2019-05-14
I know what it looks like. How cliche. But I am going to call it like it is; I went to a developing country and painted a mural. This mural was my Final Community Project, which was a required part of my gap year program. The goal of this project was to identify a problem...
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2019-04-15
One of the most difficult things I have been forced to confront over my gap year is my privilege. I’m white. I’m American. I’m a native English speaker. I’m wealthy. Well, I have never considered myself wealthy until recently. I knew my family had money; we lived comfortably and never had to worry about putting...
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2019-03-10
Throughout my life, death has always been taboo. I think much of this feeling comes from being raised in the Western world, where we as a society often hide the fact of dying. We don’t really talk about death, we do everything we can to slow the inevitable process down, and once it does happen,...
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2018-11-29
One of the highlights of my time in Ecuador has been the multitude and proximity of waterfalls. This fact still often surprises me given that I live in the Sierra, in the country’s Imbabura Province, named for just one of the several massive volcanoes always in the horizon, since my community is nestled amid in...
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2018-10-14
* I realize that I’m typing this with white knuckles. I realize that my jaw is tense as the I recall the words of recent headlines swirling in my brain. I realize that I’m biased, and I carry my biases with me in this blog post. However… This post is...
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2018-09-09
As our plane descended 37,000 feet down from the clouds into the capital city of Quito, I was struck with an obvious thought: “this is my first time in Ecuador.” (duh). It was my first time outside the United States, so of course this was my first time in Ecuador. However, as a person...
Read More2018-08-13
As I woke up at 5:45 this morning to the sounds and motion of my co-counselor amid her routine sleep-talk-and-walk show in our summer camp cabin, I knew there was no going back to bed. Throughout this week at camp, the question I have been most frequently asked is “When do you leave for...
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