Jepson In the World

A posting from Emily Prior, ‘11, after arriving in Senegal.

To rewind, when I was halfway through my sophomore year and study abroad destinations were all the rage for conversation, I, too, began flirting with the numerous destination possibilities. I am a Leadership Studies and French major, so any logical assumption would be Paris or some quaint little town in France. After all, my mother studied in France and her study abroad stories are probably what convinced me to study the language in the first place. 

But, as much as I love the idea of traveling to France, I wasn’t sure if I wanted that to be my study abroad experience. I wanted my time abroad to be more than a look into the life of another culture and, instead, an opportunity to truly put all hesitations and preconceptions aside, divulge into the lifestyle of a completely foreign culture, and hopefully learn more about myself because of it. In fact, I was almost looking forward to the somewhat uncomfortable yet completely real situations and problems I may come upon. From health issues, to social issues, to simple emotional issues dealing with such a different environment, I wanted to fully experience an entirely new lifestyle and in turn be prepared for the hardships that will likely come in one form or another. 

So, I made a checklist. I needed the French component, the Leadership Component, the “Experience” Component, the Life-Transforming Component, the obvious Safety Component, and voila!

Dakar, Senegal here I come.   

With CIEE Dakar’s “Language and Culture” Program, I hope to study the makeup of a completely different society and, with every establishment I come upon or law I learn about, I can find the leadership that is embedded in it. Senegal’s poverty will force me to step out of my comfort zone and think about the routes of poverty or the difficulties of leading a country with fewer resources. The makeup of the citizens will force me to think about race, social issues, and the customs that make up a country. The predominantly Islamic society will force me to think about the value they place on religion compared to that of people in the United States and understand how Islam is woven into their daily life. And, to top it off, I will still be speaking in French, chatting it up with my Homestay Senegalese Family or just trying to grasp everything my French professors are saying during lectures - in short getting the experience I wanted. 

Now, back to the present. Today has been my first day in Dakar. Yet, after the events of today, it feels much more like a week than a mere 14 hours in this country. I flew in from Dulles yesterday evening and landed at around 6 am.  After landing and going through customs, we loaded up our luggage onto the CIEE buses and drove towards L’université de Suffolk- the university that we will be temporarily living in this week and will also be studying at during our time here. 

We almost instantly found our temporary rooms, chatted briefly with our roommates and collapsed. Then a few of us decided we would take a walk to the cliffs and find the pretty mosque we had seen on our drive in. We followed Route de la Corniche Ouest which took us along the ocean. While there is a lot graffiti in the town, almost all of it is political, and it was entertaining reading the French protests throughout the walk. Half of the Senegalese welcome us in French and the other half welcome us in Wolof, their local language. I have learned that the typical wolof greeting starts with Salaamaalekum and the typical response is Maalekum salaam. 

Our leisurely sunny walk to the cliffs ended with us soaked in the rain from the storm that hit - mid promenade.  We were greeted at the door of the dorms with 20 students just staring at our soaked attires saying “awwww” in unison.  But the rain didn’t stop and in a matter of minutes, we experienced our very first Senegalese flood! I brought extra towels, a headlamp, flashlight, etc. to Senegal thinking that I may need it once or twice. I didn’t realize ALL of it would be put to good use my first day. The dorms flooded to just below our knees and we had to pile our suitcases on top of our beds. 

The flood picked up and we were eventually relocated to a hotel where I am currently sitting.  This hotel seems luxurious. We have HOT water, electricity, bedding and air conditioning. We are staying here until our dorms are fixed, but are supposed to move in with our Senegalese families on Friday and may not make it back to the dorms before then. The actual program begins tomorrow so I’m going to go practice french… au revoir!

A posting from Barrett Miles,  class of 2011.

“G’day mate! Let’s put another shrimp on the barbie!” That’s the Americanized stereotyped traditional greeting of Australians, but in reality no one walks around yelling G’day to everyone nor talking about putting “more shrimp on the barbie.” In fact, Aussies actually call their cookouts “sausage sizzles.” At any rate, allow me to first introduce myself and explain how I ended up in the Land Down Under.
 
