18
Location: White Bay, Peter Island
Today everyone woke up early for the last day of intense volunteering of this session. Everybody got ready pretty quickly, and by 8 o’clock, we were all on the dock ready for action. This time we were helping at VISAR in Tortola. VISAR stands for Virgin Islands Search and Rescue, which is the organization to call if you ever get in trouble on the water.
This organization is completely volunteer-based apart from a couple of people that get paid, so it felt very good to help out people who spend their free time trying to save other people. At their base in Tortola, our two big projects were painting their container fire cone orange and then ripping out all the greenery that had grown on the lot since the hurricane. Everyone called this project “kill the green” where we had to rip out all the plants, clearing space so a new fence could be installed. Other little projects included painting their picnic tables B.V.I colors, counting coin donations and other yard work.
The day was incredibly warm, and everybody seemed to have a hard time right before lunch – which was a perfect time to stop, rest and reflect on what we have done and what we have yet to do. After a delicious lunch of sandwiches and wraps, everybody moved on to clearing the green as all the other projects had been finished. With this, we ended strong, and the whole group was delighted when VISAR surprised us with ice cream, the perfect ending to a hard day at work.
After VISAR, we were treated to another surprise: beautiful fresh water showers which everyone so desperately needed. And after a day full of surprises, we were greeted with one more: pizza for dinner!!!!! Yay, the perfect ending to a great day. After dinner, we were given reflection packets where we had to write down all the volunteer projects we’ve done, why we did them, and what lessons we’ll carry forward from them. Everyone was knackered, so we quickly went to bed, eagerly awaiting a good night’s sleep.