You say that you 'knew me'

This week we lost another young girl to the heart ache and pressures of the world. She committed suicide. The constant ‘push, push, push’ mentality that our schools and our society is putting on both girls and boys of young ages, has become too much.

Adolescents is a time when everything feels out of your control and many children are being subject to further bullying, perhaps by their peers or maybe the true origin of this is born in the media. For many young children they feel like there is no place for weakness or vulnerability (which by definition is what children should be) and seek advice not with their parents or friends, but with the many evils of this world; self-doubt, pornography, slimming websites.

Mental health issues such as depression, anorexia, anxiety, and bulimia are all real and they are unfortunately in our schools, our friendship circles and our families. It makes people feel uncomfortable to hear about it. But children can’t diagnose themselves, they feel misunderstood and confused and end up helpless and pretending to be okay. Aside from raising awareness and various programmes happening within the government the biggest thing we can do, is not ignore it.

If you know your friend, or relative or class mate is not coping with exam stress or life stress then speak to them about it or get them to seek help is someone trustworthy, that isn’t google. The internet is not there friend. Why is this still a taboo? Being sad isn’t ‘silly’, ‘you’ll get over it’ isn’t helpful, this is real and it’s entirely 100% preventable.

Stop child suicide rates escalating today, ask someone how they are!

I wrote this poem when I younger and it really echoes the essence of how kids are feeling, don’t just say you ‘knew somebody’, really get to know them and you might just be saving a life.

You say that you ‘knew me’,

You watched me laugh and smile and love,

You thought what stands will stand

And what doesn’t will fall

But you were wrong!

You say that you ‘knew me’,

Then you must have played along.

For, elaborate lies and a heartbroken song,

They do not show themselves graciously

But go to the ball in a mask.

You say that you ‘knew me’

That of course you knew all!

So pain you must know?

But you forced it upon me!

One battle too many…

You say that you ‘knew me’,

You betrayed your own knowledge!

For you saw I was dying,

But you were not honest!

You watched my heart fall.

You say that you knew me, you didn’t at all.

Find out more about mental health issues here http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/mentalhealth/Pages/Mentalhealthhome.aspx or speak to your local GP today. Alternatively, if you’re dealing with it alone give The Samaritans a call, you’ll find their number on their website http://www.samaritans.org/

Why I suddenly care so much about the planet, nature and animals.

I’m new to this network of environmentally friendly people who live and breathe extra oxygen so plants can get extra carbon dioxide – wait, is that how it works? I’m not sure. Like I said, I am new to this.

I never really had pets growing up, thank you allergies! I dissociated myself from the horse loving harem of little girls because I couldn’t sit on one without getting hives across my entire body. I bypassed the cute kitten posters and watched adorable puppies from afar. I wasn’t a big animal person. I pride myself on my people skills rather than on how well I can reincarnate a modern day Snow White. This said, my favourite movies as a child included ‘fly away home’, ‘Free Willy; part 2’ (lets be precise now) and everybody’s childhood classic, ‘homeward bound’. So maybe a part of me would have love to have been an animal person, but instead as a teenager I found boys (awkward confession).

Moving swiftly on from animals, I also had no interest in geography as a subject. Measuring rocks was boring, building volcanoes was boring and figuring out how many people lived in an urban area compared to a rural area was, well you guessed it, boring. I had however participated in a project with the National Theatre where we wrote and performed a whole play based on global warming. I loved our leaders; one was an acclaimed novelist who had spent 3 months in the Artic writing about her findings. The other was a rather eccentric Broadway writer and director. Research was an intrinsic focus of the project and we ended up meeting with global warming activists, marketers and scientists. It was interesting, for the most part, but I quickly got lost in the statistics and graphs and didn’t really understand the immediate importance of the issue at hand. 

“In the end we conserve what we love, we will love only what we understand, we will understand only what we are taught.” Baba Dioum 

 

For all those people banging their heads against the door because people aren’t listening about what’s happening to our world well, although I’m ashamed to admit it, I use to be one of those people. Other things just mattered more to me. That’s not to say I was a shallow person just that ‘the environment’ sat on the back burner of my mind. Conservation to me back then meant, not littering and recycling. Separate your paper from your plastics and BAM world saved, end of issue, you’ll die a martyr.

