Hey guys!
I just came back from October break and I’m ready to share this fantastic week.
At the first four day we were enjoying ourselves: we went to visit city sights, kayaked, visited the elephant sanctuary and moved to our next place. Kayaking was one of the highlights of the week, it was truly beautiful and fun. We were surrounded by the enormous mountains and we could see that nature is all around us. This was the first kayaking trip for each of us, so at the first half we could see that Aaliya and Wangdrak was hitting every bushes, while Saskia and Etsub were accidentally turned over by a huge tree. When we were stable enough, our instructor gave permission to swim in the river. While I was watching the real beauty of Chiang Mai and I was laughing with my friends, watching and helping them to swim, I realised that these are the moments I came to UWC. To see these places, meet with these people and I was so glad to live it. Another really memorable day was with the elephants. I haven’t seen them so closely nor touched them so I was really excited. But during our walks in the sanctuary I realised again that I’m so disappointed in humanity. The way we are torturing and destroying nature, killing animals and not just for food but for fun or for more meaningless purposes and this is making me sick. And of course, I know, whatshould I expect? We are killing our own kind, we are chasing power in the name of development and common wealth, while nothing is enough for us. We can say that this is natural selection, we are the powerful ones, but it’s so distant from that. I’m here to fight against it, I’m here to try to bring change and I’m really trying to believe that it’s possible. But sometimes, when I’m watching an innocent animal exploited and abused by humans, I could tear apart our whole world to stop it.
But leaving my negative thoughts behind, we changed our hostel and we changed our tasks as well. We started to work with the Children Shelter Foundation and we were trying to teach 22 children (from the age of 4 to 17) some English. We had our little plan, but when we got there and realised that they aren’t speaking in English at all we were surprised. It was more challenging for us than we’d imagined before. But we improvised. And it was shockingly good. We could build up games and create them without almost any preparation. And we were so lucky with the children! They are all so talented, kind, smart and just simply amazing! They were always so curious, open for every little game and they were trying to communicate so hard! For me, it was really unexpected, because most of the time the students around me ( including me as well) are not appreciating the chance and quality for education. Most of the time we’re focusing on the bad side, when it’s just making us exhausted and stressed. But in Chiang Mai there are kids from the mountains who are so ready to learn and to get to know the world better, while they are sharing their talents as well. I’ve got so many happiness and knowledge from them!