Barbados, Week 10: Life on Campus- UWI, Cavehill

April 6, 2012

A strange thing has happened in the beginning stages of my third month studying abroad:  I have begin to think of Barbados as my home.  The first two months of my study abroad experience were often a constant, ever-progressing comparison to how my life normally would be back home.  Yet now that all these irregularities, cultural differences, and lifestyle changes have been successfully synthesized into daily norms, something finally clicked.  I no longer wake up surprised to hear the boisterous beeps and buzzes of constant traffic directly outside my window, nor do I freak out if a scheduled event or bus is half an hour late…or an hour late, for that matter.  I’ve begun to compile a master playlist of island Soca, Dancehall, and Pop songs that I’ve heard enough times to sing in my sleep.  I’ve even caught myself looking at large groups of sunburnt tourists, fresh off the cruise ship, thinking “Here come the Americans…”

So after weeks of making everyone green with jealousy over tales of cross-island adventures and a weekend trip to St. Lucia, it is only fair that I also give everyone a taste of what it’s like 80% of my time in Barbados, on campus.  Put bluntly, University of Richmond’s (Virginia, United States) campus seems like Yellowstone National Park in comparison to Cave Hill.  UWI, Cave Hill has prime real estate at the top of a long hill overlooking the Caribbean, and no space is left wasted; One of the dorms connects to the cafeteria, which connects to the student guild, which connects to the health office, which connects to the bookstore.  While Americans like to number their classrooms in numerical order, classrooms at UWI have fun distinctions such as LT1, LR1, LH1 (lecture theater 1, etc).  After the first week of mistakenly stumbling into every room possible, I actually think i’ve probably been in more rooms than not on campus.  Students, for the most part, come to class on time and NEVER pack up before the professor is finished, even if class time is over.  I was amazed at this phenomenon, because American students are almost always packed up and ready to go at least five minutes before class is over.

Some things I love about school here?  My professors.  They are engaging, personable, and brilliant people whose work can be found in academic journals throughout the Caribbean.  Also, the cafeteria food.  Save for Oistins Fish Fry, one of the best fish steaks I’ve had all semester long came from none other than Cave Hill Campus Cafeteria.  It probably cost me less than US$5.

Some things I don’t love about school here?  The library. After getting used to one of the nation’s chillest, most comfortable libraries —  Boatwright Memorial Library at UR — the Cave Hill Campus Library just has a hard time stacking up.  While Boatwright not only lets you bring a day’s worth of food into the library for a studying marathon, it also lets you bring in your entire bag, making it easier to study for multiple subjects in one sitting.  Now, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with the Cave Hill Library, but it’s more of a no-nonsense establishment.  Wanna take your entire bag in?  Nope.  You turn in your bag for a card at the front entrance and then proceed to clumsily drop your 4 books, computer, calculator, and glasses as you’re somehow supposed to open the entrance door.  Wanna bring food and water in so your mind is properly fueled?  Nope. You can chug your water bottle outside and then throw it away before entering.  Would you like to borrow a book for an hour and then return it to the shelf?  Nope.  First, please fill out every single detail possible about the book before handing the slip to a library employee who will take twice as long as you would to find the book.  Then, wait patiently as they scan your card and stamp your info slip and give you back a copy.  It’s good to have physical memoirs to remind yourself that you did, indeed, study, in case you ever forget.

Sorry about the library rant, but it was a long time coming.  To tip the scales back in UWI’s favor, however, are the students.  I have the incredible opportunity to go to school with and talk to people from Barbados, St. Lucia, Dominica, Antigua, the Bahamas, Guyana, Belize, Trinidad, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and Canada.  Most Caribbean students I’ve met have displayed a cheerful, laid-back attitude and, like most other university students, are constantly laughing and looking to have fun.  It’s truly rare to find a loud, in your face, attention-craving student from the Caribbean, and most are very down to earth people.  I advise learning some Caribbean expressions and honing one’s listening skills, however, because understanding the different dialects has been one of my biggest challenges while abroad.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve answered “Where are you from?” with “My name’s Ryan” or just “…yes…”.  I’m getting better at understanding the nuances of the Bajan dialect though, and may or may not have tried it out on a couple of occasions.

There’s probably another 1,000 words I could say about life on campus at The University of West Indies, but there’s no point in continuing to talk about the library.  Jokes aside, I moved up to join the Advanced Team in tennis last week, so I guess I can now say I’ve played tennis on the collegiate level?  Cross that one off the bucket list.  I’ll be taking some pics and giving you the lowdown on that next week, though, so stay tuned.

