Journeying Through Regenerative Living: A Student's Experience in Jamaica
- Sep 2, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: Feb 20
Seventeen adventurous and passionate students from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, embarked on a journey to the equator. Accompanied by their professor, they joined One Regeneration’s team in Jamaica. Their mission? To learn more than just permaculture principles and natural building techniques through the study abroad program, Pathways: Permaculture and Beyond. They became pioneers and comrades in every sense.
The Classroom Versus the Outdoors
This dedicated group of students, eager for life’s lessons, jumped on a plane escaping a snowstorm, heading straight for the tropics. Most had never visited the Caribbean, and they didn’t know each other well. Planning a three-week trip to the unknown required problem-solving skills and a willingness to let go of attachments and ‘normalized comforts.’
How do you learn to thrive outside your comfort zone?
During their three-week adventure, they bonded with the land and its inhabitants. They journeyed from Orange Hill in St. Ann, through Kingston, to St. Thomas and back. Their accommodations varied, from farms like Durga’s Den to alternative communities such as Source Farms, and organic growing spaces like the tucked-away Mt. Pleasant cocoa farm.
These student nomads savored artisanal products made in Jamaican homesteads. They learned permaculture principles while living on a farm, engaging in hands-on projects that applied these very principles. Two significant projects included building an earth bag dam for the GWG Research Station and natural plastering work on a compost toilet, alongside other earthen structures at Durga’s Den. These regenerative works complemented their final permaculture projects at 'base camp.'
As time passed, students got their hands dirty in mud and fully immersed themselves in life ‘outside.’ They ate, slept, showered, worked, and socialized under trees, over rocks, on logs, and even on upcycled furniture. This experience pushed their boundaries, expanded their personal learnings, and contributed to regenerative practices that made a difference in the Caribbean and the wider world. Their energy fueled community building, knowledge exchange, and co-creation with both organic and inorganic life.
Adapting to Change
What changes required flexibility and adaptability?
No readily available Wi-Fi or telecommunications.
Limitations on fresh flowing water necessitated conservation and habit changes.
Hot days tested their endurance.
Eating primarily fresh provisions from the land limited choice and preference.
Navigating group dynamics despite differing opinions.
The dissolution of individuality in sharing space and purpose as part of a community.
Using compost toilets.
Sharing space with wildlife.
Traveling regularly, living like nomads.
How does the natural creature respond to their environment and adapt?
Embodied Learning and Education
Whether you’re a university student or a parent charting a path forward, you consciously or unconsciously decide what aspects of life are worth knowing and experiencing. This is in service to your needs and desires.
Perhaps there are no straight lines in your patterns. Maybe your needs and wants are seasonal or cyclical, shifting with environment and inspiration. This uncertainty can be daunting. What should I do next? What should I be?
The "ing" in the process of learning, creating, or being can feel overwhelming. It demands our trust and patience. Trust that we will grow, even if we don’t immediately observe daily shifts. Trust that we will gain the abundance we fear we might lack. Principles of metacognition can guide us in understanding how we learn best. Knowing ourselves more intimately may involve what is revealed by 'us' in relation to 'the other.' Some believe we are still pack animals.
What are the boundaries? What are the dependencies? Where does one life begin and another end if all life is connected? Indigenous thought may challenge the concept of 'rewilding.' Co-existence and living harmoniously with the elements are not perceived as 'wild' or 'wildness.' Does modern understanding of wilderness deny humanity's genesis as part of the natural world? Have machines taken over the essence of being human, leaving us to relearn how to embody our humanity?
So, what are the right subjects to study? How can getting to know yourself within regenerative communities benefit you? Are we balanced and happy beings if we primarily focus on academic learning? Are we disadvantaged if we prioritize knowledge over wisdom? Does the written word truly make us civilized? Who or what do we label as uncivilized? What is involved in design, and how can we master it?
It was heartwarming to witness students aged 19 to 44 from diverse backgrounds share a fun and challenging permaculture excursion through Jamaica's natural terrain. This journey led them to parts of themselves that were previously unknown. Some even found extended family along the way. It would be fascinating to discover how this time in the forest impacted the rest of their student life, now that they had lived as Caribbean permaculturalists.
The Impact of Learning
What happens to learning when modern stressors are reduced or eliminated?
Can academic objectives benefit from 'rewilding' inclusion?
What Learning Looks Like
Thank you to Emma, Arrya, Mikhailia a.k.a. "Moss", Aaron, Sam, Curtis, Blossom, Oyza, Jenna, Finn, Margot, Tiana, Donella, Ru'ya, Avail, Andrea, Katie, and our special guest, Duward for your bravery and the bonds we formed.
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