Planning

Cyrus (India)

Taking a gap-year is always a luxury, I feel, but a kind of luxury every person should experience - a necessary luxury? Much like attending a UWC - where, in my ideal world, every student should experience a UWC education. And just like a UWC education, the potential taking a gap-year presents is immense. This I can imagine (with quite some excitement), for the year before I came to MUWCI I had a kind of semi-gap-year - and in that year I found a passion which has stayed with me all through my two years here, and has but increased in intensity. This discovery, which, in a way, almost felt automatic, was, I believe, because of the time one is allowed - time to experiment, to observe, to even find to some extent one's self (partially only, never wholly I hope). And I did not need to strain to find. Thought and action somehow existed in some sort of harmony; maybe because the background noise of excessively competitive academics and such stayed more or less in the background - there was more to focus on perhaps.

It is this, and more, I know I will receive from taking a gap-year after MUWCI. The most important aspect with regards to my decision to take a gap year is the word EVOLVE. To evolve, at so many different levels, is, sort of, going to be at the heart of my gap-year, a kind of imperative mission statement that would fulfil itself. And to facilitate this I have found, through my time at MUWCI, participating in CIs and a CI project week, things that are important to me. Volunteering with an NGO for a part of my gap year would be one of those things - working with an organization full-time for a period of six months or so; I may not see concrete results, but it will be a more full, more coherent and comprehensive experience than, say, doing a CI once or twice a week.

Of course, the practicalities, like convincing your parents that you'd like to "waste" (a word many times you hear on account of being an Indian student) a year is a task in itself.
The intensity of living in MUWCI makes me value the need for something without the constant frenzied reverberations of uniform, focused activity. There is no hurry at all, experience as much as you possibly can, so that you may experience everything, and the experiences may themselves form you.

Gutteye School

3rd Year Option for Asia (Poland) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Ethiopia stands shoulder to shoulder with India in my mind. When I drink an extremely sweet black coffee, I think of chai; I pass the road, touching the cars blocked in the traffic, and remember the roads there with yellow-black three-wheelers. I cannot resist seeing the bridges that connect the cultures of these two countries and I feel very comfortable with it, for the remembrance of India somehow allows me to understand Ethiopia.

The teaching seems to be a positive experience, but then again, it will be what I make of it. However, this quick injection of responsibility over someone else's education turns out to be a bit of a challenge. I feel that finding the medium and the method to convey the content in my classes won't be troublesome, for together with Anna we constitute an abundant treasure trunk of ideas. But to set up a clever and valuable goal behind each class, to maintain cohesiveness, consequence, overall discipline and inspiration - these individual tasks seem quite demanding. And above all, the lack of a clear syllabus leaves me mainly teaching English and sports, faced daily with the decision of ‘what is important and what is not'. So here comes the question: what qualifications do I have to decide? In the end, it is not enough to plan a playful activity with loads of games, drama and art that absorbs them because it's fun. It's a class, which should be inspiring and fun, but should as well carry an important lesson. On the other hand, there is a lot of motivation and creativity within me, and the resolution to spend this year primarily focusing on the students at the Gutteye School makes me believe that if I put a good amount of thought into the planning and preparation for longer periods than on a day-to-day basis, I might be able to share some good skills and knowledge with the students.

The only thing that slightly disturbs me is perhaps the attitude of the other volunteers. Looking back at MUWCI, it feels we were much more exposed to the direct work with the institutions and organizations that help the disadvantaged. The implications of these experiences result in the very different views on our work and cooperation. However, time will show how the relationship between us evolves and how Anna's and my response to actual teaching will result. In the end, I could summarize the situation in school quite briefly: big responsibility, independence in work and teaching, chaotic place, eager students, volunteers as an advertisement for matriculation, lack of knowledge sources, books and facilities that would help to diversify the teaching methods.

Of course the Gutteye School does not close for us the opportunities to explore Ethiopian culture or engage in activities that interest us as much as the work in the school. And this is probably where the idea of the gap year appeals to me so much: I have time now to read books I neglected in MUWCI, to take my time and write down my reflections, sit longer under the shower whenever it is not freezing, but only cold. At the moment many of my ideas on spending this year are still in the initial stage, however things are progressing and I hope to settle down with an interesting weekly schedule. I thought of joining the football team just down the hill from where we live, taking regular classes in Amharic, eventually attending the History lectures at Addis Ababa University or looking up what's happening in the Russian socio-cultural Institute, for I am still quite certain about the idea of expanding my Russian at Middlebury.

Besides that there are tons of events in the capital, I have just had the first motor-bike practice after Anna eventually convinced me to get a license together; we'll form a part of the Ethiopian National Committee in the upcoming UWC selection, and we might work additionally in an NGO called "Action For Self-Reliance", which has its branch just next door to where we live.

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