It's me, i'm back! My excitement continues to swell as the days to my Chile trip tick away. Just 13! I'm still in awe, that I have been given this awesome chance to see the world outside my Fayetteville community. I have never been the most excelled speaker/ writer or the most imaginative individual. However I believe I was chosen, because I make up for my faults in my spirit of adventure, commitment to the issues and enthusiasm for the project. On the other hand Abiba is quite loquacious, with the ability to express her mind in original, beautiful ways. Though I envy this talent, I think together we will make a terrific team and shall do a great job of representing the USA.
On and off we have been conferring on Facebook, to get to know each other better, as well as to coordinate for the trip. We discuss our expectations of the process, ideas we would like to share about women's rights and questions we would like to ask the girls from Chile and Sri Lanka. For example I want to know if like here, women are still misrepresented in government, face body issues from the media, have lower paying jobs and are overall discriminated against by men. But I would also like to know how their lives are similar to ours, school, music, friend and social networking wise. For all of this, I plan to keep a journal, and every night detail our adventures so I can keep the experiences with me, (and share them when I get home). Another important topic we have touched on is bringing thank you presents for our hosts. We want the gifts to show our gratitude in addition to being a personal memento of meeting us. So, Abiba and I have tenuously decided on friendship bracelets and rainbow catchers that we will both hand make. Hopefully the girls will like them! However my goal is that the gesture will say more than the actual gift, for we want to be forming bonds that will last longer than just our trip duration. This is particularly important to the Coalition, because the whole point of the program is to dialog about our experiences so we can get to know the others better (while also putting the US in a positive light).
Last week Abiba, our parents and I met with Sally Roesh Wagner the director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage House and one of the two adults who shall be accompanying us. We received our plane tickets and a brief, expected schedule of our time there. We will all be traveling together the night of March 13th, first to Atlanta, Georgia then on to Santiago (pictured below) for a ten hour flight! I didn't fully realize how far away we would be going until I thought about how much ground the plane will cover. We will be in a different continent, a different season and a major city that speaks a different language. If you stop and think about this, thats a lot to take on...AND I CANT WAIT. We have little knowledge of our exact itinerary, I don't even think the people there know it themselves. For many this lack of definition and structure could be scary in a new place, but I'm more than ready to embrace it. My only hope is that our free time from discussions will be spent talking to the girls informally about their lives. This of course is in addition to sight seeing, and yes shopping. There are so many ways I can think of to emirs ourselves in the culture, I only wish we could do all of them in our six day trip!
On and off we have been conferring on Facebook, to get to know each other better, as well as to coordinate for the trip. We discuss our expectations of the process, ideas we would like to share about women's rights and questions we would like to ask the girls from Chile and Sri Lanka. For example I want to know if like here, women are still misrepresented in government, face body issues from the media, have lower paying jobs and are overall discriminated against by men. But I would also like to know how their lives are similar to ours, school, music, friend and social networking wise. For all of this, I plan to keep a journal, and every night detail our adventures so I can keep the experiences with me, (and share them when I get home). Another important topic we have touched on is bringing thank you presents for our hosts. We want the gifts to show our gratitude in addition to being a personal memento of meeting us. So, Abiba and I have tenuously decided on friendship bracelets and rainbow catchers that we will both hand make. Hopefully the girls will like them! However my goal is that the gesture will say more than the actual gift, for we want to be forming bonds that will last longer than just our trip duration. This is particularly important to the Coalition, because the whole point of the program is to dialog about our experiences so we can get to know the others better (while also putting the US in a positive light).
Last week Abiba, our parents and I met with Sally Roesh Wagner the director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage House and one of the two adults who shall be accompanying us. We received our plane tickets and a brief, expected schedule of our time there. We will all be traveling together the night of March 13th, first to Atlanta, Georgia then on to Santiago (pictured below) for a ten hour flight! I didn't fully realize how far away we would be going until I thought about how much ground the plane will cover. We will be in a different continent, a different season and a major city that speaks a different language. If you stop and think about this, thats a lot to take on...AND I CANT WAIT. We have little knowledge of our exact itinerary, I don't even think the people there know it themselves. For many this lack of definition and structure could be scary in a new place, but I'm more than ready to embrace it. My only hope is that our free time from discussions will be spent talking to the girls informally about their lives. This of course is in addition to sight seeing, and yes shopping. There are so many ways I can think of to emirs ourselves in the culture, I only wish we could do all of them in our six day trip!
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