1 Comment | Ryan in Barbados, Spring 2012 | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
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Botswana – Mokoro!

April 2, 2012

Last week we had spring break, or what the locals would call “mid-time.” It was possibly one of the most amazing experiences that I have had! However, it wasn’t easy to maneuver around Botswana during the trip — especially the Delta!

We started off by stuffing ourselves into a 15-seater bus to the local bus station. There were about 30 of us. Needless to say, it wasn’t the most comfortable experience, but it did bring everyone closer together to sit 3 in one seat!

After packing into the next bus, we realized that it seated 60, but there were only 30 of us. So, we initially thought to ourselves, “Excellent! We can finally relax, lay back, and enjoy this 15 hour bus ride up to the Okavango.” We couldn’t have been more wrong: The bus stopped every 15-20 km to a new stop that always had at least 2-5 people entering the bus. Some of the windows did not open correctly, and others made strange noises; it was very uncomfortable.  The majority of the time, about 1/4 of the people were left without anywhere to sit, and had to stand the entire time. Yes, 15 hours of standing! Thankfully, we had very generous passengers and students offer their seats to others and interchange over time. I offered my seat to an elderly gentleman with a cane. He was more than grateful. Although the bus ride seems like somewhat of a drag, everyone still enjoyed themselves and I understood that this was more of a learning experience than anything else!

Finally, after arriving, we were quickly welcomed by other locals, goats roaming the streets, cows eating grass, and stray dogs looking for food. An interesting experience. We even had a few locals attempt to speak to us in their own version of English. It was very hard to understand them, but their smiles said enough about them and the wonderful country of Botswana. Soon afterwards, three large safari trucks pulled up, let us jump in the tour seats, and took us away to our campsite.

As we arrived, we noticed that the crew we had hired had completely done everything for us — from setting up the tents and our sleeping bags, to even making us a welcoming dinner with dessert! Due to our long 15-hour journey, we were exhausted and decided to stay in for the night at the campsite.

I woke up the next morning at 4am, with no shower, no combs, no mirrors, and only the ability to brush my teeth with a limited supply of water from a water bottle and my own toothpaste and toothbrush. I, and the others, did not realize how real and serious this trip really was. It was a reality check for us; we were in the Okavango Delta. The nature of Africa. Anything could go wrong at any time, and help is a 10-13 hour safari truck ride away. No KFC, Nando’s, or school food, nor showers or bathrooms.

Our guides drove us to a secluded, marshy area of the Delta. We thought to ourselves, “What in the world is this place, and why are we here?” We passed over 15-20 local Botswana who all had long sticks measuring at least 20 feet. Again, the same question of confusion came to our mind.

Our Guide, Mr. Costa:

As we pulled up and parked in the Bush, we noticed that the locals with long sticks were coming towards us. At first, we were fearful of what was going on, but then we realized that they are part of our tour; they were our water guides!

Before departure:

We quickly jumped into our Mokoros with our partners and our personal guides took us into the high water grasses. At first, it was amazing to be in the Okavango waters – where anything can happen in any second. However, we slowly realized that the Mokoro trip was 3 hours long, and none of us brought sunscreen, nor any way to cover up from the sun. We were as red as the sun after the first 30 minutes.

Although the trip was long, it was still amazingly beautiful and interesting. Our Mokoro guide was very knowledgeable and even showed us a few tricks of nature: how to make a flower necklace and leaf hat!

Everywhere we travelled in the Mokoro, we encountered beautiful white flowers growing out of the muddy and brown water. After an hour of gently streaming through, our guide leaned down into the water, took a drink (he advised us not to), and then pulled out the flower by the stem. Most of these flowers’ stems are around 3 feet long. He bit the bottom off, then started to peel one end of the skin from the bottom to the top of the flower and same for the other side, but also breaking the strong core of it each time. Then he tied the ends together and said to put it around our neck. We were trying to keep our body temperatures cool by stacking as many wet flower necklaces around ourselves as we could!

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Outside of the Classroom

April 2, 2012

One of the primary reasons I came to Bangkok was to be able to work with Step Ahead, an integrated community development organization that works in many capacities in Thailand.  Step Ahead’s work includes programs in one of the slums in Bangkok, called Khlong Toei.  There, Step Ahead runs a microfinance loan project, organizes sports activities for children, runs health clinics, and much more.  I, however, am primarily working with Step Ahead in a marketing capacity, helping them to market the products of their purse project.