And then my life changed, rather dramatically and almost by accident. I decided to volunteer on a conservation project in Costa Rica. My reasons didn’t really have much to do with it being a conservation project, instead I went because unfriendly customers at my multiple Saturday jobs had put me off of humanity, I wanted to feel the sun on my skin and I wanted to do something worthwhile, like staring at adorable hatchlings all day long. Gap Year sorted.

I didn’t have any expectations about my trip, because I didn’t know what to expect. Did I for instance expect to spend six months on a camp full and I mean FULL of biologists, zoologists, conservationist, primatologists, every other animal specialist going and be churned out as a full advocate for every value that they held near and dear? NO! I was blasé about conservation, and after becoming a staff member, (my title being a CONSERVATION apprentice, which I’d laugh at) when new volunteers asked if I was studying biology I’d say “nope – I’m more of a writer. Basically, the opposite of everyone here”. I was laughable. But here’s the thing, I was also impressionable. Though I hadn’t had an active interest before I suddenly found that when you’re thrown in amongst the monkeys, big cats, snakes and all other creepy crawlies and a conversation about their predicament starts up whilst eating pinto, you’re eager to learn, and ask every question under the book. Rather passively I ended up a fountain of knowledge because like a baby I’d picked up so much from the intelligent and passionate people around me. I was surprising myself, I’d gone from being naïve and uneducated to being an ambitious and determined conservationist. That doesn’t mean that I was suddenly a professor of biology just that I had a firm belief in the cause. And most of what I was learning was heart breaking.

Since coming home even more environment related issues have been brought to my attention and are making my heart stop with fear and true sadness. The western black rhino was declared officially extinct following reports from the IUCN on November 10th 2011. Tilikum, an Orca or more commonly known as a killer whale, was tortuously taken from his family, bullied by other orcas in a dark water enclosure best described as a coffin and then forced to perform at SeaWorld for his adoring fans. Tilikum, has killed three people including two trainers. And he is not an isolated case. And I didn’t know about this, and I wouldn’t have known about this if I hadn’t of watched the recent documentary blackfish, recommended by a friend I met in Costa Rica.

I felt hurt and guilty after watching that documentary and it’s prompted me to say something. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the one to go to if you have questions about the environment or how these undeniably and timelessly beautiful creatures are dying at our hands, or how serene landscapes are changing and drowning because of global warming, like I said I’m new to this. But as someone who use to not be interested, someone isn’t a scientist, there is one thing that I can assure you and that’s that this is worth caring about.

 "We have the knowledge that conservation works if executed in a timely manner, yet, without strong political will in combination with targeted efforts and resources, the wonders of nature and the services it provides can be lost forever."

And here’s the biggest lesson that I learnt from the people I met whilst standing side by side, planting a rainforest and taking data on Neotropical river otters and that’s a message of hope. The greatest moments in our history are when things changed, when people rallied for the better good, when politicians cared about making the world better, whether its black history or the end of a war, change is good. And we want to change the inevitable. We want to change the outcome for the defenceless, for the sumatran tiger, the polar bear, the orangutan and the humans. You don’t have to be a scientist, I’m not. You don’t have to be working in the field or in the middle of a rainforest. You just have to care, even a little bit counts. And the biggest thing you can do? You can stay aware of the issues.  If everybody changed the way I did, then there’s nothing stopping the world from changing too. Life is beautiful, preserve it. 

P.S. Don’t just skip over the bolded quotes, their actually rather poignant, powerful and true.

LEARN MORE RIGHT HERE (Go on, it’s only one click.)  http://www.iucn.org/about/work/programmes/gpap_home/gpap_solutions/

A big thanks to everyone at Piro who helped me grow and learn, who I now call my friends and who have inspired me by dedicating their lives to this cause, I hope you find some relief in knowing you certainly changed me and my beliefs. Keep up the good work guys! Once you open your eyes, there’s no going back. 

