Internship Shenanigans

This weekend was quite an adventure.  For those of you that do not know, or do not remember, I am doing an internship at Wild Mountains, which is a non-profit organization that helps teach people about the environment and reconnect them to their surroundings. 

To start out with, I had to go to Brisbane to meet with the girls who I would be interning with so that we could all drive up to the mountains together.  My friend Sarah decided to join me in my excursion in hopes that if we get lost, then we get lost together and can help each other get unlost. 

Starting the day off right: with a selfie.

Just a look out into the city.

Besides figuring out the Brisbane bus system, we finally found our way to the meeting point with the girls.  Even though I was a few minutes late, I was still the first to meet up with Miranda who was the one driving us up to the mountains.  It was fun because all of the girls were all so fun and kind and instantly a friend.  

Once we got the other two girls, we finally made out way up to Wild Mountains.  We were worried because the organization told us to call them as soon as we left Brisbane, but we could not get through to them through phone or e-mail, and we needed to contact them before we lost cell service and so that they could decipher when we would be there so that they could come pick us up.  The road is a steep dirt road that only 4WD can get up, and even if you have it they suggest leaving your car down at the bottom.  We decided to keep driving and hope that they would call us back or that we could reach them in advance. 

As we got closer to the area that we would lose service, we decided to call again.  This time we got through, but we were talking to someone who had no idea what was going on, but thankfully it all worked out and as we reached the bottom of the dirt road we were able to meet up with the person picking us up to bring us to the top. 

The end of the steep road.  The sign said "Welcome Earthkeepers"

The first night was very relaxing.  They gave us dinner when we get there, which was a pasta pie and some salad.  After dinner they wanted us to stay and play some games, but we were all tired and decided to go to our tent and get our stuff set up and sleep.  We slept in some A-Frame tents that were fairly big and could fit a few people.  The four of us girls slept in one and didn’t seem to have too much of a problem with space. 

The first day was a lot of work.  We woke up in the morning and got some food in us before heading out to start work.  We started out with a lot of yard work and weeding.  Our supervisors are building a house for them and their son, so they are trying to clear out weeds in the area and plant trees.  We surprisingly got a lot done in the couple of hours that were there.  I also helped with getting water up to one of the tanks higher up on the mountain so that there was enough water for us to use for showers and dish cleaning.  We got a little break in the middle of our weeding: “Morning Tea.”  We were able to sit around, try to find shade, and grab something to eat and drink.  We sat inside the house that is being built and we got to learn a bit about it.  The house is made out of Bali Straw.  Apparently it is strong enough for a house and it is very sustainable.  It is like hay, but it is not food, so animals will not eat it.  They have the straw up as a wall barrier and have some areas picked out for the bedrooms, bathroom, and study room.  It seems like an amazing idea to be sustainable!

The views during the morning were spectacular!

This is the hill that we had to weed.

We cleared out the weeds and put down straw to make it look nicer.

Nice walks around the mountain

This is where we worked all morning.  This is the house that they are building and the extra straw that they have not used yet.

A closer view of the house.

The inside of the house, and the view of the rooms that they will be building.  This is the "back door."

Did you also know that the toilets that they use do not use any form of water?  It’s basically a deep hole and whenever you go you pour down a scoop full of sawdust.  The saw dust is carbon and helps decompose everything.  It only takes a few days to decompose.  I told my mom everything I learned about decomposing.  She has some boxes in the back yard that will help decompose, but it has never worked.  She even tried to put cut grass in it, but it still hasn’t worked.  I learned that grass does not have enough carbon in it and it needs to be stuff like straw or sawdust.  It also needs to be oxygenated and turned around a bit to keep it from sitting too long and only having the top being decomposed.  It really should not be a long process, but it needs heat and carbon to do the job right.

Anyways, after lunch we went back out to the same area we were in.  A few of the volunteers that were up there helped take out a weed called Lantana.  It is a weed that grows big and has roots that grow down and strangle roots of other plants and trees in the soil.  It’s a weed that is very pokey, so we were told to wear long pants and sleeves.  We were also going more into the bush, so there was more of a chance for ticks.  A couple of us freaked out about the thought of having a tick on us, but we had to do the work anyways.  The girls that I came up with and I actually went over and watered some trees that had been planted.  It was a bit of work since they were on a steep hill, but we managed to get it done.  Then we went up into the bush to help find lantana and pull it out.  After that we helped move a 200 kilogram piece of concrete to the opposite side of the house.  It took a lot of teamwork, patience, and strategy to move the piece of concrete, but by using the rules of physics we managed to get the piece to where it was intended to be. 

On our way to work again.  Grabbing some water for the trees!

Miranda watering some of the trees

Some of the girls taking out the lantana

The concrete block we had to move

It was all about teamwork...

...And strategy

Ta Da!

