Day 1 - Saturday July 4

Saturday morning I woke up in such excitement. The day had finally come, it was the 4th of July, the day I would be heading to Jamaica! I woke up around 4 AM that morning. My flight to Paris would depart at 7:15 AM, so we had to leave my house at around 5 AM. Since I was awake anyways and still had some time left, I took the chance to write my friends and family a little message on Facebook.

I had been looking out for this day for months and I had worked so hard for the past few months to get the money together to be able to pay for this voluntary project. I took a job and did many chores but that still wasn't enough to pay for it all. Luckily I have two of the best parents in the world, who were willing to pay along with me but even then I couldn't get my part of the payment together. Hence I asked my family and friends if they could help me out by donating money and sponsoring me during my participation in the Color Run. It was amazing to see how supportive all of my friends and family were! Even some colleagues from my mother wanted to sponsor me and some of my father's American colleagues wanted to sponsor me as well (even though I had never met them). On top of that, I received a message from my host family from 3 years ago when we made a trip to England with school and they said that they were proud of what I was about to do and therefore were more than willing to sponsor me too! I was so amazed by the generosity of all these people, and I thought it was really cool that I got support from almost all over the world. To me, this was definitely worth a special "thank you".

So at 4 o' clock in the morning I wrote the following on my Facebook page:

Thank You! Thank you to everyone who supported and helped me in the months leading up to this day. Thank you to those who sponsored me and donated money to make it possible for me to take part in this building project at the Old England primary school in Jamaica. There are absolutely no words that could show how much I appreciate all of these sponsors and donators; Without all of you, it would not have been possible for me to make this trip. Thank you so much everyone! Furthermore, I'd like to thank my friends, who were there for me all the time, who listened to my endless talking about Jamaica, who counted down with me to this specific day and who joined me in the Colour Run to raise money and have an absolutely awesome day. Thank you guys, you are amazing! And lastly, but definitely not the least, I'd like to thank my family and in particular my parents. My parents were and still are my biggest support and inspiration for my voluntary trip to Jamaica. They helped me through every process of the time leading up to today, from visiting open days to signing up to this project; from raising money to packing my (way too big) suitcases, haha. My parents were willing to pay along a big part of the money needed for this project, they supported me in every decision I made, they helped me to come up with new ways of raising money. They were there for me whenever I needed them and they showed me love and gave me comfort at the moments I needed it the most. I have no idea how I could ever thank my parents for all that they do for me and for allowing me to make this trip, that I am sure, will change my life forever. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I love you so much mom and dad, I am going to miss you a lot, but we will keep in to contact as much as possible. I am going to get ready now and will come back to you all shortly! Have an amazing day and a lovely vacation everyone and don't forget: Don't worry, be happy!

After writing this message I got ready and woke my parents (and the rest of the house). My brother couldn't come along with us, because he wasn't feeling to well, but my sister did came along. I double-checked everything and put my suitcases into the back of the car. At around 5 AM we left the house, and all the way to Schiphol (which was only a 15 minute drive) I couldn't stop smiling. We parked our car in the parking lot and walked towards the airport. We immediately walked to the check-in desk where I checked in my suitcases, and checked myself in as an UM (Unaccompanied Minor, which basically meant that since I was a minor traveling alone, I would be guided at the airports). We walked over to the UM lounge where I met my guide, Joyce. It was then time to go to the security check, but before that I had to say goodbye to my parents. All this time I had been smiling, but when my mom broke down into tears as she hold me tight into her arms, I couldn't help myself and cried too. Then I hugged my father and little sister (still crying) and then walked along with Joyce to the security check where they checked my bag and I had to go through the body scan. I waved my family goodbye for the last time and then we made our way to the gate. Joyce was a really nice woman, she told me she lived in Nieuw-Vennep and had two kids of her own. She said that she could understand how my parents must have felt as they had to say goodbye to their little girl. She then asked me where I was about to go to and I told her I was going to do some voluntary work on a building project in Jamaica. She was truly amazed by what I told her and she said that she admired what I was about to do. We talked some more as we waited at the gate and I asked her how long she had been guiding UM's at Schiphol and whether she liked her job. She then told me something beautiful, which I will never forget. She said that she had been working at Schiphol for a while now and she really loved her job because according to her "the airport is like the world, but then in miniature". She explained to me that she gets to see people from all over the world, everyday, who all have their own nationalities, stories, languages and cultures. That made her experience new parts of the world every day. I had never looked at airports like that before, but I truly loved what she said.

