What Have I Been Up To?

First off, hello. It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve written one of these. Maybe it’s because we’ve been having arduous and stressful weeks, or maybe it’s because I’ve forgotten to write a few. Who knows.

Well in case you have lost track of our project, we’re currently in a very difficult spot. Most of our mangroves have died, and until a few weeks ago, watering them was becoming more and more of an issue as water supplies dropped. It was undoubtedly a moment of frustration for Rochelle and I, since it very much feels like we haven’t done Sebastian and Mayan’s legacy justice.

What I have been doing for the last weeks was thinking. I thought and thought of a way to make the mangroves justice. Because as Ms. Amy and I concluded, the most efficient way to do things right now would be to turn my failure into an awareness event. Awareness for water consumption, awareness for Mangrove health, awareness for Global Warming, Marine Life, plastic usage, natural disasters… there were a lot of ideas that I tried to develop and make plans for, but not one seemed to click right to me. I knew that deep down, all of these were great ideas, that would spark change and interest in environmental problems… It sucks that I had all these ideas and nothing to show for, but I just could not get myself to do it and I didn’t know why.

I figured it out, just the other day. I was trying to tackle why I couldn’t get myself to settle for the idea of an awareness event, and kept looking for solutions. It’s because I didn’t want to spit on those little mangroves’ graves. I’m not some great marketer; exploiting my own failure to create a community event, as if I had planned from doing so from the beginning makes me a little sick. I couldn’t bear to present myself as an advocate for environmental protection with the blood of our mangroves in my hands.

I blame my ego for it, 100%. I just couldn’t stand taking advantage of our mangroves dying to make myself seem like a brave teenager who cares about nature. And I understand how stupid that is, how absolutely nonsensical the whole concept of not doing what is best for the project because of my own personal insecurities.

I let the project become more than the Mangroves for me. I made it into a chance to prove myself, and I failed at that. From now on, I am going to put my selfhood aside and focus on what the project was really about in the first place: raising awareness about mangroves.

With that being said, I will begin planning an event effective immediately. I’ll draft some activities and some speeches/presentations to do in order to really engage our audience. I’ll stop being self centred and actually do some work for the project. Meanwhile, I already spoke to Bernabe and Anastassia/Jade about helping out with their projects. Bernabe insisted he did not need help, but with some pushing he admitted he could use and extra hand, and would tell me if something came up. As for the Terraza project, they were very happy to have someone volunteer to help. Apart from helping them with logistics and organising, I also volunteered to work at their event that will be happening this week; an offer that they have not replied to yet.

And that’s it; this is what i’ve been up to for the last few weeks. It may not seem like I did a lot of actual work (and that’s because I didn’t), but I assure you there is not one moment where I was not thinking about the future of our project.