My name is Barrett Miles and I am a Leadership Studies major and Business Administration and Law & the Liberal Arts double minor at UR. With my father being in the resort and hospitality business, I have been fortunate enough to have traveled fairly extensively throughout the United States and abroad. Therefore I’ve always considered myself a traveler, and few things excite me more than traveling to a new destination. 

Naturally then, I always assumed that I would travel abroad for at least a semester during my collegiate career—no matter what university I was at. Luckily for me, (for several other reasons as well) I attended the University of Richmond and therefore one of the best schools to study abroad from. 

Now as you may or may not know, the trend at UR is for students to study abroad during the fall of their junior year. Perhaps, “trend” is actually not the right choice of word—it’s more like an unwritten social custom, or an example of a UR cultural folkway so to speak. Literally everyone goes during their third year-fall term; in fact, I will go out on a limb and say probably close to 98.95% of my junior class is abroad right now (my approximation). So, due to this custom, I knew when I wanted to study abroad, but I still had to decide where to study. That choice wasn’t easy, as UR has such a great Study Abroad program that they offer a choice of what seems like 500 different countries and 10,000 different partnered schools to choose from.  So, I had to narrow down the choices. 

My thought process was pretty simple: I knew I would love to go somewhere in Europe—but I had already been twice and I plan on going back in the future. So, I decided to take advantage of UR’s wide connection with partner schools abroad and go somewhere really far away that I would not necessarily ever have a chance to go again. That place is Australia.

Through personal research and other UR and non-UR student’s opinions I decided on studying at the University of Queensland, in Brisbane. Brisbane is the capital of the state of Queensland and the third largest city behind Sydney and Melbourne. For general info about Brisbane check out Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane. I chose the University of Queensland (UQ) because it is recognized as one of the top schools in Australia, and also because it, as most 40,000 person schools do, offers a large variety of courses and departments—enabling me to receive credit in four different subject areas.  

My favorite class that I am taking at UQ is entitled Black Australian Literature: Oodgeroo Studies. Despite the course title, it is not a true “literature course” but rather a leadership course.  Its focus is on the life and work of Aboriginal poet Kath Walker (also known by her Aboriginal name of Oodgeroo Noonuccal) and her role as a primary leader in Australia’s Aboriginal rights movement. I was surprised on the first day of class to find that a middle-aged woman realtor would be my only classmate! The personal tutelage that has resulted has really allowed me to get the most out of the class, which is taught by a leading aboriginal activist in his own right, Sam Watson—who just so happens to be a nephew of Oodgeroo.  (You know your teacher is kind of cool too when they have their own Wikipedia page about them).   

Anyway, I arrived on July 10th—leaving behind me the hot temperatures of summer time in the States to arrive in the middle of winter here in Brisbane. Wait—don’t feel too bad for me—the weather is mid 70s Fahrenheit every single day and there are never any clouds in the sky; they call Queensland the “Sunshine State” for a reason. 

Just a few things that I took immediate notice of upon arriving were the excellent public transportation available, the deliciousness of the oranges (and other fruit/produce) due to the ideal existing climate, and the “laziness of Aussies.” Let me explain that last one quickly. Aussies aren’t so much as “lazy” as they just don’t like to work.  This explains why literally everything except the grocery and alcohol stores close by at least 5 pm daily. Coming from an American perspective where the almighty dollar persuades many enterprises to operate 24/7, I thought it was quite a sight to see a huge, busy indoor shopping mall completely shut down by 4:45 pm on a Friday. It seems that the Aussie approach is that since no one likes working on Friday nights… no one does.

That’s all for this first post, I’ll have plenty more to talk about soon.  As for now, I leave soon for my “Spring Break”: a trip up the east coast of Queensland, starting in Brisbane and ending 9 days later in Cairns. It will be filled with plenty of sightseeing and adrenaline fueled activities that only Australia can offer—sailing in the Whitsunday islands, diving in the Great Barrier Reef and nighttime rainforest walking in Cairns are a few examples. Until next time, Cheers!