guide and animal tracker we trekked across the gorgeous African savanna in search of lions, leopards, rhinos, elephants, hippos, water buffalo, zebras and countless other wildlife. Fortunately we were lucky enough to come at a time when all of the animals were giving birth so we got to see all the baby animals learning how to walk and survive in the harsh but beautiful wilderness. In fact one of the coolest things we saw was a 2 hour old elephant (above), and it was amazing to see how all the older elephants surrounded themselves around the newborn to protect it from any predators (this new born elephant was about 250 lbs at birth by the way). Throughout the week I saw some other amazing sights such as lion cubs that walked right up to our car because they knew that the hyenas wouldn't attack them when they're near the cars and even a leopard hunt a boar. But what I really took away from this experience was how fragile this ecosystem really is. You always hear about how the rhinos and elephants are getting poached to near extinction but you never are actually able to truly grasp to scope of it. This trip allowed me to tangibly see how poaching, farming, and human encroachment threatens these animals. I understand that often times rural farmers only source of income is their crops and livestock and in order to protect their livelihood they may need to kill a storming elephant or prowling lion. And while that is unfortunate it is necessary. However, I have done some research and there are actually quite a bit of ways to deter these animals from destroying their homes. One article I recently read in The Economist highlighted how in order to shoo away elephants from human development is to have speakers surrounding the property that put out the sound of a swarm of bees. Elephants are inherently scared of bees because they get into their eyes and sting them and thus if an elephant heres a bee hive they will steer away from that area. But this won't fix the larger problem at hand which is poaching. In Southeast Asia ivory from elephants and rhinos bring in huge amounts of money and African poachers are there to get the reward. Governments in Africa and Asia have been doing better recently in order to curb the ivory trade but there is much more that can be done. I would like to be on the fore front of this conservation effort because without people's help my children might not be able to experience the natural beauty that I was fortunate enough to.

My second experience came a few months after this during my summer leading into senior year. I applied to a program in my hometown of Seattle called TIPS (Teens in Public Service). This program hires local high school students and pays them to work at non profits in the area. I got assigned to Wellspring Family Services. This organization works closely with homeless families to try and support them in their struggle to escape poverty. I was assigned to the day care facility and more specifically to the 5-6 year old traumatized children. There were about 7-8 of these kids in the class and 3 care takers including myself. All of these children had some traumatic experience in their short lives and because of that often had behavioral issues. I was initially terrified of going into this room because I had no idea what to expect but quickly learned I was a natural at handling these children. Most of these kids would start kicking and screaming at the smallest thing and a lot of them were familiar with swear words and sex which broke my heart since they were so young. However, by the end of my 6 weeks with the program I didn't want to leave. I learned how influential I could really be in these children's lives. I became close to a few of them through reading stories at nap time but more importantly made great relationships through recess by teaching them football, basketball, and soccer. These kids were equally as sad to see me leave on my final day and they even made me a going away book to remember them by. Through this experience I was able to truly get the impact that one person, no matter how inexperienced, has on those around them.