The purse project is located in Pattaya, Thailand, where it is estimated (and this is a low estimation) that 25% of all residents are in some way involved in the sex industry.  Therefore, just by virtue of being born in Pattaya, residents are at risk for sexual exploitation.  Identifying this need, Step Ahead created Itsera, a brand of high-quality handmade bags, made by women in Pattaya.  This project was created as a prevention mechanism; the hope is that by earning a good wage making these bags, the women will be able to avoid the trap of sexual exploitation.

Despite being focused on marketing for Step Ahead, I had the chance to visit Khlong Toei last week.  It was so interesting to see where Step Ahead works, most of all because I spent last semester living and working on the edge of a slum in Kenya.  I could not help but make comparisons between the two in my mind.  To be honest, the slum that we saw here was much more permanent and formal compared to the slum in Kenya.  Most of the slum had paved roads weaving in and out, closed homes with roofs overhead, some people even living in permanent structures, most shacks having electricity and plumbing.  There are even a few small businesses that operate within the slum — for example, we walked by computers and washing machines, which residents can pay to use.  Not to say that Khlong Toei isn’t still very much a slum community, but it was certainly an interesting comparison to Kibera, in Kenya.

During our walk through the slum, we met one of Step Ahead’s clients, a single father with three children.  He has used a microfinance loan that he received from Step Ahead to run a chicken-foot business.  He sells chicken feet, which are a delicacy in Thailand.  School is not in session at the moment, so he and his three children were all sitting around and extracting the bones and nails from the chicken claws with the aim of selling them at the market.  It is refreshing to get a glimpse into the social issues that many Thai people are facing.  After a semester in Kenya where I only studied health and development, I have been craving that knowledge and interaction here.

Earlier this week, I was also able to attend a Needeed event.  Needeed is a new non-profit organization, which seeks to bring together professionals from the expatriate community here in Thailand.  The aim is to have organizations present at monthly meetings and identify volunteer opportunities within that organization. The hope is that expatriates with particular expertise would be able to fulfill those volunteer opportunities.

The meeting was really incredible…after the visiting organization presented, we had a brainstorm session — all 25 attendees.  It was almost magical to watch all of the ideas flying around – not only were there many nationalities in the room (Hungarian, American, Belgian, Australian, French, British), but there were also an incredible variety of different professional backgrounds represented.  There was a woman who had previously been involved in public policy, a nurse specializing in neonatal care, a psychologist doing her masters degree on post-partum depression and PTSD in Congolese refugees, a woman involved in the hospitality business – the list really goes on.  Most of these women are in Thailand because of their husbands’ jobs, and they are all well-educated and have a lot of experience in some professional capacity. Needeed seeks to bring together these untapped talents to make a difference for non-profits.  It truly is incredible to be able to not only experience another “side” of Thailand, but to meet so many fascinating people and explore potential career possibilities at the same time!

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Transported back in time…

April 2, 2012

I just came back from the most incredible trip to Myanmar (formerly Burma, but the United States chooses to use the name Burma as a political statement against the current Burmese government).  I have to admit, before arriving in Bangkok I was not at all aware of anything going on in Burma.  Nothing. Nada. Zilch. It was not until a dinner with friends in Bangkok, who are passionate about Burma, that I learned about the fascinating country and its political situation.  When you think of the world’s worst dictators, many of you may think of Kim Jong Il of North Korea, or Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, but did you know that Burma is one of the world’s worst dictatorships, responsible for some of the world’s worst human rights attrocities?  It is only in the past year that Myanmar has been creating better relationships with the West, and that the West has been easing some of the sanctions and boycotts against the country. But as many people told us, though progress undeniably has been made, in reality, things may not be so picture-perfect.

What really sparked my interest in this country, before my visit, was the story of Aung San Suu Kyi, depicted in the recently released film “The Lady.”  Suu Kyi is the leader of Burma’s opposition party.  Her father led Burma to freedom from Britain in 1947, only to be assassinated shortly after, leaving the country in the hands of a dictator.  Though she grew up in Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi later married an Englishman and had been living in England with her two children when she became the leader of the opposition party in Burma.  Though she claimed victory in a general election in 1990, the ruling party refused to accept the results and placed her under house arrest, where she spent 15 years, living away from her family in England and therefore sacrificing her life with her children and her husband.   Aung San Suu Kyi was released in 2010, and is a candidate in the Burmese parliamentary election to be held on April 1st.

