May 22, 2017
Vanderbilt student-athletes will blog all week long from their service trip to Jamaica in partnership with Soles4Souls. Read Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7 and Day 8 here, and check back on Wednesday for a full recap of last week’s events.
Now back in Nashville, three Vanderbilt swimming student-athletes reflect on their experiences on last week’s service trip to Jamaica.
Erin Primdahl, Women’s Swimming:
“Each morning, you have the choice to either stay asleep with your dreams or wake up and chase them.”
That quote has served as an unfailing mantra for my entire life. While I have been blessed with the opportunity to pursue my goals, there are countless individuals throughout the world who are met with barriers in many forms that prevent them from realizing their truest potential. For the past week, I was fortunate enough to meet some of those people, visit their schools, wash and put new shoes on their feet, and get to know them — sharing smiles, laughter, jokes, hugs, dances and memories.
I was unexpectedly met with a striking applause when I entered our first service location in Jamaica, Ferris Primary School. I soon realized I shared a common ground with the Jamaican students, one manifested through sports and academic interests, family and other similarities. We were grounded in our human connection, which prevailed over racial and socioeconomic differences.
While we traveled to Jamaica to deliver shoes, we received and were given so much more. In spending time with local children, we played game called “stickypooy” — the Jamaican version of freeze tag — danced to a local favorite called “Tom Cruise,” and indulged in shared math interests by quizzing and being quizzed by the students. What I received, simply put, is inspiration. The students I met did not let their limited resources stop them by any means. I admire the bravery of Danielle, who performed her own rendition of “Let it Go” in front of her entire class and American visitors; Somerville, who offered me some of his only bag of candy; and Jada, who used her only piece of paper to color me a picture. I am in awe of how such young individuals with so little can offer so much of themselves.
While our trip can be measured in our number of distribution schools (five), the number of shoes we gave out (858), the number of people in our group (26), among other metrics, the most meaningful measurement to me has been the number of smiles. Another adage I always keep in the back of my mind is, “if you see someone without a smile, give them yours.” Whether it was the way a student’s face lit up when the perfect pair of shoes slid onto his or her foot, within the whirl of activity on our self-proclaimed dance floors or sports fields, or the expression of pride in each of our eyes when we successfully climbed the 180-foot tall Dunn’s River Falls, survived the 35-foot plummet into the ocean at Rick’s Cafe, or successfully navigated the tour of the supposedly haunted Great Rose Hall with our tour guide, Curley, smiles were not in short supply all week long.
No matter the metric used to measure the Vanderbilt athletics trip with Soles4Soles to Jamaica, it is clear that it was a success in every sense of the word. As cheesy as it may sound, we really took a page out of the Jamaicans’ book by living out the mantras of “no problem” and “one love,” both of which are so simple to remember but yet easy to forget amidst the American student-athlete lifestyle. However, we can learn from the Jamaican students who smile through their struggles that our life is only as complicated as we make it. Here’s to hoping that the photos, journals, bracelets, tie dye t-shirts and other mementos serve as reminders to enrich our lives as well as those around us, near and far.
Selah Peacock, Women’s Swimming:
This was the first time I had ever been on a service trip, and based on how great of an experience it was, I know that it will not be my last. Our group met at McGugin at 3:30 a.m. last Sunday and I remember being surprisingly excited despite the fact I had slept for three hours the night before. The people who made that early morning climbed onto that bus do not seem to be the same that were on the plane back to Nashville. We grew so close to one another other, and returning to my home in Baltimore seems surreal because I feel as though the people on this trip have become family.
During our time together of washing countless feet and sorting through hundreds of shoes, I know that we have all changed for the better. Even though we may never see any of those 858 children, the experiences that we bring with us back to Nashville will forever tie us together. Those children taught us more than we could ever learn in a classroom. Their openness to love and welcome us into their lives despite their circumstances have left us with a bolder sense of living.
At the first distribution, me and Nemo were in charge of giving out toys to the children. At first, I was unsure how to talk to the kids, and I would imitate how I saw others interact with them. After I handed out a few toys, I learned that I did not need to do anything or display any certain kind of behavior for these kids to show me immediate love. They eagerly walked right up to us to show off their new shoes. Later on in the week, I was immediately swarmed by children while I was painting the side wall of their school. They began to offer help and many of them asked, “Miss, can I help paint?” I thought how crazy it was that I was there to try and serve them, yet all they wanted to do was offer up everything they could. Their willingness to give has left an imprint in each of our hearts for us to remember during every type of situation that we encounter during our own lives.
Kara Lucenti, Women’s Swimming:
After seven days of washing tiny feet, playing sweaty soccer games and snorkeling in clear, blue water, it feels weird to put on a sweatshirt. That’s not the only thing that has changed since landing in the United States; we are all different after walking away from a country that exposed us to more than just the apparent wealth disparities across countries.
Landing in Nashville has caused a strange sadness to fall over me. After a week of seeing this group of 26 people at their smelliest and yet most enthusiastic, I cannot imagine what it was like not being friends with these people before. I see the friendships that have been made in such a short time continuing to grow as people begin to exchange phone numbers and Snapchat names and even plan trips to visit each other. Some are leaving to go into the real world, but luckily I will be able to see most of these people around campus next year.
Beyond learning about each other, we also discovered new things about ourselves. After seeing 858 children strive amid their own adversity, we all began to discover our own strengths. After dozens of visits to Percy Priest, I have never see Kathryn Babbin (Babs) cliff jump. And yet at Rick’s Cafe, even as her legs wobbled and she gripped Paige’s hand, Babs overcame her fear and jumped off a 30 foot ledge. Allie and Erin conquered Rose Hall as they led each of us through the maze of haunted rooms. Nemo ate oxtail and spicy patties, even though her mouth was burning for long after we left the school. And Selah finally took a serious picture for once in her life.
Although we may all be student-athletes, a group able endure the physical strenuous endeavors expected of us, there is something to be said about the emotional and psychological strength that was tested as we fitted children who were standoffish, children with scars they shouldn’t have, and children with uniforms that did not fit them. While giving these kids shoes will slightly improve the quality of their life, our smiles, our hugs and the love that we gave will stay with them for much longer. We may have been tired and gross, but I know that we gave these children our all by racing them across the fields, painting their school, allowing them to painfully knot our hair and competing in intense dance competitions.
Each person on this trip invested large amounts of time and energy to brighten the lives of the children we met. Yet each one of us know that we received more from these experiences and these new friendships than we can even begin to explain. I think Allie said it best at our last team huddle when she said “This past week I have felt so incredibly happy.” We can all agree that Vanderbilt athletics may have brought us together, but Soles for Souls and Jamaica created a community where our own perseverance was cultivated.
