Just one month after the Team Curley visit to St Mary's and Mission, Curley Senior Craig Baldwin of Parkville, MD, offers the following reflection. Craig is an active member of the Class of '11 at Archbishop Curley High School. A member of the band and Franciscan Youth Ministry, and a varsity lacrosse and wrestling athlete. In the Fall Craig will be starting his collegiate journey at Stevenson College.I took the Senior Service Week opportunity to Jamaica because not only did I want to make a difference in someone else’s life, but I wanted to experience a developing nation first-hand. I knew before ever making the journey that it was going to be different, but I never imagined the things I would learn on my trip; the most important was learning to be grateful. I never would have thought that after all I have learned in my eighteen years, that one of the best lessons I would ever learn would be from ten and eleven year old Jamaican children. After over ten years of Catholic education, I have undoubtedly been taught manners and how to say “please” and “thank you.” I have been taught how lucky I am to have the things I need. But, what we see as necessities in Baltimore, are delicacies in Above Rocks, Jamaica, West Indies. Some of these things include shoes, food, but most importantly, education.
At St. Mary’s [sic], Above Rocks, we spent much of our time working as tutors for the children of the All Ages School, which is for students in grades six and below. We tutored from 8:30 AM to 12 PM in a program known as Brain Camp; this program gives the children extra assistance in the areas of Reading, English, and Math. What shocked me was the amount of intelligence they had, and the progress they made during those days. During the Math portion, they handled concepts such as long division, and area and perimeter (new to them at the time) with little or no difficulty. At the beginning of the week, we began the Reading section by discussing books which children were reading on their own. On the first day, many of them were nervous about reading in front of us and asked us to read to them instead. By the end of the week, they couldn’t wait to read to us and many of them even finished their books. In English, we were teaching the children to write paragraphs about their daily routine. A ten-year-old boy, who read his paragraph to the class, wakes up every morning, ties up his family’s goat, walks a half-mile and back to fetch water, then takes a forty-five minute bus ride to school. This boy works so hard every day because the work needs to be done. He does all in which he can to make sure that he and his family survive. I remembered that as a senior preparing for college, I cannot afford to stop working hard if I ever hope to be successful.
I cannot even begin to describe how thankful these children were for the help they were receiving and how eager they were to learn every day. I learned from them how much time and energy it takes to affectively teach a concept and the amount of patience it takes to repeat the process again and again. I returned from the trip much more thankful for the effort my teachers and parents give day in and day out. Since our return from the island, my classmates and I have worked extremely hard to be resourceful and make the most of the opportunities given to us, because we have seen that those precious gifts do not come around every day. We are extremely appreciative for this service opportunity, and the life lessons we learned along the way. We pray each day that we will continue to be given the chance to rise to the occasion just as we did barely a month ago. Most of us have been accepted to colleges at this point and although we are moving on from the place that has given us so much, we will never forget the memories and the journey that changed our lives.
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