Needless to say, this country is fascinating, and it is in the midst of one of its most critical times in history, so I definitely had to see this for myself.  On top of that, because Burma has literally been shut off from the world for so many years, we were told it was like going back in time to Asia 100 years ago.  Until recently, the Burmese did not have access to news from outside of Burma (purposefully controlled by the government).  A cell phone there costs around $1000, and the down payment for internet in your home is $2,000.  In most places outside of the capital, a “taxi” is a horse-drawn, or ox-drawn carriage.

Because we spent five very packed days around the country, I will give you the highlights of our trip:

1)     Yangon (formerly Rangoon, and formerly the capital of Myanmar).

There is not much to see in the city.  We spent only a few hours our first day, and a few hours our last day, exploring the Yangon.  Other than the Shwedagon Pagoda, an impressive and revered Buddhist religious symbol, there really wasn’t much to do.  The city is quite run down, and much less developed than Bangkok, understandably so.

2)     Kalaw

Kalaw is an incredible mountain town, which we reached through a 12-hour overnight bus from Yangon.  We arrived at 2am, with no hostel booked, and no plan at all – it didn’t take us long to find the “Winner Hotel,” but the temperature had dropped overnight, so it was freezing.  In Kalaw, we did a trek into the mountains with two tour guides who were both 21 years old, named GuGu and Chaw Su.  We spent the whole day wandering through the mountains – the trek was not difficult, which was fantastic, because it not only gave us a chance to talk with the girls and learn about their lives in Burma, but it also gave our guides a chance to stop and point out different plants and crops along the way.  It is truly incredible what is grown in the mountains there! We saw oranges, pears, raspberries, gooseberries, ginger, cabbage, papaya, banana, pineapple, and much more! We stopped in two villages and two monasteries along the way, each time having a chance to (through our guides) talk with the families we met, sit down for tea, ask them questions, and laugh with them.  It was truly fantastic to be able to talk and interact with native people in a non-touristy setting.

In Kalaw, we also had delicious food – a broad-bean, peanut, tomato, and onion salad, noodle soup, and curry.  While curry in Thailand is coconut milk-based, Burmese curry is largely oil based, so it was interesting to try the different foods.

3)     Inle Lake

Just a two-hour drive from Kalaw, Inle Lake is one of the most popular destinations for tourists.  Similar to Kalaw, the town itself is very small, and very primitive, boasting half-paved, half-mud streets lined with small hostels, small houses, and shacks.  We spent an entire day (8 hours) on a boat ride around Inle Lake.  It was one of those long “typical” Southeast Asian boats, propelled by a motor.  The lake is enormous, so it was a 2-hour boat ride to our first destination.  Throughout the day we made many stops, including: a shop where silk is produced, a shop where cigars are made, a delicious restaurant, a paper making shop, a silversmith, and a few more destinations. Inle Lake is entirely made up of small villages, comprised of houses and buildings, which are on stilts.  Therefore, to get to each new shop, we had to go by boat, which is how locals get around as well.  The post office, for example, is a small house on stilts in the middle of the water.  Surrounding the villages are also endless fields of rice and other crops.  So throughout our day we observed men and women working to harvest and plant their crops.  We were able to stay out on the lake for the sunset, which was absolutely magnificent.

Before our 15-hour bus back to Yangon from Inle Lake, we rented bikes and biked in the area, again surrounded by endless rice fields; I’ll let the pictures do the talking, because it was absolutely breathtaking!  I came back from the weekend completely happy and refreshed; though I was exhausted, it was refreshing to have seen such an untouched nation, and to have been able to experience another country  knowing so much of its history and current political issues.  Even more importantly, we were able to fully interact and speak with locals to hear their perspectives, and those moments are what made the trip so incredible.

Below are some photos from the trip:

1 Comment | Samantha in Thailand, Spring 2012 | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
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Tel Aviv Without a Plan

March 30, 2012

So far this semester, I have only been to Tel Aviv once, only for a weekend.  Many of the international students have gone several times to experience Tel Aviv’s vibrant night life, but that aspect of the city doesn’t have that much appeal to me.  So I hadn’t been aching to go, but when my friend Eva asked if I wanted to join her, I didn’t refuse.

A little background on Eva:  She was born in Hong Kong, lived part of her life in Texas, returned to Hong Kong, and now goes to college in the States.  Last semester, she did a Semester at Sea program, where she lived on a ship that traveled literally all the way around the world.  So, needless to say, she is a seasoned traveler. We chose a hostel with no problem, and planned our bus and train times for the trip. When we arrived in Tel Aviv on Thursday, we spent the day hanging out and touring Old Yafo with a couple other international students who were there for the day.  When we woke up Friday morning, I expected to carefully plan our day so that we would be able to visit all the museums and such that would be closed on Saturday.  So I started making suggestions of possible plans.

