Friday morning, May 21st we woke in one giant circle inside the Marae. After three nights of sleeping in a giant room we were ready to pack our 鈥渢ramping packs鈥� load the 鈥渂oot鈥� of the van and go up the road to our next destination. Before we left the Marae though, we returned to the....
Spain/Morocco 3
Every time I hear the word desert, I always think about millions of endless sand dunes. We set out on a long van ride, not really knowing what to expect, to the Sahara desert. This long, winding, and seemingly endless trip proved that what we have always pictured as the desert was not completely accurate.....
Spain/Morocco 2
Worth… Feels like I have none here… Anger, confusion, rage Appears so rapidly In a split second My mood can change Children… they have no hearts Or so it seems What happened to the love? The urge to learn? To play? To be friends? NO!!! Instead insults flare With outstretched hands…All for one Durham… For....
New Zealand 1
On Sunday (May 9) we went to the Te Puea Marae, a common meeting area for the native Maori people in urban Auckland. We were welcomed through one of their formal ceremonies which included singing, dancing and speeches from some of the elders and a few of our members as well. The whole ceremony was....
Spain/Morocco 1
We all signed up with different expectations, thoughts and intentions. Our journey was set off right with the blessing and 鈥渟ee-you-laters鈥� distributed between family and friends. The plane ride was 6 hours but preoccupied us by unexpected and fascinating technology. Spain, our first taste test was a challenge for some and a delight for others.....
Final reports from Mexico II
Family The part of cross-cultural that I was most nervous about was being so far away from family without any real contact with them. I should鈥檝e known that my fear was silly. Early in our time in Guatemala Sara asked a missionary couple we were visiting, how they can be away from their family for....
Final reports from Mexico I
This week has been full of lots of different activities as well as end of year wrap-up activities. Each of us has been working very hard on writing a paper on a cultural theme about Mexico. Although the paper is not a huge stretch many of us have been nervous about the presentation over our....
Mexico City
It is hard to describe in full what we did on our weekend in the Federal District, which is more commonly known as Mexico City, but I will try briefly to describe to you some of the places we visited. For many of us, who are not city people by any means, the idea of....
Free time reports from the Middle East
For the week of free travel, four of us (Drew, Nathan, Lucas, and I) chose a low-cost, high-endurance option: borrowing a tent and sleeping bags from JUC, writing down the names and numbers of “trail angels,” buying some dried fruit, peanut butter, and cereal in Jerusalem’s Old City, and hiking a roughly 120 km portion....
Free Time Reports from Guatemala
Las Gringas Perdidas We went to Antigua, where we spent loads of money on gifts (feel loved). We dined on cheesecake and cappuccino slushies. A random shoeshine boy offered Sara some weed. (Don鈥檛 worry. She declined.) We raced around in tuk-tuks, and Amy lap-hopped around a chicken bus. When we left, we hopped the wrong....