Learning from learners.

I have recently had the privilege to volunteer at my local collage. In all honestly, I’m at the stage in my life where I have to start making big decisions and owning them and the consequences that come with them. Knowing what’s best for you, isn’t always easy. I’m 19 and I feel under so much pressure to be on the right path, including five year plans that incorporate experience and education towards my chosen career. I’m 19, how the hell am I supposed to know that already? I don’t know what I want to be or whether what I’m doing is right in the long run, and that scares me, because I’m British and we like our five year plans! I recently left my university. I will shortly be travelling, once again. I’m having to reassess my life. And volunteering was a desperate use of my time, filling my current unemployment status with some purpose.

 

The class is for adults that are returning to education. For varied reasons, their education has been limited. Many have children, families abroad, work and other commitments. All of them, despite so many obstacles have made the brave decision to return to school and give their education another go. I can’t speak on behalf of their children, but that decision makes me feel proud.

I haven’t known the group long, but they have welcomed me like a peer and a fellow student, one of the lovely girls laughed at me when their homework was being handed around “are you not going to take one Jess?” she teased. In fact I feel so comfortable around them that I’m not ashamed to admit when I get a word or two wrong in the spelling test! We all make mistakes, better to laugh at it.

Being me, I had this predetermined thought that I would be of no use within a class room, and yet to my surprise, after one lesson I felt needed. One woman was expressively grateful when I told her why I was there, simply, ‘to help you, if you need me’. I had to improvise on the spot, having never done classroom help before, I used the basic skills I’d learnt at school and told them the tricks of the trade that help it all stick in your mind. We did fractions (dividing by halves and quarters) and I helped teach the students how to copy and paste (perhaps a bad habit when it comes to assignments).

They’re simple procedures that most of us take for granted. The changing era of technology is difficult to keep up with, particularly when you’ve been out of education for a while. Doing our fractions has become second nature, but so many adults have missed out on the basic IT, Maths and English skills that help us live our lives. How do you paste a link to your boss in an email? What does it mean when it says 2/3rds off that cute cardigan I want from Topshop?

And the joy you see slowly enter their eyes and the relief spread across their shoulders when they finally get the answer and more importantly the process, is beyond worth it.

Education is invaluable and it’s never too late to have a second or third or fourth chance. Life can get in the way of our schooling or even just not feel like a right fit and it’s important that with looming fees and high unemployment rates that we don’t jump into further education without first pausing for thought. When the time is right for you, and you want to enhance your experiences with further study it will always be readily available to you. Besides, education doesn’t stop in the classroom. In fact the majority of what you learn, you’ll learn out of school, think of qualifications as a pedestal for real life.  

Leaving university was a big decision for me, and one I didn’t take lightly. I have been privileged and many wouldn’t even have had the choice that I did. I want to learn more but I believe it’s the skills we acquire during our lessons that are transferrable to our life that matter, not necessarily if we got the answer right or the top score. I left university because I wanted to learn something that I felt had relevance to me and the world and environment I am a part of. So learn a language or your grandmother’s best recipe, do a degree, don’t do a degree, take the internship, go back and get your GCSE’s, even if you’re just learning how to socialise with people, that’s okay. It’s not the qualification that matters, it’s the process, it’s the skills you acquire and how you apply them to your life, your goals and your aspirations.

 

There are people in the world, like Malala Yousafzai (she was shot in the head by the Taliban for her peaceful campaign for women’s education) fighting for the right to learn, who have a refusal to give up because it’s never too late and I believe that my class are included in that. We can all be educated both inside the classroom and out, on the job and off the job, old or young, we can all fight for the right to learn. We all deserve to have a better quality of life with a greater understanding of our world that can open our lives up to further opportunities.

We can progress as people, as long as we never give up, whether you’re a girl fighting the Taliban, a middle aged man returning to school or me, a university drop out, trying to find other ways to educate myself and stumbling across incredible experiences, like this, along the way.

Snap shots.

Wishing a happy birthday to my sister!
It stormed so badly, we showered outside!



Tagging a turtle.


