Occidental College
Campus Conversations
Summer's End
Hey everyone! I've been totally MIA this summer because things have been cuh-razy!!! During May and June I relaxed at home a bit and was able to catch up with friends and family. I spent a week in Sedona, AZ, with my parents, which was beautiful, a week in Ashland, OR, with my mom seeing plays at the Shakespeare Festival, and then a few days near West Yellowstone in Idaho at a family reunion, which was great. Then, on July 8th I left for Zanzibar, Tanzania for four weeks with a nonprofit called One Heart Source (OHS) to teach about community health, HIV/AIDS, and English. There were about 25 American and British volunteers on my program, and we lived in homestays in the small town of Bwejuu for the whole 4 weeks. I had two roommates: one was an American who goes to UCLA, and the other was a Zanzibarian volunteer who helped by translating Swahili to English and vice versa. The town itself was beautiful: Zanzibar is a popular tourist destination because of it's beautiful beaches and Bwejuu did not disappoint. It looked like we were living in the backdrop of someone's computer because the sand was so white and the water was so blue. It was gorgeous. 99% of Zanzibar's population is Muslim, so it was incredibly eye-opening to be fully immersed in that culture. So many parts of our day were influenced by Islam, from the 4:30AM wake-up call-to-prayer that was broadcast from the town's mosque to eating every meal with our hands (let's hear it for silverware!) to wearing clothes that covered our shoulders and knees. My homestay had running water and electricity that both worked only intermittently, but it was still pretty luxurious by their standards. The bathroom or choo (pronounced ch-oh) was a concrete hole in the ground that definitely made me appreciate western amenities. But our family was lovely and so welcoming, and everyone in the village was friendly and receptive. We taught from about 5th grade through high school in the town school, and then we also had adult classes on men's health, women's health, and English, so we really taught every age group. At the end of the program, 5 of the volunteers and I went to Nairobi, Kenya for 5 days and took a 3-day safari in the Masai Mara Preserve. It was INCREDIBLE and we saw so many animals in such a short time: lions, elephants, two cheetahs one of which had a baby, a hyena, giraffes, thousands of wildebeest, zebras, warthogs, baboons, water buffalo, vultures, and more. It was really amazing and it was such a fun way to end the trip. Overall the whole experience was phenomenal, and I feel so lucky to have had the chance to go. I spent 5 days at home, and then came back to Oxy to help run the Orientation Program before I head to France on September 5th for my semester abroad. I feel a bit bad about all the carbon emissions I'm creating by traveling so much, but it's great to be busy and occupied, and I'm having so much fun. I'll continue to blog (more frequently I promise) from France, so stay tuned for that. Hope you're all enjoying the end of summer!!! [gallery]