NSLI-Y Reunion: Part Four

Every year, a group of us who studied with NSLI-Y in Jordan way back in 2011 get together in Chicago  for New Year's - this year marked the fourth annual get-together! I'm just so grateful to have such a wonderful group of people that are always there, even when we don't get to see each other all the time. They are all doing such fantastic things, studying in Oman and Jordan and working with the State Department. I'm kind of the odd one out, as I've left the Middle East and headed south, they've all continued in their studies, exhausting the Arabic classes of the top universities in America, all essentially fluent in the language that we all started together, preparing to rule the world. (I'll just chill in the back with my siSwati skills, yo).

But, as we all know, the greatest thing you get from studying abroad is not the skills on paper, but rather the people, and the JO Crew is a group of people I wouldn't give up for anything. With all the craziness and travelling and feeling like a nomad without an anchor and whatnot, it's really nice to know that no matter what happens during the year, we're going to end it the same way that we started it - in Chicago, with hugs and laughter, surrounded by these people and love and happiness, and I am ever so grateful for that.

Photo credit: A. Gegios, my zoji :)

PACKING FOR SEMESTER AT SEA

Hello! Now, I know that I have not gone on the trip yet, but in the past when I write on packing lists, it seemed to be very popular, so I thought I'd share my packing list for Semester at Sea, for a semester-long (112 days) voyage. But first, a friendly reminder of my personal commandments of packing:

1. Thou shalt not pack clothes you never wear.
2. Thou shalt not pack more than you can carry.
3. Thou shalt not pack high heels.
4. Thou shalt not pack a fanny pack.
5. Thou shalt not pack in a suitcase if a backpack will do.

Then, without further to do...
DIANA'S PACKING LIST FOR THE SPRING 2015 VOYAGE OF SEMESTER AT SEA:

Clothes: As much as possible, things are synthetic fabrics to dry quickly, as everything needs to be drip-dried in the bathroom. Also - this is not a minimalist list. While I love backpacking, Semester at Sea is not a backpacking trip. I have a room on the boat, and don't have to carry all of this whilst I'm travelling in-port. There is no need to wear the same two shirts over and over like I would normally do on a backpacking trip.

1. Yoga pants (2) - just for the ship
2. Hiking/"travel" pants (2) - they fold into nothing, weigh nothing, and dry quickly
3. Shorts (4) - just for the ship
4. Long skirts (5) - lately I just like skirts more than pants
5. Leggings (1) - also folds into nothing, yay for layers!
6. T-Shirts (7) - necessity
7. Tank Tops (7) - they're tiny, which makes packing them nice
8. Underwear (12) - running out sucks
9. Bras (6) - not sure what to say...
10. Hiking socks (1) - quick dry, keep away nasty feet
11. Other socks (2) - I usually wear flip-flops
12. Flip-flops/ncops (3) - one dollar each from Swaziland Shoprite :)
13. Dress sandals (1) - can't always wear ncops
14. Active/hiking/gym shoes (1) - mountains in ncops? maybe not...
15. Formal dress (1) - short dress, small to pack
16. Suit (1) - there is a chance of a university interview along the way in-port
17. Scarves (8) - to cover butts, shoulders, hair, and anything else that happens to be haraam
18. Jersey (sweatshirt, my dear Americans) (1) - it gets cold, bros
19. Long sleeved shirt (5) - layers, man
20. Rain jacket (1) - Christmas present :)
21. Bandanas (8) - most of the time I wrap my hair in either these or a scarf
22. Swazi outfit (1) - I'm technically registered as an international student from Swaziland, so I figured I should :)
23. Beanie (1) - my head gets cold

Electronics: I usually go much more minimal here, but I do have to survive a semester of university, so this is what I'm bringing (plus chargers and outlet adapters)

1. Netbook (my trusty computer, duct-taped together but still clicking along)
2. Nice camera (somewhere between DSLR and point and shoot)
3. Waterproof/shockproof camera
4. iPod (my mom found one of the old models used for $50 - will be great for checking internet in ports, seeing as how there's no internet on the boat, and I don't want to bring my laptop into ports)
5. Extra memory cards + flash drive 
6. Ear buds (I've had a pair for years that has been through hell and high water and the washing machine and still works - I think they came free from some promotion... who knows?)
7. Phone: (the basic Nokia brick - for me, it's essentially an alarm clock)

School supplies: I mean, it's a semester at sea, not four months of nothing at sea.

1. Textbooks (9) - required, I had to buy eight and print out one from a PDF a professor sent
2. Binder/filler paper/dividers (1) - I have one two-ring binder from Swaziland that I just filled with the paper I had left over from IB. It'll be plenty for four months of school.
3. Full pencil case (1) - some pens, some pencils, a highlighter, a Sharpie. Nothing fancy.
4. Empty expandable folder (1) - I'm assuming I'm going to get some papers at some point.

