The hustle and bustle started to increase in the airport. I started staring at the clock. It was reaching 5:30 am on a Monday and my eyes grew heavier by the second. I didn’t really know what I was walking into. It’s been 6 years since I’ve seen my mom’s family, and to be frank, I wasn’t looking forward to it.
I was in a cold and intensified sweat. Something within me was telling me to open my mind, but it was as if the door was jammed. I tried to recall all my memories from the last time I had been there. The smooth air started to trickle through my nose and I felt my body starting to release the tension as the waves from Las Cuevas ocean whispered subtly in my ear.
It was now time. As I got more comfortable in the window seat of the airplane, my mind started to drift away and as soon as I knew it, we had arrived. My family and I were picked up and we arrived at my mother’s family’s home.
In 2017, I traveled back to Trinidad & Tobago with my family and I wasn’t as aware of my surroundings. I was more at bliss than cognizance. Now returning, the reluctant trip soon turned into a transformational experience in understanding my positionality, my peers and our world’s interactions with the environment.
Our first adventure with my relatives was to experience the Nylon pool in Tobago. We were all elated at the mysteriously natural phenomenon of a shallow pool in the middle of the ocean. Once the boats carried us aboard, we immediately jumped into the lukewarm salty waters. After a few minutes of play, I started to notice something strange. I felt something rubbing against the soles of my feet. I reached down to pick up what felt like a ridged rock.
A pit in my stomach started to formulate as I stared at the desolated coral. I dropped it in the water, trying to fade the harsh memory away. But, as I kept walking deeper into the ocean, I felt more of the coral calling for me to give them attention: to show that they are seen. These pieces of coral are of many pieces that break off from the great Buccoo Reef. These are just testimonials to the ever increasing problem of climate change.
Climate change is an ever growing disease that is affecting millions of inhabitants and organisms of developing countries. My family and many other native people are getting hit harder with the intensities of flash floods, hurricanes and more natural disasters that eradicate ecosystems and kill thousands.
More specifically, coral bleaching is nothing new to the natives of small island developing states. The Ministry of Planning and Development of Trinidad and Tobago discusses the occurrences from 2005 and 2010 of bleaching on top of climate change impacts, stating,” These events resulted in the widespread…coral death around Tobago. During the bleaching event in 2010, many reefs in Tobago suffered extensive loss of hard coral cover.”
We only have one Earth and we have free will to choose to take care of it or destroy it. We all have to realize that this is our only home and that we don’t have a “Plan B” planet. It is imperative to repair damages done to our ecosystems before they become irreparable.
Both individual action and collaboration between governments and corporations is necessary to prohibit irreversible damage to our ecosystems. Maintaining openness to new experiences can reveal needed growing experiences: like understanding the importance of green solutions. If we incorporate the necessary habits to become more environmentally friendly then there will be active visible change.
On the flight back home, my mind raced with the memories of my tropical adventures. I remembered waking up in the morning and hearing the roosters calling out to the whole world. Seeing the little fishes swim and play past my feet as I walked into the shallow warm waters. Laying on my back in the middle of the calm waves; feeling it sway my body back and forth, further into the sea. I stared up at the beautiful sky. Life is nothing without our beautiful something; Our Earth.