Finally we were done for the day and able to go home and eat and relax.  We decided to walk back since we drove there and only had one truck with.  Unfortunately, though, we ended up taking one slightly wrong path and went down into the rainforest.  It was getting really dark and we seemed to be going nowhere since we kept going downhill.  We finally decided to turn around and head back before it got pitch black outside, and we managed to find the right trail.  We were only 2 minutes away from the campsite, but it took us a bit longer than expected due to the detour. 

The sunset over Mt. Lindsey

We were able to shower up and enjoy dinner. We relaxed and played some card games later that night and finally headed to bed.  I slept like a baby until 2 AM, and that is when everything seemed to come crashing down on us.

I woke up to some itching and pinpoint pain in my back that night.  I kept scratching it while I was half asleep, but finally decided to feel it.  It felt like a bump, and I told myself it was either a mosquito bite or the most dreaded moment: a tick.  I tried to forget about it and just sleep through the night and figure it out in the morning, but the pain kept coming and was getting worse.  It wasn’t a bad pain, but it sure wasn’t something I wanted to sleep with all night.  I finally decided to wake one of the girls up and ask her to have a look.  Unfortunately, since we were all so tired, she could not understand what I was saying when I was whispering.  I was trying to not wake the other girls up, but I finally asked her in a regular voice if she could look at my back, and they finally started to move around.  She turned on a light, and sure enough I had a tick in my back.  A big one, to be exact. 

I started to freak out.  I couldn’t just leave a tick in my back for the rest of the night.  I wanted that thing out of me.  Of course, none of us knew about how to take a tick out, so I decided to go wake up one of the other volunteers in another tent.  She had taken out 3 already that day, so I assumed she knew what she was doing.

One of the girls and I walked over to the tent and woke her up, but unfortunately ended up waking up the whole tent, instead.  She rolled over to the door in her sleeping bag and looked at my back.  She was willing to help me get it out, but she, however, did not have her tweezers with her in the tent and she was unsure about how to pull it out.

One of the volunteers in the tent decided to come over and look at it. She said she had finger nails and would try to just pull it out.  I started to cry at this point.  I knew that ticks would sometimes get pulled out with the head still in the person’s body and this was the last thing I wanted to happen.  It also hurt.  I just wanted it to be gone.  It took the girl one try to pull it out though, so it wasn’t bad.  I thanked them and went back to our tent.  After this incident, though, I was too scared to go back to bed.  I didn’t want to have more ticks in my sleeping bag or something and get another one while I slept.  Plus my back still hurt.  I ended up sending my parents an e-mail and played on my phone for a little bit before I was able to sleep 2 hours after pulling out the tick.  However, we woke up just 2 hours shortly after me falling back sleep.  We woke up to a lot of rustling, and found out we had a rat in our tent.  We started to freak out because we did not want it chewing through our bags.  We tried to ignore it and fall back asleep, but it kept crawling around.  We discovered it was above us and so one of the girls hit the ledge above us really hard.  It moved around, but it sounded like it was falling down on us, so of course we all screamed and took cover under our sleeping bags.  The rat finally stopped making sounds so we attempted to sleep again, but at 7 it woke us up again, and at this point we would have to be awake in 30 minutes anyways, so we decided to pack up everything and clean out the tent and just leave to the kitchen and dining area to get ready for the day. 

Of course, everyone heard about our adventures that night, or they were woken up by them.  Our supervisor looked at my back to see how the tick bite looked.  To everyone’s amazement, I barely had anything on my back, which surprised everyone because of how big the tick was.  They came to the conclusion that it was in my hair, and since I only rinsed in the shower and did not wet my hair, it stayed in my hair and started to dig in while I was sleeping.  With that being said, that is probably why it wasn’t too hard to pull out that night.  They do not think it had dug too far in and therefore I had little reaction to it.  Either way, I know I never want to deal with a tick again.  I am so happy it was on my back where I could not see it because I do not know how I would react if I had actually seen it. 

Sunday morning we did some more planting, but this time it was somewhere else.  They told us there was little chance of there being ticks in the area, so that relieved me.  We planted some trees and plants and watered a lot of the trees and plants that had been planted by previous volunteers.  Since I hardly slept the night before and because we worked so hard the day before, I was worn out before lunch and could not wait to leave and sleep once I got home.  Oh, I was also excited to shower and get a deep clean.

The view from the worksite on Sunday morning

We watered and planted many of the trees and plants in here.  They are wrapped in plastic because it helps create its own moist climate for the plants.

Our view from the trip down the mountain.

The solar panels that power the entire campsite, warm the water, and give electricity.

We left just a little after lunch and it was kind hard to leave.  Everyone is such a family up there.  Everyone came around and gave us hugs and were waving us goodbye.  It’s amazing how a little community could feel so much like a family or a good friend. 

Anyways, after a long weekend I couldn't wait to sleep and relax in my village.  As dirty as it may be sometimes, and as"unhomely" as it could feel, it finally seemed like home to me, and I couldn't wait to be back. 

My absolute favorite pano picture from the first morning we worked.  We were in such a gorgeous area!