Room stuff: The cabin is supposedly small, but I have a feeling after Waterford QB's, it'll be massive.

1. Magnets (a massive amount): The walls are metal, and we're not allowed to use tape, so magnets are needed for decorating. I bought a roll for magnetic tape at Walmart for two dollars and spent some time making my own.
2. Air freshener (2): Small room, no windows, bathroom in the room, going to have to drip-dry clothes in such a room... just trying to avoid a disaster
3. Pictures for the walls (lots): because white walls are my worst enemy

Travel necessities: Seriously, though. In my book, these are almost always necessities.

1. Sleeping bag and liner: I have a small-ish one that's warm almost all the time. It makes risky hostels a lot less disgusting. I use a liner just to keep the bag clean, as the liner is much easier to wash. Also, camping.
2. Passport: Duh.
3. Credit card and debit card: As much as I budget travel, some money is going to be spent. Withdrawing from ATMs in foreign ports is so much easier than trying to find a currency conversion place.
4. Travel towels: I know this is random, but seriously, don't bring a normal towel. I use a konga and a microfiber towel, and have a microfiber facecloth as well. Not only do these not take up space, but they dry amazingly fast, which is the important part.

Bags: Because I'm not going around the world with this stuff loose.

1. Backpack: My trusty thing. I stole it from my mom's closet in 2010 and it has been attached to my back ever since.
2. Overnight bag: Medium sized, with a shoulder strap
3. School pack: For classes on the ship
4. Shoulder bag + tiny purse + string tie backpack: They take up very little space, and it's nicer to have the right bag for the day, whether it's hiking a mountain or going out at night. 

Other: Because no list would be complete without the miscellaneous.

1. Glasses
2. Toiletries (pack for yourself, you know what you need)
3. Journal
4. Host family gifts
5. Jewelry
6. Goggles
7. Hair ties and clips

Okay, that's it! Good luck, enjoy packing!

Evening of Dance Videos: Waterford Kamhlaba 2014

I know that I'm about three months late, but if you are interested, here are a few of the videos of performances from the 2014 "Evening of Dance," at Waterford Kamhlaba, where students perform dances from around the world. Just follow the below links and enjoy!

Indian Dance (choreographed and led by Deepali)

American Dance (choreographed and led by yours truly)

Maldivian Solo (choreographed and performed by Nayifa)

Contemporary Dance (choreographed and led by Sofie)

Contemporary Solo (choreographed and performed by Sofie)

Contemporary Solo (choreographed and performed by Stella)

Hip-Hop (3D, choreographed and led by Fernando)

Tumbling (not sure who was leading this)

Goodbye Dance (performed by the teachers, including MMw's famous solo)

Swaziland, America, and a Boat?

Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remind myself that I don't live in Swaziland anymore. The most difficult part in getting that fact through my head (other than the fact that our hostel family has been scattered across the world) is that my replacement, at least until May, is to go live on a boat (and I'm not exactly sure where after that). I'm so excited about the whole boat thing, but admittedly, this whole affair has got a little bit of the "homeless" vibes to it - but, that's kind of what I signed up for with this whole wandering the world thing :)

Other than that, I have very little to announce, other than that I'm leaving in less than a month! Until then, you can find me busting my butt working long shifts at Toys R Us. I assure you, spending ten hours at a time in a store filled with colored plastic is not helping with my culture shock on being in America... but I just remind myself - one weekend there paid for my flights within India to be reunited with my other half, and that is definitely worth it :)

The Next Great Adventure

Now that I've been back from Swaziland for just over a week, I'm already in knee-deep in preparing for the next adventure - Semester at Sea. So, I figured I'd write a little bit about what it is that I'm going to be doing from January to May.

Semester at Sea is a semester of fully-fledged university (sponsored by the University of Virginia), where a bunch of university students live on this boat (MV Explorer) for four months, and sail around the world. It's quite expensive, but thanks to the never-ending generosity of the Davis Foundation, I haven't even seen a price tag. I'll be taing classes every day when we're on the boat, and then I'm free to roam in the ports where we will be stopping.

For classes, I will be taking Travel Writing, Gender and Society, Systems of Inequality (a sociology course), and Global Health. I'm really, really excited for these classes! it's nice to finally be able to just take classes that I'm interested in, instead of for requirements for graduation (I'm looking at you, IB). If I were in university already, the credits would transfer, but because I'm planning on university in Europe, and the ECTS system is so different from the American system, it won't transfer. For those at American universities, though, the credits do indeed count for a semester of classes! As for me, I'm just taking it for the fun of it - my grades and credits don't count for anything. Makes for a nice, relaxing semester!

