I still have just over a week until I leave for Detroit, but I'm starting to freak out. There are so many things I want to do before I leave, but there isn't time for everything. Plus, I still have so many things to do to prepare. I want to find a one-piece swimsuit, but I haven't even looked yet. I want to buy some cheap clubbing-appropriate clothes from Forever 21, but I haven't been yet. I need another pair of comfortable, walkable sandals. I need malaria medicine. I need a sewing kit and school supplies and cold medicine and fiber supplements and a blanket and some more long skirts. And I'd really like to stop freaking out.
I am very excited about this adventure, but I think I'll feel better about it a month or so in. Right now it just seems unreal and terrifying.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
What is this?
I am Erica, a junior at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. I'm about to embark on a six-month study abroad program in Dakar, Senegal (in west Africa). I'll be taking classes, meeting people, doing an internship, writing a research paper (in French), learning a new language (Wolof), and staying with a host family. I'll be leaving the country on September 5th, 2010, and returning in early March.
Keep checking in over the next 7 months to find out more about my adventures--I'll do my best to post regularly.
Here's some background into my college experience thus far:
I am in a circus club called Cirque Du K, where I do aerial silks, partner acrobatics, plate spinning, and fire eating. I am double majoring in French and International and Area Studies with a focus on African studies. I'm particularly interested in poverty reduction, and since I was sixteen I've been traveling to Washington, DC every summer to lobby for poverty reduction measures (particularly legislation improving healthcare for all, universal education, and microfinance). I did a 4-week internship this summer at a farm in Kalamazoo. I decided to leave early (the internship was supposed to be 6 weeks) because it was socially isolating and the farm was poorly run by people who were not farmers.
I guess that's all for now; I'll write later about some of my study abroad preparations and concerns. Thanks for reading!
Keep checking in over the next 7 months to find out more about my adventures--I'll do my best to post regularly.
Here's some background into my college experience thus far:
I am in a circus club called Cirque Du K, where I do aerial silks, partner acrobatics, plate spinning, and fire eating. I am double majoring in French and International and Area Studies with a focus on African studies. I'm particularly interested in poverty reduction, and since I was sixteen I've been traveling to Washington, DC every summer to lobby for poverty reduction measures (particularly legislation improving healthcare for all, universal education, and microfinance). I did a 4-week internship this summer at a farm in Kalamazoo. I decided to leave early (the internship was supposed to be 6 weeks) because it was socially isolating and the farm was poorly run by people who were not farmers.
I guess that's all for now; I'll write later about some of my study abroad preparations and concerns. Thanks for reading!
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