When any of our students are struggling with the task of writing a blog, we often tell them to choose their favorite, most meaningful or most memorable moment of the day. We ask them to paint that picture for their readers and then work backwards to explain how they came to that moment and why it was important. So when I sat down this afternoon for my turn to write the blog, I realized that my favorite moment is this one right now. Let me try to paint it for you. I’m sitting on a deck off my cabin-like room at a guesthouse in Irish Town, Jamaica. The cabin itself is built right into the mountain, so when I look down through the wooden slats of its floor, I see banana trees beneath me. I’m sitting at eye-level with the tops of trees and can look up to see fog slowly drifting around a mountain top. Occasionally, a brightly colored hummingbird or butterfly floats by where I’m sitting. I can hear birds chirping, waterfalls rushing, a sprinkler watering crops on the farm, and of course, the laughter and voices of our students being carried across the mountains. I feel nourished from our farm-to-table lunch and proud of the work my team accomplished helping Mr. Michael, the founder of this farm/restaurant/ guesthouse venture, to reorganize his packing house.
All that said, I did wake up this morning in Kingston longing for my own bed back in DC, some take-out food, air conditioning, and Netflix. This longing intensified when our bus broke down on the mountain 20 minutes away from our destination this morning. Thanks to the kindness of strangers, we made it to “Europe in the Summer,” or EITS, which is a creative community that includes an organic farm, a farm-to-table restaurant, and a guesthouse, all beautifully built into the side of a mountain. EITS is one of the many ventures we’ve learned about in Jamaica that uses local resources to address global challenges, like climate change and food and water scarcity.
As I sit on this deck, taking in my surroundings I feel inspired by this venture. But I am also thinking about what it means to be physically and emotionally nourished by land that you have put physical and emotional work into. Several of our students have put hard work and sweat into the garden project at the teen moms’ home we’ve partnered with in Kingston. They’ve also supported the farmers of EITS by assisting with food packing, greenhouse construction, irrigation system maintenance, and kale-picking. In turn, we have all enjoyed the delicious, healthy farm-to-table foods, incredible views, fresh air, and relaxing atmosphere of this space. Even more, we have enjoyed the knowledge that we have contributed to something that sustains us as well as the community. This process is so valuable and yet so disconnected from the daily reality of life in DC that I woke up longing for this morning, where so much of life is about taking and consuming. I know our students are longing for the comforts of unlimited internet and hot water, but I also hope they are returning home with a greater determination to contribute to what sustains and empowers their own communities.
Eve Stutsman, Trip Leader