Sailing the Moments

Hi all,

First off, I must say that I am relieved to hear that an NFL season will commence on time thus the Green Bay Packers will have an opportunity to repeat as Super Bowl champions.  The NFL was worrying me for a while but the players association and owners finally agreed upon a new collective bargaining agreement. 

Reading about all the free agent signings of this past week has fired me up for the football season.  I’m a bit disgruntled that the future hall of fame quarterback who completed the infamously ridiculous pass to Freddie Mitchell known as “4th and 26th” will now face the Packers twice this season.  The argument could be made that the NFC North is the most competitive/complete division in the league.  From my perspective, the Lions will give the Pack-Attack the most difficulties.  It will be fascinating to see how all teams strategize against the young, talented defensive tackles that the Lions have lining up for them.

A fellow Peace Corps Volunteer informed me that he is starting up a fantasy football league.  He wants me to join and told me that we should hold the draft in the Peace Corps headquarters on the island.  Obviously, we will both start recruiting locals from out villages to sign up for the league as well.  I’m hoping that I can convince some people that “American” football can be just as thrilling as actual football.  It will be interesting to hear the reactions of the individuals who we talk into joining our league especially if they had never heard of fantasy sports. 

During the past few weeks of July I’ve kept myself quite busy planning, organizing, and running day camps for young people.  Each day of the camp covered a vast array of topics which will assist the young adults and children in developing into positive individuals.  The following is a few of the topics we delved into:  Natural disaster preparedness, boosting self-esteem, drug and alcohol awareness, first aid and CPR, and physical fitness and health, HIV/AIDS and STIs, and volunteerism.  I presented many of the topics which was a great experience for me.

Even though the camps were structured around the valuable lessons that we taught, we still had plenty of fun throughout the weeks as well.  At one point during the camp with the children, I organized a water balloon contest which mimicked the West Side Swim Club pool party tradition.  I did my absolute best job to be very “Jon-like” as I conducted the contest.  The children loved the event and they want to do it again in the very near future.  They said it was way more fun than a normal water balloon fight.

The young adults culminated their camp with a hike on one of the Waitukubuli Trails which I have mentioned in previous posts.  Impressively, we had over 100 individuals from the surrounding villages join in for the nature trek.  I was astonished about how many people we had accompany the NGO especially because everyone had to wake up around 5AM to catch the transport to the start of the hike.

One very interesting dynamic we incorporated into the camp for the children was that we recruited young adults to be facilitators for the sessions all week long.  The facilitators impressed me with their level of commitment to creating a fantastic event for the children.  Also, I really enjoyed watching the natural advancement of the leadership skills of each facilitator.  From the preparatory phase to the actual presentations during the sessions, the facilitators showed immense personal growth which was outstanding to witness.  Through this process they have all become very good friends of mine too.  They’re already talking about throwing me a party on the beach for my birthday next month. 

Well, I’ve been on the island for about six months now and I’ve had a tremendous experience thus far.  As I create deeper relationships with the people who live here, I have made the observation that this place is feeling more and more like home. 

These feelings remind me of a conversation I had with my Aunt Bonnie (my mom’s sister-in-law) before I left for Houston to do an internship with the Houston Astros in 2009.  At that point I had never resided outside of Wisconsin as I either lived with family members in Madison or roommates in La Crosse who were and still are basically family members to me.  Essentially, the point I’m trying to make is that I was feeling anxious and nervous about stepping outside of my comfort zone to go live in a big city without being around anyone I knew.  I was unsure that I had what it took to thrive in a new environment like that around complete strangers.

My Aunt Bonnie gave me such wonderful advice that immediately made me feel like I could connect with anybody.  She said that from her experience people are generally the same no matter where you interact with them and as long as you are kind, loving, generous, and humble that you will be able to relate to and befriend any other people regardless of where you intermingle with them.  These words that she spoke gave me hope and confidence that I had potential to make an impact on individuals wherever I would end up.  The words still hold true to this day for me as I continue building strong relationships with people I meet on Dominica. 

Thanks again for reading my blog posts.  I hope you are all well.

A la prochaine,

Joe Bridwell