Wales Reflection: Finding Beauty & Doing Good

I spent the weekend in the English version of The South- England’s very own Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and more mixed together- in a geographic location only about the size of New Jersey: Wales.

If I didn’t hate my annual high school debate tournaments being located in Kentucky, driving through Memphis back in middle school and dreadfully road tripping through Georgia for a weekend in Orlando enough already, the idea of returning to a similar place 4,242 miles away from the land of the free and home of the brave was not appealing. However, my pride joined my wallet in being broke as I saw the £25 price for going to Wales for a volunteering weekend. Compared to the Scotland trip which was 10 times the price, literally, just for travel expenses and rooming, £25 for all the same including free meals for the weekend was too good of an offer to pass off. More importantly besides food though, was the moral justification for going: volunteering by cutting down gorse bushes outside Brecon. With the cheap price and my love for volunteering coupled together, I embarked on the journey to Wales with enthusiasm Saturday morning.

Following my prior tradition of traveling across the UK, I immediately fell asleep after taking my seat in the coach. Also following in suite to prior experiences, I woke up 4 hours away in front of rolling fields of green rather than the entrance to Byron Court. Once I stepped off the charter bus, I was memorized at where we were staying: The Baskerville Hotel. The spot where the idea for the Sherlock Holmes book was originated. Even if you’re not a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, because honestly I am not, but it’s still fascinating to receive this once in a lifetime opportunity. The house itself is a diamond in a sea of emeralds; A beautiful house surrounded by even more beautiful rolling hills decorated in trees. I even had a few ideas for my own writings generate there.

The real “kicker” for Wales though, was the volunteering aspect. Now I know what you’re thinking: probably 5% of people volunteer because they actually want to volunteer, rather than build up their resume or even in this case have a cheaper trip to visit Wales. Initially i’ll be honest, I wanted to go just because i’d get to see Wales. I realized later even I was wrong.

The second day was volunteering day, or what began as Hell-on-Earth Day. We had to hike up a quite large “hill” (understatement) to reach the top where we would trim Gorse bushes for the local rangers. Though what most of us didn’t realize was A) there was no path up and B) it had been raining all weekend.

So as we climbed up the hill, a good group of people had already slipped in the mud or just barely escaped a fateful fall. When our expedition barely survived and made it to the top, we felt more alive than ever. Nothing in my life could ever compete to the view we saw together as mud covered students. We all took a moment to contemplate our lives before we began trimming the gorse bushes. Not a particularly easy task but it was all worth it watching a flamethrower burn the remains. Also, because we were so cold in addition to wet it felt extremely nice.

Once we were finished, we began the retreat down the hill right on queue for the rain. I mocked the others for their lack of dexterity going up and continued doing so until I slipped going downhill and turned my blue jeans into brown jeans. By the time we all reached the bus, we all felt relieved to be warm with our prepacked sandwiches and prepared to eat, or sleep, on the journey back to Byron court.

It wasn’t until I got to Byron Court I realized I already missed Wales. The opportunity volunteering which I didn’t give a lot of thought for, ended up being extremely important to me. The bushes we trimmed would eventually block off any path up the hill and even obstruct the beautiful view 1400ft up from sea level. It’s the kind of view we saw I will never forget, and I am happy to have helped other people in the future see such a view.

Maybe another time Wales, I know I’ll return.