 
Finding local birdlife. 



Sunday: No rain storms just blue skies in the Osa Peninsula today. It's an easy place to call home.

Experiencing new things every day

Yesterday I use the same plant that the indigenous people use to wax my arms, drank milk from a tree, ate termites straight from their nest and had a lizard bite my ear because it hangs there like an earring. Today I milked a cow and made my own cheese. Talk about self sufficient living!

The little things are the biggest things.

Last nights staff turtle training was incredible. The moon was so spectacularly bright it lit our way across the beach without the need for torches. And, I got to assist in a full health assessment of a 300lb Green Pacific turtle and personally tag my first ever Olive Ridley turtle! To top it off, whilst knee deep in a lagoon, I held a boa constrictor...

Happiness comes in the form of a rainforest!

 Costa Rica camp has been eventful to say the least in the past couple of weeks.  After intense treks throughout the vegetation you’ll often find me lounging around in a hammock on deck, book in hand, or ipod on replay and wafts of deep fried food hitting my senses. It has been during these delightful moments of relaxation and reflection that I have stumbled across some of the most surreal experiences.

For instance, whilst waiting for our dinner one afternoon (we eat before it gets dark) Mikol, one of the local guys, rocked up into camp on horseback, escorting a rather large water buffalo.  I say rather large; this mammal was built like a machine. Completely astounded by its random appearance we went over to get a few close up photos. It was at this point that Mikol asked if we wanted to ride the water buffalo. I hadn’t even touched it yet for fear that it would flick its tail and wipe me out, and now he wanted me to clamber on top of it! So naturally, I did. It was one of the most exhilarating moments of my life, feeling the warm muscle mass below me, my legs barely touching either side of its body it was so wide, and knowing that in any other normal circumstance this would be incredibly dangerous gave me a rush of adrenaline that had my hands shaking for a good five minutes afterwards. Talk about once in a lifetime opportunities and Costa Rica continues to throw these at me!

Another example I can draw on occurred yesterday, whilst chatting to Sarah in the morning and swinging from side to side in the hammock completely unsuspectingly when the whole of the deck began to wobble. I paused for a moment, confused, and half convinced it was my hammock swinging that was causing the weird movement of the earth when Sarah said “yeah, this is an earthquake”. Of course, I should have guessed! My first earthquake certainly startled me, and I later found out it also startled the spider monkeys, who screamed at the group on trail as the trees shook.

We’ve done various satellite camps as well in the past fortnight; the one I participated in was on Piro beach.  After setting up camp next to the turtle hatchery, we strolled up and down the shore, with the moon lighting our way. It wasn’t until Nathan paused in his tracks abruptly, that I knew I was about to see something spectacular, a sight I had been patiently waiting for my whole life. Ahead of us was a single track, and in that moment my heart hit my stomach, both myself and Cara knew one thing, and continued to repeat it in an excited whisper and Nathan went to investigate “there’s no out track!”. The green turtle was the most beautiful creature I’ve seen. I held back my tears as I watched her strength rivet through her flippers and pull her wrinkled face and large shell forward through the black sand faster than I’d ever have imagined a turtle could move. Later than night we lay out on the sand, eyes cast upwards and surround by amazing people I’ve grown to call good friends, whilst a meteor shower exploded above us, and I saw my first shooting stars inspiring us to call our first turtle ‘Meteor’. I woke up the next morning and watched the sunrise, blissfully happy. Life is beautiful.

The rest of the two weeks were spent like this; eating sugarcane, playing rounder’s under the sunset at the beach, learning to surf at Matepalo, eating cake and watching Nathan almost take out volunteers during a hard core birthday piñata! Plus we got cheeseburgers with a side of beer and salsa dancing in town. As far as sightings go, it’s been a pretty special few weeks seeing a sloth with her baby as well as glass frogs, a pygmy kingfisher, a caiman in a river, a coral snake and astounding views across the rainforest canopy at Cerro Osa that will crumble even the hardest of hearts.

Basically, everyone needs to come to Costa Rica; the experience has an endless supply of happiness and unforgettable moments.