Dominica, Dec. 1st, 2012
This is the entry I’ve been avoiding, and yet I feel like I
can’t access writing about the rest of my trip without passing through this one
first, and I can’t quite access life yet without writing about this. It’s emotional. I’m trying to do something by writing it
down, I’m not sure what yet, but it’s emotional and heartbreaking.
Dawn over the mountains of Dominica—a gorgeously beautiful
island arising out of the ocean after 6 days at sea and after passing islands
to our left and right. John Tymitz,
Renee, Kate, Pema, Patrick, Chris, Kelly, Gudrun, Ian and other students, all
gathered on the back of deck 7, bathing in the beauty of the dawn—everywhere we
look are gorgeous mountains of fluffy clouds, catching the light and tossing it
back and forth from purple to gold to pink.
We too are all bathed in this light—it is joyous on our faces. On the port side of the ship the sun is flexing
her rays across the mountain ranges, and on the starboard side the bright moon
is still smiling down at us, and we drink in beauty from every side. We pull closer to Roseau and wonder exactly
where we will dock and then we see a T-shaped dock, a wide planked walkway out
from the city to the top of the T where the ship will anchor and tie-up. It is strongly reminiscent to me of the dock
in Guatemala, our last port in the summer 2007 voyage. On that voyage, that dock became an impromptu
RD-facilitated threshold of leaving the port-part of the trip behind and
pausing to think about what gifts you were taking with you as you crossed back
to the vessel. On that voyage, everyone
was safe and sound on time, and it was a professional peak experience to know
that the community we had built was caring and respectful of themselves and
others to be back on time, and it was a professional peak experience to know
that everyone was back safely at the end of so many adventures. I spoke of this in my interview for the Fall
2012 voyage, that this ultimately was my goal—a caring community, and everyone
back home safely. On that voyage, I was
the last staff member on the dock (besides the crew), smiling up at John
Burkoff on deck 5 with a walkie talkie, shouting down “all back and on time!”
with a couple of whoops and arms raised in the air, full of gratitude and a deep
sense of accomplishment.
We have two days in this paradise, and weeks ago Pema (since
I’ve not been going in a linear fashion, to fill you in: Pema, one of my best
friends of 18 years, joined me in Argentina for the last 5 weeks of the voyage)
and I decided to take the plunge and just fill up our Dominica days with SAS
trips—we wanted to wring as much joy and adventure out of the last port as
possible and not spend our time trying to figure out what to do and how to do
it. For Saturday the first day we signed
up for inner-tubing down a river in the morning, and a 4x4 adventure jeep trip
up into the mountains in the afternoon.
For Sunday, we signed up for a river to ocean kayak adventure. I was excited for all of them, especially the
kayak trip, not only because I love kayaking, but also because although we had
been around the rim of the Atlantic, I had yet to swim in her waters on this
voyage.
The ship cleared, and we headed off the ship with the
innertube trip—which included Jacques and Brett and Kai. We first visited the emerald falls, where we
all plunged in to the cool waters in the midst of a tropical island jungle,
swimming to stand or sit or cling to rocks under the waterfall. I remember everyone laughing and posing and a
multitude of water-proof go-pro cameras.
It is really sweet to be on an adventure with students, staff, and
faculty—how the joy is contagious, and shared, and feels like a shared
blessing. Our guide on the van sweetly
and jokingly apologized to us as we drove to the next destination. “I’m sorry to say, that now that you have
dipped into our waters, you will be living longer. That is the way of life in Dominica—it is
beautiful here and healthy here and people live longer. We have the longest
living woman in the world here, she lived to 126.” From the waterfalls, we headed over to a
mountain river, suited up in life-jackets and helmets, were given a paddle,
told that one of the rules was to splash one another, and launched off into a
beautiful class I-II river. Through
jungle and through pebbly river-washed plains, and through ravines, we bumped
and splashed and spun and rafted together to tell jokes and sing songs and
watched this beautiful world unfurling around us, floating along in joy and
gratitude, and this was only the morning!
At the end we had fresh guava and coconut and a taste of island spiced
rum. Damp and exhilarated, we piled back
into the vans and headed back to the ship.
