Ridley Debate Takes on Bermuda

On October 16th, 2024, three Ridley Tigers travelled with their teacher coaches, Mr. Leach and Ms. Barone, to the beautiful island of Bermuda. Gioia Bonifacio-Proietto ’25, Jazim Farhaj ’27, and I, Pierce Trakas ’27, were selected to represent the school at a prestigious Public Speaking and Debating competition called the International Independent Schools Public Speaking Competition, or IISPSC for short. As one of the fortunate students who was able to participate in this amazing trip, I will recount a few highlights of my Bermudian experiences.

The IISPSC was co-hosted by two schools: the Bermuda High School (BHS) and Saltus Grammar School. As soon as we arrived at BHS for the first day of competition, we were impressed by its sheer size, at least two times the size of Schoolhouse. Once we got settled in the main hall, we were formally welcomed by the organizers of the tournament and directed to our first competition rooms. Schools attended from Canada, the USA, Bermuda, and even India. Some of the attending schools were: St. Andrew’s College (SAC), Country Day, Branksome, Waynflete, Deerfield, University of Toronto Schools (UTS), Roxbury Latin, Vivek, and Somersfield Academy. Most schools entered either three to six competitors.

Each competitor could choose three categories; I chose Interpretive Reading, After-Dinner Speaking, and Parliamentary Debate. There were six other categories, such as Extemporaneous Speaking and News Podcasts. I preferred After-Dinner Speaking, as it involves pretending to be a speaker at a convention of people who all share a common trait, like vampires, seniors, or flight attendants (the only restriction is that we could not be animals). I was chairman of the Processed Foods Association and talked to “shareholders” about the crisis of people learning the truth about processed foods. Here’s an excerpt:

“It almost brings a tear to my eyes when I recall how we convinced companies to stop cooking fast food with tallow and butter, which, as we know, are naturally derived healthy fats, and replaced them with heavily processed vegetable oils, which are far less expensive to produce. Let’s be real; we used to use vegetable oils to grease the axles on battle tanks back in World War II. But not only did we convince people that they could eat that battle tank grease, but that it was the healthy alternative!”

The speeches were all very unique, entertaining, and humorous. I heard speeches about how personal assistants need to rise up, how ‘spare’ siblings should try to live their lives, how to sell unsellable homes, how to recruit members for secret societies, and how gods in the Greek Underworld should treat anyone who gets in. Only two of the aforementioned proceeded to the finals. I was fortunate enough to place 14th in this category, which was a respectable finish, but, as with all of these, it was really close every single time.

Interpretive Reading is the one category in which all three of us competed. Jazim performed a reading from a book written by a slave on the run in the 1800s. Gioia read a short story about a utopian city that only exists because of the endless suffering of one child. By contrast, my selection was Open, an autobiography of tennis legend Andre Agassi.

Andre was forced by his father, an Armenian immigrant from Iran, to hit almost a million tennis balls per year at the age of 7. I recounted his mental struggles as he was doing this excruciating task. Other topics such as cannibalism, revolution, and even children killing each other in the womb (not joking; all three were topics in the readings) were commonplace in the competition, which was strange, to say the least.

During our much-needed downtime, the organizers had us play a giant trivia tournament where we were randomly grouped with people from different schools. As I learned from the competition, India is the world’s largest producer of bananas. There were many opportunities to meet new people and team up with others, and it was interesting to meet people from different countries. The food was very good at the schools but I found it curious that every meal included some sort of chicken.

Speaking of chickens, Bermuda is home to over 20,000 invasive feral chickens, which cause approximately $100,000 worth of property damage each year and are found everywhere in Bermuda, including our hotel! They are despised so much that residents say, “If you see a nest of eggs, step on them.” Coincidentally, KFC is the only chain restaurant on the entire island. That may sound a little suspicious after relaying the issue of an overabundant chicken population, but actually, the ‘Colonel’ fortunately built his restaurant on the island before the law to protect local businesses came to pass, and thereby grandfathered it to remain.

The island itself is absolutely beautiful, with light turquoise blue waters, fish as long as rulers, houses painted in many bright colours, and verdant foliage covering the areas next to the roads. Strangely, we saw no pink sand (one of the things Bermuda is best known for) except in the gift shops. Our hotel, the Grotto Bay Beach Resort, was massive, with caves beneath the hotel near the spa and beaches with blue sand! I had the incredible experience of swimming offshore with tropical fish all around me.

In our spare time, we visited a couple of nearby historical sites, like the quaint town of St. George’s and the Dockyard. Luckily, the afternoon we toured around was St. George’s market day out in front of the town hall, with a live steel drum pan player. It was a nice experience, and we got some unique souvenirs from there, as well as a bag and a water bottle from our competition hosts. While we were eating lunch on the patio next to the water, we noticed a large group of people looking at an old torture device near the docks, across the water. One of these devices had an individual seated at the end of a large seesaw. Then, before we realized what was happening, the device was set into motion, completely dunking the (willing) volunteer beneath the water … an ancient drowning device from days gone by, which provided some mid-meal entertainment for sure! Bermuda has a rich history that goes back centuries, involving many shipwrecks, sailors, and sunken treasures, and much of the coral reef is growing off the hulls of these ships.

Upon reflection, this whole experience will stay with me for a lifetime. Not only the learning opportunities from the competition itself but also the incredible people I met from around the world and the interesting historical places we visited. The adventures we had will stay with me forever. I would like to end by thanking Ms. Barone and Mr. Leach, who coached us and came along with us for the trip.