Each class meets when we're at sea, so there are no classes when we're at ports. But, three of the classes do have "field labs," which are one-day programs that we have to do in a port for the class. But, I've picked my classes so that I'm excited about the field labs, which include, in my case, a visit to a market and station for travel writing, and visits to local NGOs in Vietnam and Morocco for systems of sociology and the gender course. Should be good!

Now, as for the exciting part... the PORTS! We will be stopping in the following places:
Hilo, Hawaii,
Yokohama and Kobe, Japan
Shanghai and Hong Kong, China
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Singapore, Singapore
Rangoon, Burma
Cochin, India
Port Louis, Mauritius
Cape Town, South Africa
Walvis Bay, Namibia
Casablanca, Morocco
Southampton, UK

We usually have five or six days in each port, with a few exceptions. Once we're in the ports, other than the field labs described above, it's up to me what I want to do! Right now I have a few plans and a few open pages, but I'll leave that for another post. For now, just looking at this list makes me really excited!

And that's about it! I've been hustling around trying to do all the preparations I've supposed to been doing since October in this last month, as much of it wasn't possible when I was in Swaziland (either that, or not probable, because I had southern hemisphere exams to deal with). Anyways, now, I'm just getting ready, and slowly starting to pack again! I mean, my backpack is never really empty... I submitted my Indian visa yesterday and am waiting for that back, and I've ordered my textbooks last night! Soon enough, it will be January, and I'll be on my way!

Until then, enjoy December!

Upon Returning to America

A few weeks ago, I read quote along the lines of "the point of travelling is not to be a foreigner in a foreign land, but to return to your homeland as a foreigner." Having returned to America after two years in Swaziland, I assure you, that is very much the case. As such, I would like to describe the top six things which have stood out to me over the past two days as points of major culture shock, which I am currently experiencing in my homeland.

1. TELEVISION: I'm not sure if I got just a little bit too used to SABC (South African Broadcast Company) or Swazi TV, but American broadcast television (we don't have cable or satellite) is just bizarre. Infomercials, the extent of repetitive reality TV... I don't know why it's bizarre, but it just is. I haven't seen the United Auto Insurance commercial in a while, and it freaked me out. In other news, apparently if you have had a bladder sling and it has gone wrong, they want you to call their 800 number... I'm already yearning for the South African commercials.
2. TRAFFIC: In America, it's so much more organized, and somehow that makes it that much scarier. In Swaziland, if they have an intersection, one road will go, and then the other. Here, they've got these massive systems of lights and signals and lanes and turn lanes and straight lanes, so that everyone is still driving all the time. I practically had a panic attack yesterday, half because I'm used to driving on the left and everything is backwards here, and half because there were a million cars going every direction when I thought only one side of the road should be driving!
3. FENCES: There are none here. Anybody who has ever lived practically anywhere in southern Africa will understand how weird it is that there aren't any here. No barbed wire, no Inyatsi Security signs, no nothing. 
4. FOOD: It's not a joke. American food is over-sized, over-processed, and kind of weird. The sugar has all these tiny white grains, compared to the big brown grains from the less-processed sugarcane in Swaziland. The pizzas are massive, maybe three or four times those from SD. Cookies are too perfect, and everything strikes me as just being a little bit not-food-ish. Even the vegetables are weirdly shiny. I scrubbed a pepper for twenty minutes yesterday, and then decided not to eat it, because it was just too polished.
5. AMERICA IS A GHOST TOWN: There are literally no people outside. I know that it's cold, but there's not that much snow, and even when it's pouring rain outside there are people around in Swaziland. Even in summer, people aren't outside here. It's bizarre. It's like the aliens have come and abducted everyone in America except for me... and then I see a car drive by. But still, there's nobody outside here.
6. BOILING WATER: Strangely enough, the electric kettles that we use in Swaziland are faster at boiling water than using the metal kettle and the stove like I do here. My tea takes forever, and I feel impatient. Just so you know that Swaziland is more efficient than America, in at least one area.

And that's my list. There are many more, as I'm sure my mother will tell you... apparently I've been walking around the house like someone who has grown up underground and is seeing the sky for the first time in forever.

It Shall Come To Pass.

And so that's it. Two years in Swaziland, I blinked, and it's over. I spent the last two days in airports and planes, flying from Johannesburg to Abu Dhabi and back to America. It's crazy to think about the day that I first got the letter from UWC, asking me to apply, all the way until now, as I've technically become an "alumni," but it really doesn't feel like that. I feel like in the middle of January, I'm going to get on a plane and fly back to Swaziland for another year. Logically, I know I'm not, but that doesn't change the feeling.