Pema, Kai, Brett and I went out for a quick bite to eat in
town—I had a chicken curry pasty with a Coke.
We headed back to the ship and I picked up my big camera for the
afternoon’s trip, and then we got into an open top 4x4 jeep that fit 16 people
in the back. Brett, Kai, Kate, Annalyn,
Chris, Jen, Pema, myself and several students got into one of the jeeps, and
John Tymitz and other friends and students got into the second jeep. We headed up into the gorgeous mountains,
stopping to see the volcanic hot water springs, several vistas, and finally
ending up off-roading to a short hike to a stream pouring out of a ravine.
Most of us went swimming in this ravine, which was like
swimming into a cave, a cleft in the world, six or seven smooth-walled chambers
with a slice of green jungle light way above us, our laughter bouncing off of
the walls, as we swam our way to yet another waterfall. It was an outdoor temple of awe, friendship,
adventure, and connection. At the
waterfall we climbed up onto a ledge and plunged back down into the center of
the cavern, whooping triumphantly, and slowly drifted and swam our way back into
the sunny entrance, which included a side-stream of volcano-warmed water. We got out, dried off, and had yet more fresh
coconut. The drive down the mountain was
lush and beautiful with the sun beginning to turn everything golden. The air was soft, and my body felt like I was
8 again; I had been swimming three
separate times that day, and felt pleasantly alive and tired all at the same
time. Upon arriving at the ship, I could
tell that there was only about 5 minutes left until the sun set over the ocean
in front of the ship, and I wanted to walk out along the wall of the port to
see the sunset. You could walk along the
top of this wall that faced the ocean, or you could walk along the sidewalk
about 4 feet below the wall, and I walked out along the top of the wall. I passed by several students who did not look
happy about something, but didn’t stop to engage, as I knew that several of
them had been going through some personal drama earlier that week, and I simply
walked out along the wall and took several pictures of the sunset painting its
magic across the world. At this point,
one of my RDs, Brett, came over and said something to me about hearing that a
student had died. I shook my head, and
said that we would have known, we were with John Tymitz the whole afternoon. In my head I thought well maybe someone got
hurt, I will go check in, and I took 2 more pictures of the sun slipping
beneath the horizon and started back to the ship. As I walked along the wall, I passed by two
students below me who were on the sidewalk and leaning against the wall itself—they
looked really sad. I slowed and stopped
and half-sat down to check in on them. “Is
everything ok?” I asked, still not putting everything together, still deep in the
throes of denial. “You all look really
sad.” One of the students said something
to the effect of “yeah…we are really sad. A student died today.” And in the act of just beginning to sit down,
it all broke through into my consciousness, and I rose up (I think I said “I have
to go” and started running back to the ship, along the wall, through port
security, down the long dock. I don’t
remember my body, I just remember running as fast as I could. And snapshots of realization. And not knowing which of the 475 students (minus
the 30 I had been with or just seen) we had lost, and the weight of that in my
soul. And passing Pema on my flight down
the dock and shouting to her “I won’t be able to go out to dinner tonight” as
if that mattered. And getting to the gangway
and trying to swipe in and seeing the stricken look of grief in Chief Security
Vladamir’s face as they just waved me through, with every step knowing that our
lives were going to be forever changed, and meeting Mary Andres (one of our
shipboard counselors and an amazing person) right at the deck 2 entrance, who
stopped me. “Tell me” I said. “One of our students died,” she said. Time slowing down briefly on the first syllable—K. Knowing a Casey and a Kalynn and several
Katies and the rest of her name on Mary’s lips.
“Casey Schulman” she said. I knew
Casey Schulman. I don’t know when the
tears started, I do know that I was in shock and a part of me wanted to keep
running forever. “Go put on dry warm
clothes and get water” Mary said. “And go to the Union. They
are in the Union.” She said, giving me direction for the next ten minutes,
giving me the only advice that she could, I clung to it like it was a life boat
and ran upstairs to change into dry clothes, get water, and head into the
Union.
Part 2 is still working its way through my heart and head.
