Greetings from Denver, CO, Providence, RI and Cleveland, OH! We hope this letter finds all of you wrapping up your school years and getting excited for an amazing summer in the Caribbean. We are Thatcher Glode, Katie Hertzel, and Max Mor. We will be co-leading this summer's Bridge Caribbean program. We all are very excited to spend our summers with you in a beautiful tropical location doing a ton of interesting and fun activities while also getting a chance to work with local children and plan our very own summer camp. Now for a bit about us...
Thatcher: I am 29 years old. I am currently living in Denver, CO but have resided the last 5 years in Jackson Hole, WY. I grew up in Denver and attended Colorado College where I majored in International Political Economy. I am an avid enjoyer of all things outdoors and active and the past four winters I have worked in a group home for high school students where I served as a counselor. I love to ski and fly-fish and most of my time off finds me engaging in either one of these pursuits. During my time at CC I had the great fortune to participate in the Semester at Sea program that allowed me to circumnavigate the globe on a refurbished cruise ship while visiting 16 different nations and studying on board the ship. It was truly a life-changing experience and fostered within me a passion for travel and experiential education. I have been fortunate to travel internationally a great deal since then visiting China, South America, Eastern Europe, and I recently returned from a trip visiting Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. I am officially addicted to travel and the experiential education process we undergo when visiting new locales and meeting people from all over the world and sharing our culture, views, and collective experiences.
I found Windsor Mountain in 2005 and have found creative ways to have a couple months of my summer free to work for this incredible organization since then. I started off leading trips on the Hawaii program in summers 2006 and 2007. On this program we visited 3 different islands in Hawaii, camped on some beautiful beaches, and did community service projects with the Molokai Youth Center, running a summer program for students on the island. We were privileged to hike, snorkel, swim, and spend quality time with Hawaiians from whom we learned about the culture and history of the islands. Summers 2008, 2009, and 2010 (or winters in the case of South Africa) found me leading the Bridge Southern Africa program for Windsor Mountain. On this program we visited South Africa, Swaziland, and Lesotho and did challenging community service projects, worked with hundreds of children, learned about the HIV/Aids epidemic in Southern Africa, hiked in the Drakensburg mountains, visited and stayed in the Soweto township outside of Johannesburg. We stayed in youth hostels and backpackers lodges throughout our program—much different than the accommodations we’ll have on St. Vincent and Bequia. Each of these programs was challenging and rewarding in their own way just as I am sure the Caribbean will be this summer. I can’t wait to meet all of you guys and start our own adventure this summer!
Katie: I am 25 years old, and I’ve spent 24 of those years where I was born and raised, in a small suburb of Cleveland, OH. I worked in a coffee shop for a few years, which provided me the opportunity to interact with a diverse crowd of people from all over the world. I fell in love with listening to stories of life experiences with many of my customers, which sparked my interest in culture and desire to explore as much of the world as I can. I attended Baldwin-Wallace College and majored in Biology. My focus was ecology, as I love the studying the complexity and interconnectedness of life on our planet. My undergraduate research project was focused on park management strategies to preserve biodiversity. This past year I moved to Huntsville, TX where I taught outdoor education to intercity fifth grade students. Our classes focused on science and history, but the most rewarding teaching opportunities were about diversity, acceptance and friendship. In my time off, I can often be found setting out on adventures in the city or wandering around the woods, looking under rocks and logs in search of insects and other great treasures. To me, life is all about the experience of the journey, and I have set out on multiple adventures across the U.S. with destinations to the Grand Canyon, Acadia National Park in Maine, Albuquerque NM, Denver, CO and Milwaukee, WI, to name a few. This is my first experience with Windsor Mountain, and I am excited to meet you. This summer is going to be a fantastic ride, and I cannot wait to begin our journey!
Max: I’ve just reached the ripe old age of 22, and have spent much of that time hopping around the globe. I was born in Providence Rhode Island, and spent most of my childhood there. I attended Dalhousie University in Halifax Nova Scotia and studied Spanish and Economics. In my spare time I focused all of my energy on two things, recording and mixing music, and planning my next adventure. Those endeavors have left me with a hard drive full of interesting musical experiments, and a lifetime of incredible international experiences. I LOVE to travel, and have done so most every year of my life, but the way in which I travel was influenced heavily by Windsor Mountain.
