This weekend I had the privilege to be part of what can be the magic of peace corps. We all suffer from frustration, things moving way slower than we could have ever dreamed possible, and the constant feeling as if we aren't doing enough, or at the end of the day (or our service) we won't have made any lasting impact. We are worried our programs will disappear as we move back home, that the people we work with will regress to their old ways, and as time ticks quickly away, we fear that 2 years really isn't enough time, we need more to get the real buy in and real sustainability. This weekend I however I was given the great gift of hope by a fellow volunteer whom I have started working with to give young Lucians the gift of learning to Pole Vault.
In St. Lucia we have pole vault pits, poles, mats, but until a year and a half again there was no program. A peace corps volunteer volunteer at that time started with 2 athletes which became four that he trained. Two of the males he trained won gold and silver at the Caribbean Track and Field for under 19 years olds event, Carifta. One of his female athletes set a national record for pole vault. All within a year of the program he had achieved this success, and he decided to make it spread to more kids. About two months ago he started working with the secondary school I work with training interested athletes how to pole vault for an hour a week at the school. For the past 5 weeks I have been joining him at Saturday sessions learning to vault and coach pole vault along with his beginning athletes of which there are about 7 kids, 3 of whom attend my secondary school. This Sunday we took a portable runway and the pits for pole vault to the streets outside of the main market in the capital of Castries and had all of our athletes that come to the saturday sessions, and a 3x Olympian that pole vaulted for St. Lucia have some fun. The day before the athletes trained with Dominic who was a 3x Olympian for St. Lucian for about 5 1/2 hours, and while the long training session tired out their coaches, the athletes came in ready to accomplish big things.
My 3 students all cleared their first heights, the two girls cleared their first two heights, with a lot of determination and grit. It was their first ever pole vault competition and they had only been training for about 6 weeks. From my school their was only one male athlete and he was the only one of the beginning male athletes to clear the first height of 2.5 meters. I will have to say after seeing them struggle and work hard and times they wanted to quit or thought they couldn't do it, it was a huge success to me, and I am ridiculously proud of them.
We also had the opportunity to set some national records on this great day in which 3 of our females tied for the new national record in women's pole vault. We also had a local Lucian record set on the male side. The biggest success though was the support of local coaches, and how into it fans were. With each jump the rather large crowd waited to see if the bar would be cleared, and if it was they would erupt in cheers. It seems as if the momentum is pulling us quickly forward, and there is a new hope that pole vault will bring forth new opportunities for our young athletes. There was even mutterings of future college scholarships abroad, especially for the women. I can only hope that things continue to be so positive, and be glad that I have the opportunity to be part of something like this.