Me: “So, what do you think of checking out this Bible Museum, or going to the Art Museum to find the street festival the lady at the tourist counter mentioned yesterday?”

Eva: “Meh.  We’ll see what happens.”

Taken aback, I tried a couple more times to suggest plans, but each time, she refused to discuss them with me.  I was rather frustrated.  So we set out walking, really in no particular direction at all.  I wasn’t sure how to handle it at first, and the controlling side of me was rebelling at the thought of aimlessly wandering the city with no plan or goal in mind.  Finally I made up my mind to try my best to forget about a plan, and just go with the flow.  I guess really that was my only option anyway, as Eva had pretty much taken control of the situation.

So we continued wandering, and entirely by accident, we bumped into this really neat crafts market, with some really amazing handcrafted items made by the vendors.  There was a lady who made baskets with rolled up, painted newspaper, there were painters, jewelry makers, you name it.  It was really fun, and we ended up spending a couple hours just wandering around.  Eva also was determined to practice her basic phrases of Hebrew with every shop owner that would give her the time of day, and hilarity ensued.

After the market and a stop for some freshly made carrot juice, we continued our wandering and ended up at the beach, where we ended up hanging out and playing a strange form of tableless beach ping pong that is really popular on the Tel Aviv beach.  Then we explored a little more and met a couple friends for dinner that we had run into the day before.

That is how our weekend progressed, and once I was able to leave my comfort zone of carefully planning every step of the day, it turned out to be one of the most relaxed, enjoyable weekends of touring I have ever had.  The weather was beautiful, and the Tel Avivians were extremely helpful when we were standing on a street corner trying to figure out our map; on multiple occasions  people even stopped to ask us if we needed help.  I think if we had minutely planned the day, I would have been focused on our next destination in my mind, and I would not have noticed all the life going on around me.

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Barbados, week 9: Carnival Chaos

March 30, 2012

The most hyped weekend of the year, at least for college students, is now in the books: Carnival, or KadUWIval as it is formally called, came with much fanfare and it certainly proved to be one of the most culturally different experiences of which I had the pleasure of being a part.  You see, back in the United States, there are parades, and there are circuses, and there are parties, but never has one event been so bold as to combine elements of all three.  It was one of those special times where you don’t really know what something truly IS until you’re smack in the middle of it, going “Ohhh… so THIS  is carnival”.

I may have taken some liberty with my previous statement, as, in reality, if one searches for UWI and/or Barbados on YouTube, videos of Carnival are the first thing that appears.  Carnival, for the avid YouTube video consumer, should be the first thing one will have known about Barbados before actually being there.  My experience was a little different, however.  I was walking across the campus lawn, noticing a greater buzz of activity surrounding the area than normal, when a tall Bajan guy approached me, “Hey man, you jumpin’ for Carnival?”  “Jumping? Uhm, no, I don’t think so, man, what exactly is it?”

Simmz,  as I would later find out he was called, gave me the rundown on how it would work.  First, you join a ‘band’.  This is the group you will be organized into and ‘jumping’ with at the beginning of Carnival.  Each band has specific outfits the members wear, with different costumes for girls and guys.  The Carnival parade starts down near the cruise ship port in Bridgetown and ends on campus in Cave Hill.  What takes place during ‘jumping’ is this; the bands line up behind a huge truck stacked with speakers and posters, and once the music starts and the truck tires begin to roll, you have nonstop dancing, socializing, and picture-taking until the sun goes down and one finds themselves back at UWI.

I liked what Simmz told me, so I signed up for Carnival with his band, Island Army.  Now, usually, friends confer with friends before choosing his/her band, but since I didn’t really know what was going on and if there was a deadline or not, I dismissed the notion of conferring before choosing.  After all, Simmz had approached me out of nowhere and wanted me to be in his band — who am I to deny such adamant recruitment?  It turned out to be a good choice, anyways, as I talked to my Bajan friends Devito and Quaisy and they, as well, had joined Island Army.  The rest of the exchange group students had either joined the Halls Band or a band called Island Roots.

Fast forward three weeks, and it’s the morning of Carnival.  Girls are running around freaking out about how small their outfit pieces turned out to be, and the guys are still sleeping because all they have to do is wear their band t-shirts.  Carnival, I was beginning to realize, is maybe 5% about the guys and 95% about the girls.  No one is lining up to see me in my t-shirt — they’re there to check out the girls in their hot pink or leopard print outfits.  And as far as the outfits are concerned, less is definitely more.  Feminists may decry the event as objectifying women, but I think it is 100% cultural that they dress like that, and I don’t think you’ll find many Bajans that’d say otherwise.