I came to Windsor Mountain when I was 13 years old, had blue hair, and thought I knew just about everything there was to know. After 8 incredible summers with Windsor Mountain, I’ve changed quite a bit. When I was 16 I was a student on the 2006 Bridge Caribbean program (led by Jim Whitmore and Lizzie Baker), a program very similar to the one you will be participating in this year. I can honestly say that program forever changed the way I viewed travel. Windsor Mountain taught me to be more than a tourist—to immerse myself in the local culture, take the time to really get to know the local people, and give something meaningful back to the community. I returned to Windsor Mountain as a Staff member two years later and eventually joined International Student Travel last year to lead Bridge Caribbean 2010 with Adam Aronovitz and Kate Berge. That was a truly incredible trip, which opened my eyes to yet another way to travel. I can’t begin to tell you guys how excited I am to be leading Bridge Caribbean again. This will be a unique and wonderful trip and I can’t wait to see all of you in New Hampshire.
From all of us: We are full-fledged believers in community service-based traveling and really enjoy the way that we structure our programs at Windsor Mountain.
Here’s a bit of information for this summer and a few tips to help you get ready: Prepare to be physically and emotionally challenged. We will have some long days that find us working with young children who have seemingly endless amounts of energy. We will see some beautiful sites this summer meet both children and adults who have endured incredible difficulties. You will never forget their smiles and the stories they share with us, but it can be challenging at times to witness the hardships they have endured. We will have some days with early mornings, hot weather, interesting foods, and late nights... it can be absolutely exhausting and having a positive flexible attitude and encouraging others around you to do the same can make all the difference in the world. We will also be meeting a lot of different folks, experiencing many different cultures, and in the past our programs have had students from all different parts of the world— we are all fortunate to be able to have this opportunity to travel together and experience all that the Caribbean has to offer.
Practical Tips:
1) It is going to be hot and humid! Prepare to drink lots of water and stay hydrated every day. We will do our best to keep cool and hope to swim in the crystal clear waters as much as we can,
and remember, there is nothing more refreshing than a fresh ripe mango.
2) Pack light! We will have a large group so space might be somewhat tight when we are moving around the islands. We will have a few opportunities to do laundry along the way and as we mentioned it is going to be warm so we won’t need too many heavy clothes.
3) Read up a bit on the Caribbean- specifically try to learn a little bit more about St. Vincent and Bequia where we will be spending the majority of our program. Check out Wikipedia and some books at the local library to familiarize with the people and politics of the regions we will visit. Although Vincentians speak English, it will probably be a very different dialect than what you have ever heard before, and some of you may have a hard time understanding it at first. Try to listen to as much reggae as you can before the trip, not only to get into the island vibe, but to begin to develop an ear for the Caribbean dialect and accent.
4) Be flexible... Angus has done an outstanding job of developing our program and we have a ton of awesome activities planned but sometimes things change a bit- it is important that you are able to "go with the flow" when we end up having a picnic on the day we were supposed to go on a hike, etc ... Things in the islands don’t always happen exactly as they are planned, meals might sometimes challenge you but we will do our best to accommodate all dietary needs... to sum up, an open mind is an extremely valuable asset when traveling.
5) In the next month try to spend some time thinking about your personal goals for our journey. What do you hope to get out of this program and more importantly what do you hope to leave behind in the Caribbean? As you know, a huge portion of our program involves designing, implementing, and running a summer camp program for the children of St. Vincent and Bequia. Please be prepared with at least 10 ideas for activities you could lead as part of the summer
camp program. We will be working with teenage youth as well as younger kids so keep that in mind as you brainstorm your list that you’ll bring along. These could be games, songs, arts and crafts activities—just about anything else you would feel comfortable sharing and teaching to our group to lead.
6) Prepare to savor every moment because the summer will go by very fast. You will make amazing friends in a short period of time both within and outside of our group.
We can't tell you how excited we are to meet all of you! The experiences students and leaders have had on Bridge Caribbean in the past few years have been safe, challenging, and extremely rewarding. We look forward to another awesome summer.
Until July, Thatcher Glode, Max Mor, and Katie Hertzel
