End of the trip: Beginning of my life.

Here we are guys. This is my last blog on the last day of the program. Upon coming into this program I thought that I might have some idea of what it was going to be like. I mean I’ve studied abroad before in high school and the program had a class at UT where we prepared for the trip I felt somewhat ready when I left. Looking back at the last few weeks I realize now that nothing could’ve prepared me for this experience. There are just so many details that have shaped my life until now that I could never have prepared to expect. I thought that I was set when I left the states. I had just completed a major milestone (graduation) and I felt like I was about to go on a last vacation of sorts before I embarked on a new career. I know now that change is around every corner. This trip was a stepping-stone of change in a small amount of time and I find myself in a state of whiplash when I look back at it all.

This adventure has taught me to expect anything. My trips to the hospital on the first few days were terrifying but I learned a part of local culture that a lot of people take for granted. I got to meet the faces of the heart of this society. I interacted with health givers that breath life into Australian citizens in an extremely personal way. I am forever indebted to these ordinary heroes for making me feel so comfortable and safe in such a scary, new place. That situation also made me realize how much people back home had my back. All of our program leaders were on the ball about getting information from me to my parents and the university. They wanted to know everything that was going on every step of the way so they wouldn’t lose track of that status of my well-being. Also, Dr.Kris Wilson, the  teacher that guided us through this trip.

 

Dr. Kris has taken care of us since before we even got here. He stayed with me at the hospital and listened to my needs. He even missed our first speaker to accompany me to the hospital and I will never forget that.  He has been and ultimate caretaker and our permanent guide for the past month. He has challenged us to think about this program and our lives back home. We have been prompted to reflect on our experiences while they were fresh in our mind and to make connections to our situation back home. We have been taught to be critical of our impact on this changing environment and to think about how we would relay the weight of this knowledge to people who aren’t fortunate enough to have the direct encounters that we’ve been granted.

I am so thankful for these introductions to a life beyond my own and I will hold them in a special pocket in my mind. I have seen things I could never imagine at every turn we’ve taken on this trip. I will never forget the way the water looked when I dived into the Pacific for the first time with a snorkel on my face. That beach was absolutely beautiful but the waters below had a story to tell of beauty, life and wonder. I welcomed that clear, blue water and I let it take me deeper into its depths than I ever thought I could go and I am so grateful to have been able to explore that. I will miss hearing the sea outside my tent every night. I will long for the breeze to calm my excitement from the day’s adventure and to carry me softly to sleep.

I also can’t believe that I got to wake up to a rainforest! My only notion of a rainforest before I left for this trip was the picture I had in a textbook in eighth grade biology.  Its almost unbelievable to me that I got to leap into those pages and delve within the beauties of a real rainforest. This environment always seemed foreign, dangerous and jungle-like to me but I’ve gotten to face my fears and to understand the bio-diversity of this beautiful environment. Our guide, Barry taught us how to read the bush and to understand it and now I know that everything, whether it can speak our language or not, has a story.

Lets not forget the wonders of the Gorge. The Carnarvon Gorge interested me from the time I Googled it in my living room in Austin. All of the background research in the world could not match the busy trickle of the wanted ripping form the aquifer at the heart of the Artesian spring system. No webpage could have instilled within me the accomplishment that I would feel from climbing 900 stairs to get to the Boolimba bluff overlook. I don’t think any brochure could ever have explained the rich cultural spirit I would feel upon viewing the religious history of one of the oldest cultures in the world on the cliffs of the Gorge’s Aboriginal “art gallery”.  No one could have convinced me that I would delve into 3 feet deep, freezing water in the middle of a tight, dark canyon in the middle of the earth.

 I’ve seen things beyond what I thought I ever could. This experience has opened the doors to a new standard of living for me. It has also raised a new sense of awareness of my footsteps in this world. There have been a lot of moments in this endeavor where I’ve questioned my role as a human in nature and the environment. I gotten an unsurpassable chance to face nature and see the story of human interactions in the environment as they existed in the past and contemporarily. I have looked up at the stars and have gone back in time as if I was lying next to an indigenous inhabitant. Like all things too surreal for pros to explain, I will end this experience with a poem.

Mates of this Phila

I cannot say

How man senses I explore in a day

But from the salt I taste after floating on the reef

to trotting through the rainforest

trying to avoid the locked latch of a leech.

I am humble for the animal in me.

I have the power to travel, to love and to dream

I can stitch my life

Into the most unique of seems

 I am a civilized puppet

A part of life’s natural scheme

I can speak my mind

And mates of this phila

Can know what I mean.

True, these upright footsteps can be heavier than they seem

But I can learn to tread lighter

than the majority of my team.

This world we run

will someday be done

but the stretch of this organ behind my eye

reaches further than any expanse of land, water or sky

I have made my mark.

Just as those in the future that will pass

We have made our mark and

Like it or not,

it will last.