Despite my tears and frustrations at being scattered from my best friends and adoptive family, it's strange that life goes on. I got back to the States last night, and I have a job interview in approximately an hour (kind of panicked at what I'm supposed to wear, looking at my haphazard suitcase in front of me), an appointment with the Indian visa people in a week to process my visa for March, a whole lot of other things to do for Semester at Sea, and a rather neglected life and family here in Illinois that I have one month to catch up with before leaving again.

It's strange. There's really no other word for it. During exams, we would joke that no matter how much or how little you study, the exams will simply come to pass. Time keeps going, and no matter what we do, it's going to pas us by, whether we like it or not. When I think about the fact that three days ago I woke up next to my best friend in Swaziland, and now I'm looking out the window at America, my head kind of spins. It all seems so big, somehow overwhelming to even think about the distance between myself and so many of the people I love so dearly. And then there's always that realization that no matter where I go, there will always be someone I love who is on the other side of the world.

And that, as they say, is the price we pay for the life we live.

Diwali at Waterford UWC

Hello! All right, let me try and get this blog back on track.

In July, my friend from India asked me how to write an event proposal. A few months later, we were shopping for, preparing for, and setting up for a Hindu festival called Diwali, which we were hosting as a cultural event here at school.

First of all, there was the food. Waterford so generously gave us funding for the event, so we were able to make a bit of Indian food for everyone to try. So, all morning was spent in the kitchen, working to make pakuras from chickpea flower, onions, and some spices.

Photo Credit: Deepali Tikone

Then, I left to start working on set-up. It took about eight hours to get all the furniture and equipment moved between buildings and set up properly, and then to set up all the decorations, including many strings of lights and about 200 candles, but in the end, I'm really proud of how it worked out!

Photo credit: Sarah Hahn

We rushed around like chickens with our heads cut off for the entire day, but the event itself was well worth it. We set the limit at 80 people to attend, because of the food and space limitations, and every single ticket that we gave out returned to us with a lovely person, complete in their requisite Indian attire, or at least a valiant attempt at such.

The program for the evening included a dance, a presentation about the history and religious significance of Diwali as the Festival of Lights, an lesson in dance, food tasting, and a fireworks display. For all of you who know Waterford, you might have a small inkling of how proud I am that we got fireworks on the field, smack in the middle of the cricket pitch! The following photos are credit to Kim Sinnige.

I almost had a change of life plans after this event, thinking I wanted to be an event planner or something. Anyways... I really encourage anybody at a UWC (or even another school) where you think you are lacking in cultural events to get up and do one yourself! Diwali here was something really special, and I hope that it's started a tradition in cultural events for years to come. 

Oh, and one massive final thank you to Deepali, my partner in crime in having the idea for, planning for, and getting this whole event to happen. Also, thanks to Nayifa and Sarah for working themselves silly all day setting up and cleaning up, and also to Waterford's administration for being so generous with the funding for this event, so that nobody had to pay anything to get in the door. And thanks to everyone who came and enjoyed!

Epilogue to Swaziland and Prequel to Semester at Sea

Hello! I feel like I've completely abandoned this blog, but someone just told me that their husband found it and was reading and laughing at the stories, and so I'm feeling inspired to start writing again.

I finish my time here in Swaziland in just over two weeks, which, after two years here, is a crazy notion indeed. For those two weeks, I'm busy writing my final exams, and so there won't be much posting in that time. But, once I return to Chicago in December, I'll try to fill in some of the better stories that have happened here in the kingdom over the past few months.

And soon enough, the next adventure is going to start! The guy who has paid for my time here in Swaziland (Shelby Davis, super cool dude, spends all his money on international education scholarships), has given me a full scholarship to participate in the Semester at Sea program. So, I get to live on what is essentially a converted cruise ship and sail around the world for four months, starting in the beginning of January. So, I assure you, the adventures are not over, and this blog was merely in hibernation, not entirely dead.

In the meantime, I'll just tell you that there is a eight inch long spider (maybe twenty centimeters) chilling in the bathroom, and we're all admittedly a little bit scared of it. Admittedly, I'm also going to miss the fact that all the insects here in Swaziland are humorously big.

Until December, when you can expect a few more Swaziland stories and some preparation tales for Semester at Sea!

Guess Who Came to South Africa?

So, during the last school holiday, my family came to South Africa - I have literally been the biggest slacker with this blog, but for your viewing delight, I have decided to share a few pictures from their brief encounters with my land. Be prepared for animal pictures, though, because we touristed :)

Without further to do, I present, "Two Weeks, Ten Pictures."