Her paddles slashed through the open water as she canoed three miles southwest of the Florida Keys to an uninhabited island. “Paddle harder! Paddle harder!” the group leader yelled. The sun beamed down creating five carat diamonds on the water, like any other azured July day nearing the equator. She was sweating bullets. It felt as if she had just completed an Ironman. She persisted through.
Her body was ready to give up, but the thought of crisp water from the jugs filled her mind with ease. As they neared the island, she immediately felt weighed down, like she just drank the fillings of every water jug in sight, because she realized this is only the beginning. In order to settle down they have to hike through jungles of sargassum, haul their jugs and food rations to their campsites, and channel their “Bob the Builder” energy to construct the sleeping hammocks.
“It’s rotting seaweed,” freshman Alyana Alemán said about the sargassum. “It smells disgusting. I never want to smell it in my life ever again. It’s like rotting eggs mixed with feet.”
Alemán is a Life Scout, currently reaching for the Eagle Scouting rank, at Scouting America. In this organization, she has not only learned to grow in her leadership and speaking skills, but also to grow into the best version of herself, according to her mom, Melissa Alemán.
“I think the more experiences you have, you are challenged to think about things in a new way,” Melissa said. “If you plopped her down in the middle of something, she’d be able to solve it.”
The Eagle Rank is the highest honor you can reach at Scouting America. It entails at least six months at her current position and 21 merit badges. One of these include the first-aid badge Alemán already wears proudly. Other requirements encompass showing leadership skills at all other ranks, and receiving a recommendation from three or more important adult figures. Alemán is determined to top her peers, including her brother, Xavier Alemán, in reaching the top honors of her passion.
“My brother’s 17 right now and he still needs to get it,” Alemán said. “But my goal is to try and get it before him.”
These priceless scouting opportunities have allowed her to reach for the stars and even attend programs like a retreat to Sea Base at Big Munson Island. Her experience at Sea Base was like a big breakthrough starring on the show, “Survivor.”
“When we first got there it was really weird,” friend of Alemán and fellow scout, Tagen Placke said. “Alyana hates seafood so I thought it was kind of funny she wanted to spend a week on the island.”
Placke and Alemán had a blast making their way through their own imitation of “Survivor” spending their days in Big Munson snorkeling, canoeing, fishing sharks and fish, and even cooking and eating their own catches for dinner. These outback experiences allow her to see her life from a new lens.
“What I learned the most was definitely endurance,” Alemán said. “And I also feel leadership, because there were a couple younger scouts, but I feel like I really helped lead those people in doing the really hard tasks that we had to do.”