To encourage all the current seniors in high school to take gap years, I've decided to ask everyone I know who's taking one to write a guest post about what they've been doing. There are endless possibilities as to what one can do with their year, and the variability will be better illustrated through the words of many. My dear friend Max, who will be attending Colorado College next fall, is our first contributer! We might even be lucky enough to have a follow up post from him! :)
I began my gap year in the tiny town of Dudley, NC, a place that, unless you're passionate about migrant worker justice, is highly missable.
I was volunteering with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), a union that works with migrant agricultural workers across the rural South and Mid-West. Right now FLOC is trying to publicly shame big tobacco companies into signing three-way agreements to unionize and end human rights abuses in their supply chains. It's surprisingly fun, as the object is to be as annoying as humanly possible in the hopes that the companies will finally relent. FLOC also does the day-to-day work of union contract administration (they have a union agreement with the North Carolina Growers Association, which covers about 10,000 workers, but there are many more that don't fall under that contract, which is why an agreement with the companies themselves is necessary), building membership and helping members resolve various issues.
While I was there (September 5th-November 17th) I lived alone in a trailer behind the office. During the day I worked in the office, often doing somewhat mind-numbing secretarial type work. In the evenings, I went out with an organizer on a camp visit, which meant going out to talk to workers where they live, trying to get them to join the union if they weren't members, seeing what problems they had if they were.
My time spent talking to workers made my experience there valuable. The workers live in decrepit housing, labor up to 12 or 13 hours a day picking tobacco or sweet potatoes in the blistering North Carolina heat, are away from their families for months and months, make a measly $10.32 an hour--if they're lucky enough to be with a grower who is compliant with the law, and yet they are, for the most part, upbeat and funny, grateful for whatever small wins the union can get them. They are also almost exclusively Mexican, so I got to work on my Spanish.
I also made friends with some of the little kids (ages 5-12) living in the the trailers neighboring mine. We played soccer when I wasn't working. A precocious and entertaining group, they gave me a window into the trials of being undocumented in the United States, and have made issues such as immigration reform and deferred action deeply personal to me.
Right now I’m now a world away from Dudley in more ways than one. For the past two months I've been living in Puerto Natales, Patagonia, Chile, a small, colorful, seaside town amid the sprawling mountains, rivers, glaciers, lakes, and seas of South America's wildest region.
I spent my first week backpacking in Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, a stunningly beautiful--if a bit overcrowded--place.
Now I work at a hostel here in the city, a lovely little place with space for 18. My coworkers, who are exclusively Chilean and Argentinean, are a fun bunch, and my time spent here is rarely dull--a nice change of pace from living alone in rural NC. My Spanish has made incredible leaps forward, and I've made some friends I hope will be lifelong, despite our impending 6,000 mile physical separation.
Tomorrow I leave for the first of a series of 4-6 backpacking trips that will define my February. My trip plans include another walk in Torres del Paine, a hike down to the tip of the American continent, a hike leaving even further south--from the world's southernmost town on Isla Navarino--called Dientes de Navarino, and a few days in a remote range of peaks near the Argentinian border. I've cobbled together various hiking partners, including friends who work in Torres and stay at our hostel during time off, one of my coworkers, and a tourist that came in to do laundry.
On March 3rd I'm heading home. For two months this place has been my home, these people my family, and while nothing could replace my real home and real family, nothing will replace this one either. Leaving is an inherently bittersweet experience, but I think in the duality of mourning what we leave behind and rejoicing what we take back with us, a greater understanding of people and places and what they mean to us is reached.
On March 21st I'm headed off again, to Tucson, AZ this time, where two of my friends and I will walk 800 miles through the deserts, canyon lands, and sky islands of Arizona and southern Utah, finishing in early June. It will undoubtedly be the grandest adventure of my life, although right now I'm not thinking much about it, trying instead to be present in Patagonia another month.
I was volunteering with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), a union that works with migrant agricultural workers across the rural South and Mid-West. Right now FLOC is trying to publicly shame big tobacco companies into signing three-way agreements to unionize and end human rights abuses in their supply chains. It's surprisingly fun, as the object is to be as annoying as humanly possible in the hopes that the companies will finally relent. FLOC also does the day-to-day work of union contract administration (they have a union agreement with the North Carolina Growers Association, which covers about 10,000 workers, but there are many more that don't fall under that contract, which is why an agreement with the companies themselves is necessary), building membership and helping members resolve various issues.
While I was there (September 5th-November 17th) I lived alone in a trailer behind the office. During the day I worked in the office, often doing somewhat mind-numbing secretarial type work. In the evenings, I went out with an organizer on a camp visit, which meant going out to talk to workers where they live, trying to get them to join the union if they weren't members, seeing what problems they had if they were.
My time spent talking to workers made my experience there valuable. The workers live in decrepit housing, labor up to 12 or 13 hours a day picking tobacco or sweet potatoes in the blistering North Carolina heat, are away from their families for months and months, make a measly $10.32 an hour--if they're lucky enough to be with a grower who is compliant with the law, and yet they are, for the most part, upbeat and funny, grateful for whatever small wins the union can get them. They are also almost exclusively Mexican, so I got to work on my Spanish.
I also made friends with some of the little kids (ages 5-12) living in the the trailers neighboring mine. We played soccer when I wasn't working. A precocious and entertaining group, they gave me a window into the trials of being undocumented in the United States, and have made issues such as immigration reform and deferred action deeply personal to me.
Right now I’m now a world away from Dudley in more ways than one. For the past two months I've been living in Puerto Natales, Patagonia, Chile, a small, colorful, seaside town amid the sprawling mountains, rivers, glaciers, lakes, and seas of South America's wildest region.
I spent my first week backpacking in Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, a stunningly beautiful--if a bit overcrowded--place.
Now I work at a hostel here in the city, a lovely little place with space for 18. My coworkers, who are exclusively Chilean and Argentinean, are a fun bunch, and my time spent here is rarely dull--a nice change of pace from living alone in rural NC. My Spanish has made incredible leaps forward, and I've made some friends I hope will be lifelong, despite our impending 6,000 mile physical separation.
Tomorrow I leave for the first of a series of 4-6 backpacking trips that will define my February. My trip plans include another walk in Torres del Paine, a hike down to the tip of the American continent, a hike leaving even further south--from the world's southernmost town on Isla Navarino--called Dientes de Navarino, and a few days in a remote range of peaks near the Argentinian border. I've cobbled together various hiking partners, including friends who work in Torres and stay at our hostel during time off, one of my coworkers, and a tourist that came in to do laundry.
On March 3rd I'm heading home. For two months this place has been my home, these people my family, and while nothing could replace my real home and real family, nothing will replace this one either. Leaving is an inherently bittersweet experience, but I think in the duality of mourning what we leave behind and rejoicing what we take back with us, a greater understanding of people and places and what they mean to us is reached.
On March 21st I'm headed off again, to Tucson, AZ this time, where two of my friends and I will walk 800 miles through the deserts, canyon lands, and sky islands of Arizona and southern Utah, finishing in early June. It will undoubtedly be the grandest adventure of my life, although right now I'm not thinking much about it, trying instead to be present in Patagonia another month.