Jeff and Elizabeth
coach and cheer as
Rosa learns to stand
on her surfboard.
Some of the girls will
never learn to surf,
but that’s not what
matters most.
Elizabeth is pleased
that the 16 girls who
participate in the
camp have an opportunity to do something new together,
as women.
than instruction and activity. Together we
are a bunch of girls, running around our
island in our bathing suits — surfing,
swimming, playing cards and telling stories
and waking up early and going to bed late
and eating healthy meals and then lots of
cookies. We don’t think about the rest of
the world for four days and three nights.
The last night of camp, after pouring sea
water and sand over the bonfire and taking
one last dip in the shallow lagoon, we pile
into the truck bed. A girl whispers, “I wish
I were more comfortable with my body.”
And she looks down at herself — at her
little thighs and sandy feet. Another girl
hears and replies, “We all wish we could
change things about ourselves, but we
can’t. … Oh, well!” And for an instant the
darkness around us is black only because
no other color or light or people exist outside of these girls and their lives and mine
— life is so interconnected, intertwined;
we sing together on the night ride home.
A mid-college crisis
The Pit preacher was angry and shouting garbled words at a thin undergraduate
standing underneath the tree. I was a sophomore at UNC, sitting on the steps by the
Daily Grind coffee shop as the grad students held office hours and the internationals sipped espresso. I sat with my head
in my hands, staring and feeling sad, like I
never wanted to move from that one spot,
as though I could stay there until the end
of forever and just watch the world fall
from the top of the wintry skeleton of the
tree and shatter over the preacher’s head.
I left for Nicaragua a few days later, after
I explained the trip to my mom, and then
my dad, when he was at our hunting camp
with friends, in high spirits, and he took it
OK. I didn’t leave him much time to
change his mind because I left the next
morning. My roommate found a note taped
to her computer — I’d be back in a week.
My first trip to Nicaragua, in November 2004, was an escape from structure and
schedule, from inland and academia, and
from normalcy. Feeling stagnant and
unmotivated, I went to my professors and
told them I needed to get away. I needed
to surf and be in the ocean because I
hoped it would make me feel like myself
again and somehow spark something in
me. I talked to John Brodeur, director of
Carolina Leadership Development and the
N.C. Fellows Program, and I spoke with
Ginger and Ben, friends in the Fellows
program, of which I was a part. They
encouraged me to explore and think of
ways to use surfing to inspire other people.
During my week in Nicaragua, I
decided I would start a surf camp. I had an
abstract vision and a lot of questions that
could be answered only with experience. I
didn’t know where to start the camp; I
wasn’t sure how the locals would respond
to a blonde American woman, and I spoke
no Spanish. I planned to take the following
summer to travel down the coast.
I told my parents I was meeting up with
some friends from Carolina who were
planning to travel south with me. That wasn’t entirely a lie. I knew I would see Jessi
and Rachel in Guatemala and maybe they
planned to travel south. My plan was to
study in a language school in Antigua,
Guatemala, for a few weeks. Then head
south down the coast somehow.
My first trip was
an escape from
structure and
schedule, from
inland and
academia, and
from normalcy.
Feeling
stagnant and
unmotivated,
I went to my
professors and
told them
I needed
to get away.
The road to comfortable
On a rainy day that next summer, I
stayed on the pay phone later than normal
after my Spanish class in Antigua, talking to
mom and dad and missing home and the
live oak trees on Bogue Sound near my
home. Mom was worried, so was dad and
my brother.
The rain stopped while I was on the
phone. I folded my umbrella and walked as