Now, as far as the dancing that went on…well, that was cultural, too, I guess.  Caribbean women know how to dance — as children they are dancing soon after they can walk.  It’s no timid “I don’t really know how to dance, and I’m scared that people are looking at me” type of dancing one might frequently encounter in the United States, but a more full-bodied expression of rhythm and feeling.  I’m not going to lie, it was a little nerve-wracking for someone not completely sold on his own dancing ability to dance with exotically dressed, beautiful Caribbean women, but I was set on partaking in Carnival to its fullest, so dance I did.  For nearly three hours.  But Carnival was also a time of fraternizing with friends as well, and it was fun to see all the people I’ve met in the past two months out on the same street having fun together.  You begin to feel like maybe you’re not so much of a stranger after all when a friend comes up to you every five minutes and tries to get another girl to dance with you.

The Carnival procession finished up on UWI campus, and there everybody immediately remembered what they somehow forgot for the previous six hours: I’m incredibly hungry.  I had another “American” moment when I thought the contents of a yellow bottle was obviously mustard and so doused my hotdog in it.  It was Bajan hot sauce, and thus I proceeded to eat one of the spiciest hotdogs of my life.  But the day was far from done.  A big draw for a lot of the UWI students was the Carnival after-party, with one of the parking lots being craftily turned into a penned-in version of the last five hours’ various activities.

I liked Carnival for two reasons: One, nothing, or at least nothing I am aware of, exists like this in the United  States’ Northeastern region.  Nothing.  Two, it was a genuinely fun time dancing and socializing out in the beautiful Caribbean sun.

In fact, some past exchange students had flown down just to relive the epic weekend that is Carnival.  God-willing I save up enough money, I hope to be that guy next year.

 

Leave a Comment » | Ryan in Barbados, Spring 2012 | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by ryaninbarbados

I get by with a little help from my friends

March 30, 2012

Hello to all of my faithful readers.  It makes me happy when people tell me that they’ve been keeping up with my posts.

In a few days, I will have officially been here for two months, and I’m still enjoying my time here.  One of the main reasons I’ve been enjoying my time here is because of all of the new friends I’ve been making.  I’ve literally made friends from all over the world; Australia, Denmark, Canada, Chile, and of course The Netherlands.  When we’re not in class, we do a variety of things: going to the movie theater, travelling, cooking and having dinner together, sitting outside studying and relaxing, and playing cards.  Those are just a few examples of some of the things we do in our spare time.

Living in a foreign country for a significant amount of time with people from other countries is an eye-opening experience.  I was born and raised in the U.S. (Virginia, to be exact) so the way things are done in Virginia seem to be the most natural way of doing things.  With that being said, learning about how things are done in other countries reminds me that there isn’t one right way to do things.  I’ve compiled a short list of cultural differences that you may or may not be familiar with.

1. Chips can mean chips, or they can mean fries, depending on the context.

2. Biscuits can mean biscuits or cookies, depending on where you are.

3. Outside of the U.S., football and American football are two different things.

4. The Netherlands is, thankfully, not as humid as Virginia.

5. “Convenience” stores are not necessarily convenient (most stores are not open on Sunday).

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Posted by whitneyinthenetherlands

Standing on the Edge of the World

March 26, 2012

I’ve never before experienced a feeling quite like I did standing on the rim of a crater in the Negev desert this past weekend.  I felt all at once the vastness of the desert, my own comparative insignificance, and how incredibly blessed I was to be able to witness such amazing beauty.

We started our trip by leaving campus at 5:00 A.M. on Friday morning.  Driving south, we could see the diversity in Israel’s landscape as the lush green fields gave way to sand and rocks.  After a drive of about six hours, our bus left us at a trailhead on the side of the road, and we set off on our 8 kilometer (about 5 mile) hike.  We were about 75 students, plus 4 guides, two guards, and a medic.  At first, the hike was relatively flat and easy, although it was surprising cold and windy, and huge dark clouds threatened to rain on us.  Then we arrived at the edge of the Ramon crater.  The view was beyond spectacular.