It was then time to start boarding. Since I was a UM, I could get on the plane first, together with a man in a wheelchair. However, the shutter in the gateway to the plane wouldn't open so we had to enter the plane via the platform and then via the stairs at the back of the plane. I then got guided to my seat, where later a family would sit down next to me. My flight to Paris was quite short, and not very interesting since I had no one to talk to and did not have a seat at the window. When we arrived in Paris I got guided by Louis. However, it took a while before he guided me to the next gate since it turned out that there were two guys on the plane who carried guns in their luggage, but the French airport did not get a report of this, so it became a bit of a problem and the police had to come. Apparently these guys were heading to Sierra Leona where they would work as body guards for some important people which is why they carried the guns. But, I don't know how this all ended, since Louis then guided me to the gate. From Paris I would be heading to New York. It was the 4th of July, which is the American day of Independence. The flight attendants therefore did a little performance before everyone got on the plane. Again I got on the plane as the first and got guided to my seat. A 19 years-old guy named Jackson David from Seattle took a seat next to me. He told me that he had visited Greece for two weeks with two of his friends who were on their honeymoon together and that he was now heading home. During this nine hour flight we got to know each other a little bit and played some games together on our flight screens. I had a really pleasant and fun flight with Jackson's company and in my experience, this flight had flown by really fast.

When I arrived in New York, I got guided by a woman to the security check and to the pick-up point for my suitcases. We then checked-in my suitcases at another point and walked over to another check-in desk, where I got myself checked-in. I was then taken by Sam, who guided me to the gate. Again I got guided to my seat, but this time there were four other UM's. One of them, the 9 years-old Cameron came to sit next to me. She was a Jamaican girl but lived partly in the US with her mom. At first she seemed like a really nice girl, but after a while she started to like me a little bit too much and she became absolutely nuts. I was really tired at that point since I had been traveling for almost 20 hours by then, but this girl just kept on talking to me, and she was singing and made her own "Cameron-show" in which she told the worst jokes and made all kinds of funny faces. This girl didn't know how to stop and I had to sit next to her for over 3 hours....

When we finally arrived in Jamaica, I had to wait pretty long because my guide had to fill out all kinds of papers for the other UM's. We then walked over to the security check where they asked me what I was about to do in Jamaica, how long I would be staying there and with whom I would be staying. After I answered all the question and she approved them, I got my suitcases from the belt and had to let them check. Then once that was done, I could finally go outside where the group of other volunteers were waiting.

The moment I stepped outside, I felt like I walked into a sauna. It was so warm and humid, which was a big contradiction to the cool airport where I just walked out of. Once outside, I met the taxi driver and joined the other volunteers. We walked over to the taxi where we stuffed all the suitcases of the 10 volunteers into the back of the van and then stuffed ourselves into it. It was really crowded and a little strange. It seemed like a big part of the group already knew each other as they were speaking in French to each other all the time, which of course, I did not understand. There were two other guys in front of me, who did not say anything at all. Luckily, there were two other girls Kaat and Sanne who were from Belgium and they spoke Dutch too. Luckily however, at some point everyone started to talk English and we got to know each other a little bit. Most of the volunteers were from the Care and Sports program, but there was one other guy, Simon, who was working on the building project just like me (and believe it or not, he had dreadlocks too!). It was a long drive, but a really pleasant one. We drove along the mountains and it was kind of dark already, so you could see all the lights from the houses on the mountains which looked so beautiful and it had something magical to it. With the wind in my hair, driving along the winding roads and through the woods in our jeep-kind of van and with the sound of the crickets, I really felt like I was driving through the jungle. It was a really long drive and everyone was getting tired, so at some point everyone just fell asleep. I wanted to keep my eyes open to see this beautiful country, but I just simply couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. When we finally arrived in Mandeville after a drive of almost 3 hours, we had to bring all the volunteers to their host families. I was the one-to-last person to be brought to their host family so I finally arrived at Unika's house when it was after 12 o'clock in the night. Unika had stayed up all the time, so just like me she was really tired. But despite that, she welcomed me with a big Jamaican smile and showed me around in her house. She then brought me to my room and we both got ready to go to bed. We decided that it was better to talk and get to know each other in the morning. So after traveling for over 25 hours, I had finally arrived at my host family and I could get some proper sleep.

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