I don't know what to do....

[Liesje]

First of all, let me say that I realize how spoiled and blessed I am to even HAVE these opportunities in the first place.....

Now, as some of you may know, I spent January in Tanzania with a group of 20 from my school. We studied the church's (Lutheran and Catholic) influence on development in Tanzania. Basically, we stayed in various hostels and visited churches and NGOs throughout the northern part of the country. We also did other things like visit the Masaai, hike down Kilimanjaro, and go on a 4-day animal park safari. It was insanely awesome....and insanely expensive! I took out two student loans, additional to my regular ones, to help fnd the trip. It was such a great experience, but I was sick for the first 2.5 weeks of the trip and felt tired, hungry, and exhausted most of the time. When I did a three-day antibiotic treatment, it cleared up immediately and I enjoyed the last week even more.

Now, there's two faculty members going back to East Africa (Uganda) for the 2006 January term. From the basic course description, it sounds like they're doing a lot of the same types of things, just in a different country. I REALLY want to go back, but I REALLY don't have another $3600. One of the reasons I want to go back is that it would be nice to go without being sick most of the time. I'm glad I went to Tanzania and had a blast, but while I was there it was hard to focus and grasp the experiences when I couldn't keep anything in my stomach.

I don't know if I should try to think of a way to afford to go back, or just drop it right now because I already got to go once. I know I can't save up enough on my own this summer because I still have to finish paying off this semester's tuition, but I feel like I'll never have opportunities like these again in my life. Is it worth another $3600 in debt? (I'm already around $50,000 in student loans). I don't know what to do and if I want to apply, I have to do it my May 1.....

 

[indra]

I would suggest that if there's any way you can do it, to go for it. It is scary to be even more in debt, but it is also such a great opportunity, and those don't come around all the time.

I was able to go overseas for a couple of weeks when I was quite young (14) and it was great. It wasn't the ideal time -- I was really too young to get the maximum impact from it -- but it was the only opportunity I had. I'm so glad I did too, because although I certainly planned to travel much more, my life, my responsibilities got in the way and I've not had the opportunity since.

 

[Ultraviolet Light]

(for clarification: LivLuv and I go to the same school, we both went to Tanzania in January, and she's one of my housemates )



I know everyone's going to tell you to go because it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience etc. etc., but I feel like there has to be a better experience than this.
This meeting had a very different feel than the Tanzania trip, but it's hard to describe.
It felt much more...colonialist, I suppose.
Which I suppose shouldn't be that surprising seeing as how we went to Tanzania with a native of Tanzania and a native of Kenya and these are two white guys of Dutch descent, but this was still over the top.
Besides your run-of-the-mill Americanisms like "The 'Africans' are a very friendly people" and whatnot, the worst was how one of the professors nonchalantly mentioned how last time they went they were walking around one of the cities and they heard a man playing an "African harp" and they hired him to follow the group around so that they would have music while they walked. Evidently I was the only one there who felt like standing up and yelling "who the hell do you think you are? What did you do next, claim the nearest mountain in the name of Queen Victoria? Did you hire someone to hold your parasol whilst you went sporting and played polo too?"
Tanzania was real, this feels like it will be...looking from a bubble.
Maybe that doesn't bother you, but to me it's not worth $3500 to spend a month feeling like we felt in Longido (I have never in my life felt like such a shameful tourist).
For a class supposedly about social justice, this seems like it will be more irony than substance.


At the very least I say wait it out a bit - maybe they'll have a trip to South Africa or something else.