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What an Amazing Experience!
At Global Explorers we encourage all of our board members to travel with a student group at least once. In this way we can each have a first person understanding of the life changing experiences that our programs provide for students. As a board member I had this experience several years ago when I traveled with Global Explorers to the Baja Peninsula of Mexico.
This group of travelers was different from the typical GEx group in that we included several families—parents traveling with their own children. We stayed at a sustainable lodge that had minimal impact on the environment. We explored the desert ecology (it was so hot that we actually did fry an egg outside on a stone) and viewed magnificent night skies. We did a research project on the biodiversity of the beach ecology and visited with local families in their villages. We kayaked in the very salty Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortez) and paddled out to a remote island. There we snorkeled along the coast, studied the ecology of the tide pools, and camped overnight. We saw some amazing animals, including the bioluminescence of microorganisms that light up the sea at night.
These were all amazing experiences for students, teachers, and parents alike. But what has stayed with me most deeply from this trip were conversations I had with one mom. She said that she had come on the trip to have a wonderful bonding experience with her child and found herself instead constantly letting her go to have amazing, independent, and growth-filled adventures of her own. She described watching her daughter grow up before her very eyes. They returned home with mom’s realizing and experiencing, as she hadn’t before, her daughter’s curiosity and intelligence, her independence and individuality, and most importantly her potential to make great contributions to the world she was growing up in. What an amazing experience for parent and child!
By: Louis LaRocco, GEx Board Member
