South Burlington, Vermont. I am a rising senior at Colby College in Waterville,
Maine with a double major in Government and Global Studies. I’m interested in
pursuing a career in international development and in the past have interned
with the International Disability and Development Consortium and the Women’s
Microfinance Initiative. I absolutely love exploring new places so I’ve been lucky
enough to have a year filled with traveling. I spent this past spring studying the
European Union in Brussels, Belgium. At Colby, I’m a member of the cross-country,
indoor, and outdoor track teams, and serve on the Student Advisory Board of the
Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement and as co-president of
Colby Social Entrepreneurs. I chose to intern with World Camp because I wanted
to learn more about this region of Africa and HIV/AIDS, and to try teaching. I’m so
happy to have spent the last few weeks in Malawi as an intern with World Camp; I
have had such an incredible experience so far and have met so many people that I
will never forget. Malawi truly deserves its title as the “Warm Heart of Africa.”
It’s amazing how fast time flies here. We spent last weekend at South Luwanga
National Park in Zambia camping with hippos and chasing leopards. No kidding!
Our safari trip managed to exceed my already VERY high expectations. We arrived
at the park Friday afternoon. We proceeded to pitch tents – a new skill for some
- while keeping an eye on the food we brought in case the dozens of baboons and
monkeys hanging around the campsite should try anything! Bright and early the
next morning we went on our first group ride in the park. It was an absolutely
beautiful morning despite a little wind. Before we had even arrived at the park,
we had the chance to see elephants and giraffes in the brush. Seeing a giraffe try to
gather his long, wobbly legs and try to break into a run was priceless. As soon as we
entered the park, we had our first lion sighting on the far side of the river. Later on
we also had the chance to see a warthog searching for some lady warthogs and to
stop our car among a heard of impalas who seemed to accept us. We took a break
at the river to drink coffee and tea and watch the sunrise amidst a lovely chorus
of hippo grunts and groans. My personal favorite part of this trip was watching a
leopard casually cracking a baboon skull with her teeth on a tree branch not all that
far above our car. The Saturday evening drive was also awesome. We had a driver
who was willing to go a bit off the road so we could get extremely close to groups of
giraffes and elephants from several angles.
night drive on Sunday. Laura, Andrew, Wynndee, and Maysam all chose to go on
the Sunday morning drive and returned pumped about seeing two male elephants
bashing their tusks (helping each other with some strength training!). For both the
morning and night drives on Sunday we had a very detail-oriented driver Joseph,
who entertained us with fun facts about EVERYTHING that we saw (Did you know
that hyenas are terrible hunters? Or that hares eat their own feces? We didn’t
either). Andrew, Wynndee, Maysam, Windy, Karen, Laura, Donna, and I all went
on the Sunday night drive. I think we can agree that having a leopard crawl under
our car, posing with her head sticking out long enough for us to snap some pictures
before casually sauntering to the middle of the road to lie down in front of us, is an
experience they’ll we’ll forget.
We were fortunate enough to see every animal that we were hoping to see and from
much closer than we thought we would ever be to them. There really is no other
way to describe the experience than as once-in-a-lifetime. However, as much as I
loved Zambia, I was definitely excited to get started with our third group of learners
and to meet our latest homestay families back in Malawi!
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