Again, it’s been awhile. By way of excuse, I have been at trainings or in the field a lot since I last wrote, and the few days I have had off, I’ve taken to rest my brain and body. Here’s an overview of the past two months before I finish the story of Aja. On January 1st, I attended the wedding of my childhood friend, Jenny Pizzie. You know what makes a great wedding? Great people and great music. Well, besides a happy couple, I suppose – but most couples are happy at least on their wedding day, so if you don’t have this piece, you’ve got something seriously amiss. Anyway, this wedding had both. My favorite moment was a line of all the familiar faces swaying and singing at the top of our lungs to “Piano Man.” It’s lovely to be among a crowd in which you feel no reservations, regardless of alcohol consumption.
After a couple more days hanging out with my family – during which I got the low-down from my little bro on all the good music he helped me to load onto my ipod – and I need help - I flew back to Florida on January 3rd, and found it to be a freezing cold Florida, not the mildly chilly Florida that I had left in December! Return Staff Training ran from Jan 4-18. We began with a 5-day staff expedition on the St. Mary’s River. I was in a group of about 11 staff, for the coldest camping experience of my life! We woke up after our first night on the river to find our bucket lids covered with frost, and a layer of ice on the top of all of our water jugs. “Slushies!” someone said, and I suppose I couldn’t complain, after wishing all October long for cold water. In nature, you almost always get what you ask for – Mother Nature determines when. Ah, the simple life – it’s humbling to find oneself without direct control to gratify one’s basic desires, such as the temperature of water. I rather like it…even when I don’t. We learned to adapt with layers of clothing and hot cocoa, and paddling and push-ups to keep us warm. And thank goodness for my friend Andy, who once upon a time told me about filling a Nalgene bottle with boiling-hot water and curling up with it in a sleeping bag. Were it not for this trick, I might have come home a sleepless ice cube. Throughout the week, besides paddling, we participated in a progression of diversity lessons and activities, behavior simulations (although not nearly as intense as NST, thank goodness), and talked about a variety of other “instructor business” that we could have talked about in a much more boring classroom than the one we found ourselves in – the river, the classroom we come to know and love as instructors.
During a diversity initiative...much thanks to my friend Liz Olson for the photo from facebook.
Our diversity progression began with a fire-circle discussion of emotional safety and definitions: what is a stereotype? Discrimination? Oppression? I don’t believe I’ve ever taken the time to talk about what these things mean – I just use them. Creating a space to have these conversations was itself a rather magical experience. My favorite diversity activity we did was a fish bowl discussion between the men and women of the group. With opposite genders sitting on rows of buckets facing each other, the women had the first chance to speak: speak about anything you think men should know about being a woman – speak about your experience of your gender. The men were not allowed to talk – only to listen. Then, we switched – men talking, women listening. At the end, we all talked about the things we had learned, which was a lot. I won’t share all of the things that were said, although if you are interested I would love to talk about it. Mostly, I would like to encourage people to have these sorts of dialogues. To continue the discussion of differences that happened here without judgment or intrusion of people’s experiences. Most of the talk was serious, ranging from topics of safety to gender roles to dating and sex to the OB community – but I will share one quote that came out near the end:
Jennica: “you know, I think men should understand that having your period in the woods is very hard, and sometimes we just need a little empathy.”
Kristen: “yes. And also, every time I see a man stand up to pee in the woods, I die a little bit inside!” (followed by cheers of support)
Another memory from our Return Staff Training group – which went out into the field with Ninja-themed participants – was our bucket bath day. This happened in the morning of our third day on the river. Keep in mind that we had essentially put on our clothes on day 1 and not taken them off since, because it was that cold. We were in dire need of a bath, but the air and water temperatures were both well below 50 degrees Farrenheit…I believe the water measured around 45 degrees, and the air colder than that. But, at 8:30 am, several of us strapped on our PFD’s and polar-beared into that icy river water, anyway. It was painfully cold. I went in thinking “this will be cold, but it will be a good idea in the end.” I ran out of that water shouting, “who said this was a good idea?!” Thankfully, we had thought ahead enough to have hot water ready for washing, and a fire ready for drying. The shock of the cold had been intense, but the hot river water rushing out of our make-shift dishes-bucket shower made me feel like a goddess. A clean goddess.
After our five-day river expedition was complete – and I had been dubbed “Ninjica” by the one and only Dan Miller, maker of hilarious nick-names – we celebrated at Moon River Pizza and filled the rest of our time with Challenge Course training, Emergency Water Safety, Motivational Interviewing, and PAR training (Florida’s own restraint training). EWS was held at an outdoor pool in that freezing cold weather, where for two days we tip-toed across an ice-covered pool deck, shivering until we submerged ourselves in the 87 degree bath of chlorine. Ahhhhhh.
No comments:
Post a Comment