After getting to know each other for the past few months, there is nothing like a 16 hour car ride to really make a connection with 12 people piled into one van. We left as soon as possible Friday evening and drove to Chelsea's house in Nashville, where we spent the night with the Charleston trip as well. The Tossings are such sweet people, and Chelsea's dog Lanie was the saddest part to leave. I don't think any of us have had someone cry like that before we left somewhere ever before.
The car ride really flew by. We played games like Loaded Questions, Taboo, and sang along to some great mix CDs we all made. Also, Kansas lost to VCU, so we've all been in really high spirits.
Driving through the South was great. We tried to find an authentic Southern restaurant for lunch in Alabam, and ended up in an abandoned barbeque hut that was more than a little sketchy. Truman was in some great pictures on the broken dirty furniture that was strewn all across the back of the restaurant. We ended up at Milo's, a burger chain. It was great, and the vegetarians (our trip has 4!) all had toasted cheese--which apparently is the same thing as a grilled cheese.
Arriving was by far worth the 16 hour ride. Our site is absolutely beautiful and unreal. We are at Camp Timpoochee, which is a 4-H Camp of the University of Florida. THe girls and the boys each get cabins, there is a nice mess hall for our breakfasts and dinners, oh, and we have our own private stretch of beach. No big deal. We haven't been quiet about how great the weather is, either. It has been in the upper 70s the entire time we have been here, which is great considering the snow back home in Columbia!
-Raha Obaei
Hakuna Matata
Waking up was like a dream continued this morning…Warm weather, a quiet stretch of ocean, and most of all grits for breakfast. Today was our community service day here in this beautiful sunny state and we headed out the Muscogee Nation of Florida, an Indian reservation in the small city of Bruce. We started our work organizing the food pantry that has served nearly 110 underserved families in the past month and strategically painting ourselves into the corners of decks. Our next task took us to a sacred 800-year-old cypress pond to clear out brush and popcorn trees, and let me tell you, we whacked it like champs out there. The appreciation we met was absolutely humbling.
Not to rub it in, but kind of to rub it in (sorrrrry Missouri), we spent the rest of the 78 degree afternoon throwing Frisbee in the ocean, eating s'mores on the beach and getting hit on by 12 year olds. But there were 4 of them and 12x4=48 so it's fine.
Some of our goals and expectations for the week:
1. 1. Good, honest work.
2. 2. Making a lasting impact
3. 3. Serving in silence
4. 4. Play mind games with Tim because its hilarious when he's mad
5. 5. To realize that our lives are not the only thing going on
6. 6. Make a fire in under 2 hours
7. 7. Recognize little things that have a big impact
8. 8. Make pigs fly.
-Chelsea Tossing
That's Where We Used To Watch The Strobelights
Doing work is a tricky thing. As college students, despite full resumes all around, it can be hard to delineate where we've come from, what we've accomplished. We wake up and plan, study, meet, strategize, team-build, write, work out. We juggle a lot of tasks, keeping multiple balls in the air at any given time. Still, when we go to bed and look back, it can be hard to wonder if anything we did today truly left a mark. By what record could we see that we had been there, that we had made a difference?
Today, our work made a difference. Today, our work left a mark. There is something distinctly poetic about working all day and getting something done. When you can just put your head down and go for a solid day, then look up and see the tangible results of your sweat and your effort, that's a beautiful thing, and something we don't get to do very often.
Our role today was clearing out an abandoned wastewater treatment plant that has been designated for an experimental water treatment program. The plant, abandoned for decades, had significant brush built up around it. Branch by arduous branch, we cleared it out. We severed vines, felled large trees, and had a good time doing it.
Our group was unfailingly supportive and enthusiastic in the face of the difficult tasks, which was incredible to experience. Despite the fact that this was not exactly what we had expected from our trip, and being something not precisely aligned with the strengths of our particular group, it was something we resolved to do to the absolute utmost of our ability. A lot of us faced the realization today that our tasks during the week would be distinctly different from what we had expected, but our excitement at the opportunity to throw our collective backs into a cause bigger than ourselves has not waned.
For me personally, this trip has put me closer in touch with myself than I've been in a long time. Putting myself behind a task and pushing until I can't push anymore, and seeing the results of my efforts pile up higher and higher has been truly relaxing and therapeutic. Putting in a hard day's work and then standing back and taking it in has a lyricism all its own.
This trip has also been very thought-provoking for me. There's just so much in this world, in every single little pocket of it, that I don't know and don't have experience with—Niceville included. This chance to stimulate myself—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—is something I don't take for granted.
Today, every laborious and minute of it, leaves more excited for tomorrow, for another chance to leave my mark on Niceville.
-Ryan Bueckendorf
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