During the first month of The World Race my team and I partnered with a ministry called The Philippine Christian Foundation in the dumps of Manila. Imagine a large dump where 90% of the trash in the Philippines goes. Five thousand people live there because collecting trash and plastic is their best shot at an income and survival. We worked in a school right in the middle of the dump, started by a woman from the UK named Jane Walker.
We didn’t know what to expect going in. Without being there, there is no way to help you understand the overwhelming smell that greets you as you enter, the mud and grime that everyone wades around in, or the smoke that makes it hard to breathe. There is no way to describe the harsh realities they face, that when you look into their small homes there is literally NOTHING there, that disease and infection and starvation are more rampant than my small mind can comprehend. But there is also no way to describe the thing I least expected to find there – and that is their JOY.
Oh, how I loved the people that I found there. They loved me and challenged me in so many ways. Their lives and outlook defied so much of what I was taught in America. Wealth does not bring happiness. Knowledge and understanding are helpful, but they do not always make people better persons. One can literally not know where their food is coming from the next day, and yet give you everything they have…because they want to.
One of my favorite people I met there was a man named Pastor Nell. He had a deep wisdom and faith that shook up my idea of what faith even is. He was constantly asking how we were and trying to make us feel at home, and in his impoverished state was freely giving his time to teach the technological skills he had to teenagers in the school. On top of that, he had adopted a baby girl when he wasn’t even sure how he was going to feed his own family. In America we might call him foolish, but somehow by God’s grace he had everything he needed each day.
My team and I spent time making relationships with the children and helping build a library in the school with all of the books that had been donated to the school over the years. It was mundane and dirty work – imagine moldy, wet books and boxes of books that hadn’t been touched in years – we never knew what kind of critters we would find! But it was all worth it. Now the children can use the books, and I hope each of them will be able to read them too.
Currently The Philippine Christian Foundation is trying to end child labor in the dump by providing schooling for the children. They are building classrooms out of recycled shipping vans to create enough space to do this. If you would like to give towards their efforts or learn more you can visit their website: http://pcf.ph.
Why do we train dolphins? There are actually quite a few reasons why dolphins in human care are trained. First of all, there are safety reasons. Throughout the year, thousands of people pass through The Dolphin Connection getting the opportunity to meet our dolphins. Dolphins, amongst themselves, play quite roughly with one another. In short, it is okay to bite your friends and family members if you are a dolphin. Training the dolphins allows us to provide our guests with safe interactions where the dolphins remain gentle around them. 
How do you train a dolphin? Positive reinforcement is a very powerful tool that we utilize. Think of it this way, you do something good and you receive your favorite treat, which then increases the chance that you are going to do what you just did again in order to receive that treat again! Obviously, the best treat for a dolphin would be their fish. When our dolphins are young, 3 to 6 months of age, they are fed after hearing a crisp blast that comes from our trainer’s whistle. By pairing the whistle with their fish, we are teaching the dolphin that the whistle is a positive thing. After all, once they hear the whistle they get fish. 
For the past year I have lived out of a backpack, and I kind of miss it. I don’t miss living out of a backpack per se, but I miss the lifestyle that came along with the pack. After I graduated from Elon in May of 2008, I participated in a program called “The World Race.” In September 2008 I jumped into a group of fifty strangers, was put on a team of seven (we joked we had been put in an arranged marriage to six other people) and traveled around the world doing mission work. We would stay in each country for about a month, and then move on. 
There are still times when these faces and their heartaches haunt me. I stumble upon something in a magazine or online, or just look around a single small room and remember how in most places of the world whole families would live in that space. I realize how blessed I am materially, and yet also realize there is so much I have to learn from those I met. They taught me so much about faith, giving without restraint, servanthood and humility. I want to be like them. 
While growing up, I always had a very strong determination that I was going to become a Dolphin Trainer. Little did I know just how hard getting my “dream job” would be. Entering Elon, I thought I had it all figured out, however, there was not a major set up just for my career that laid out an exact path to reaching my dream, like going through the Education program to become a teacher. Using my opportunities in the past to find out the best educational path to take to become a trainer, I decided to major in Psychology. 
Like any other college student I participated in an internship to get a feel for the career. Unlike any other college student, my internship experience required me to work with cold, dead, slimy, fish! I quickly learned that the dream job I had always viewed as such a glamorous position, was not as glamorous as it appeared. I would say the glamor is only 25% of the job! The other 75% is cleaning, prepping fish, and maintaining the environment around where the animals live. However, I stuck with it, and a couple months after my internship ended, I got the break of my life.
I completed my graduation requirements in January 2009 (after an amazing winter term abroad in Barbados). I spent the next few months “starting” my job search. I could have never guessed how difficult that was going to be. I utilized every job search engine that was out there…CareerBuilder, Monster, Craigslist, Yahoo, etc. I instantly fell in love with Indeed.com. The website combines every job search engine into one and you can make your search as specific or vague as possible. What’s even better is that whenever you enter into the website it automatically pulls up your most recent searches and includes any new job posts that would fit under your category. Perfect, right? 