We then had to pick our way down the steep descent, through the crater, then climb out the other side.  We all celebrated when we made it up the last stretch.  But alas, our rejoicing was premature – the bus had not been able to make it down the road to meet us, and we were going to have to walk another two miles!  At this point it was only our will that kept us going.  But finally we made it to the bus just as it started to rain. We then drove to the center of another crater, to the Bedouin camp where we would be spending the night.  We all pitched in and made a huge dinner of Israeli salad (chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions), stir fry and rice, hamburgers and hot dogs, and of course, lots of pita.

Sleeping in the tent was quite an experience. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, and even though I was cozy in my sleeping bag, I felt how bitterly cold it was outside.  Waking up to the sun casting morning shadows across the crater, we set off on our second day of hiking.  This time we climbed up the edge of the crater and walked along the rim, and a couple of times, we had to climb rock scrambles where one slip could send you rolling down the edge of the crater.  At one point, there were even iron handles drilled into the rock; we knew when we saw those that this cliff meant business.  But we all made it through safe and sound, circling the rim of the crater around until we ended up back at our camp just before sunset.

We then set off for Eilat, where we stayed in a lovely hostel that fed us an amazing hot breakfast the next morning, which we were all incredibly grateful for.  On Sunday, we could either choose to stay at the beach or hike in the Eilat mountains to a peak where you can see Jordan, Egypt, and on a clear day, Saudi Arabia.  I chose the hike, even though I was pretty worn out from the past two days, and I was so glad I did!  Looking out over the Red Sea as it lay nestled in the midst of desert mountains was an exhilarating moment, to say the least.

It is really hard to describe in words how I felt throughout this weekend.  It was definitely the farthest I had ever been pushed physically, and the camaraderie the shared experience built within the international students was really great.  Passing each other on the way to class on Monday morning, we all knew not only how sore we were, but that the endless sweeping desert vistas we had seen together would be printed on our minds for the rest of our lives.

7 Comments | Rebekah in Israel, Spring 2012 | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by rebekahinisrael

Midterms: No Fun

March 16, 2012

Yes….another blog post about school.  School has been consuming much more of my time than usual these past two weeks because I have had midterms!  Which has meant two weeks of catching up on the whole semester.  The way midterms are administered at Thammasat was very interesting though, and something I personally would love to see implemented at UofR for final exams.

Midterms at Thammasat are scheduled just like finals at Richmond: one week is set aside with no class (usually) and three-hour midterms scheduled throughout the week.  Students are required to wear full uniform to midterms.  When you show up the day of the exam, the classroom is closed, but there is a class list outside with a corresponding number next to each name.  The numbers are completely randomized, and are not known until before the exam.  Once you walk into the classroom ten minutes before the exam, each place has an exam and answer notebook already set down, with the place number right next to it.  So after entering the room you must gather your necessary exam materials (pens, pencils, calculator, ID card, water, etc…) show the proctors that your cell phone has been turned off, and place your bag at the front of the classroom.  Then you find your number and corresponding seat, and can start the exam.  The places, however, are set far apart so that there is no possible way to cheat on the exam, which personally I find fantastic.  In one exam, we even each had our own table.  On the whiteboard at the front of the room is projected a countdown for the time left of the exam, and for the last half hour, last fifteen minutes, and last five minutes, an automated voice reminds you of the time left.  Two proctors monitor the exam and continuously walk around the classroom in and out of every aisle to make sure there is no cheating.  You are not allowed to use the restroom, and once finished, you leave your exam on the table and leave the room, while the proctors come and collect your completed test.  The only downside in this system is that the professor is not there to answer questions about the exam.  I would love to see this system implemented at Richmond for final exams.

Now that midterms are over, however, I am off to Myanmar (Burma) for five days! I will leave you with a photo of me in my Thammasat uniform:

 

 

Leave a Comment » | Samantha in Thailand, Spring 2012 | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by samanthainthailand

Barbados, Week 6: Island Hopping in St. Lucia

March 16, 2012

When I see tall things in the distance, one thing pops into my head:  I must climb that.  I was perusing my sister’s photos of her own St. Lucia vacation when I stumbled upon the Pitons of St. Lucia.  Like a mismatched set of gigantic fangs, Gros and Petit Piton rise out of the Caribbean Sea on St Lucia’s west coast and are its most recognizable landmarks.  They are so important to St. Lucia, in fact, that they named their own indigenous beer, Piton, after them.

