The wilderness experience

The Wilderness Experience- This is the part of the trip that I looked forward to the most because it is something I never thought I would ever do in Africa. I fully expected myself to travel to Africa at some point in my life as a tourist but never as someone sleeping under the stars in the mountains. This was mostly due to my misconceptions for what the mountains would look like. I expected a straight forward, flat, plateau environment. The reality was a dynamic boulder field that was certainly anything but flat. This perception is indicative of my personal growth in the wilderness as well. I expected to reach a predictable amount of growth due to my strong connection to nature going into this experience. Fortunately, Educo Africa does some small things to subtly add to the experience that made it different from anything I have ever experienced being in the wilderness. This was removing all devices from the participants that tell time. Additionally, the Educo staff would not share the time since they still had timekeeping devices for safety reasons. Any time the time needed to be communicated we used the phrase “half-past two”. So, if we wanted to know what time we were eating dinner, the response would be “half-past two”. To me, zooming out on the measure of time was incredibly freeing because it caused me to listen to my body for basic needs like sleeping and eating rather than deciding what I need based on the exact time of the day. Rather than setting alarms, we woke up when our body was ready. Since I didn’t know how many hours I slept, I would decide how well I slept based on how I felt rather than deciding that I didn’t sleep well because I may or may not have gotten a full 8 hours. I probably slept 6 hours and had I known, imposed anxiety on my mindset because I ‘must’ have 8 hours to be functional. This was a small piece of structure that the staff implemented that really helped me understand how to connect by disconnecting. This connection was spiritual as well. Before the trip, I assumed that the African wilderness would be dangerous because of all types of creepy crawlies. Once we were out there, I soon discovered that we were quite safe from these creatures and I think the only crawly we saw was an armored cricket. Laying on the ground the first night was incredible because I got this deep sense that humans have been laying on this land for a very long time. This gave me a sense of safety and security that had a spiritual aspect as well. I’ve never been one to give any thought to ancestors and the connection to the land, but I felt watched over when we slept. Then, waking up in the middle of the night to see the milky way as clear as I ever have in my life made me feel small and weak but in a good way. I got a sense of the fragility of life and how as a social worker, I can be an agent of change to improve the quality of life of those I connect within Colorado Springs. So out of this weakness, we can be strong when we are connected as healthy communities.