I flew into St. Lucia on a late afternoon REDjet flight on Friday, a flight all of twenty minutes, knowing only where my hotel was located and that it had balcony views of Petit Piton.  Unlike the United States, finding a cab is never an issue; they will find you, and quickly.  I knew the price was set at US$65 from Hewanorra Airport to Soufriere, so I got a kick out of my cab driver when he told me “It’s $75 but, for you, i’ll knock it down $65”.  So nice of him to charge me regular price!  But as the drive progressed and we began talking, and I learned that he goes by the name “Cow”, we bonded as much as a taxi driver and tourist can.  I learned that he owns 4 acres of banana trees as well as driving the taxi van 7 days a week, and that he has three daughters from four different wives.  That is one busy man, I thought to myself.

Cow offered to drive me to Gros Piton the next morning, but I would have to be ready by 6:00 a.m.  Of course one of the two nights I was in a spacious, comfy, air-conditioned hotel room I wouldn’t even be sleeping for more than five and a half hours!  Soufriere, however, is settled in between beautiful, lush mountainside opening up onto a quiet fishing bay, so when I woke up at 5:30 a.m. with light clouds rolling over the jagged mountaintops and the sun illuminating just enough detail, and it was definitely a sight worth seeing.  All I had to eat was a bag of peanuts that morning, with two water bottles packed for my climb, before my guide Shem and I began the ascent of Gros Piton just before 7:00 a.m.  It was a good thing we left so early, though, because even by the quarter mile mark, I had sweat pouring down my face while Shem had not even broken a sweat.  I guess that’s the difference between casually keeping in shape and hiking a 2,619 foot peak everyday.  The trail consisted, at first, of inclined packed dirt with a few areas of steep broken rock that would have to be navigated with use of all four limbs.  As the path hit the half-way mark and continued upwards it morphed into steeper switchbacks with crude earthen stairs and wooden railings nailed between especially steep sections.  If it had been just me, I would’ve taken my sweet time, but Shem was under the impression that a young man of my age was capable of going faster than I wanted, and thus I pretended to be hardly winded when we would stop for breaks.  With aching limbs, I reached the summit look-out point about an hour and ten minutes after we began, and there it hit me that it was completely merited to be so winded, because I was really, really high up.  The view was stunning:  You could see nearly the entire length of the island, with many of its uneven peaks shrouded in early morning clouds.  Soufriere was just a cluster of houses behind Petit Piton across the bay, and you could see numerous sailboats jetting around the west coast.

The way down was a bit easier, and in the fifty minutes it took us to descend from Gros Piton’s glorious heights, I learned a little bit about my guide, Shem.  Although I didn’t ask his age, he must’ve been somewhere between 17-19 years old, and had graduated from school in Soufriere.  Shem lived near the base of the Piton and had four brothers and two sisters, but he was a middle child.  He had been working as a guide on Gros Piton for two years, hiking the mountain at least once, if not twice, daily.  He told me the fastest he had ever climbed Gros Piton was in 55 minutes, but the slowest was with a group of older tourists who took 4 hours to make the climb!

Traveling to unfamiliar destinations is exhilarating, but, at times, it can be just as frustrating.  Upon coming back to town, I needed to take out money for my celebratory post-hike meal, but of course Saturday was the day where the Bank of St. Lucia in town was inconveniently switching its location to a waterfront building.  The ATM would not be operable until Monday.  Cow had to pick up a couple in the northern capital city of Castries at 12:00, so I had to take an hour drive north with him, take out money in Castries, and take a public bus an hour back to Soufriere.  Exhausted, dirty, and desperate, I stumbled into Archie’s bar and restaurant around 1:30 p.m.  and had the best chicken rotis and salad of my life.  Despite my limited time in St. Lucia, the only activities I could muster the energy for the rest of the day was to nap on the beach, nap in my hotel room, eat dinner at Archie’s, and wander the town streets and talk with some locals until around 10:00 p.m.

Sunday I played the typical tourist role, with Cow taking me and a couple from Arkansas around to the drive-in sulfur volcano just outside of Soufriere along with a trip to Toraille Falls.  It made for some good picture taking, to be sure, but it did not have nearly as an authentic, organic feel to it as did yesterday’s hike up Gros Piton.  Cow agreed to drive me over to the east coast for some sightseeing before my afternoon flight back to Barbados, and I even got a dip in at a beach down the road from the airport before my 5:00 pm flight.  I wouldn’t recommend cutting one’s time that close, however, as I enjoyed myself at the beach so much I almost missed the cut-off for check in.  All in all, a great weekend away that I would recommend for anybody — well, anybody who enjoys challenging physical exertion, that is — and a nice break before my head is buried in the books for midterms at UWI!

 

2 Comments | Ryan in Barbados, Spring 2012 | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by ryaninbarbados

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