Student Reflection: Menlo School, Tanzania
3 min readSep 28, 2018
- The most important thing I learned was that you don’t need to live in a fancy house or use modern technology or text pepole to make the strongest friendships. In a village where we use a hole for a bathroom and it takes some of us an hour to walk to school, we made closer bonds in two weeks than I ever could in America. I find myself wanting to go back regardless of the comforting amenities of the US, for the people made me feel at home in a country across the world.
- It’s hard to describe and pinpoint exactly how I’ve changed. However, I do know that I am immensely grateful for what I have and look forward to spending more time outside. I also will be more conservative with my resources, as well as be more patient, understanding, accepting, and helpful, especially around the house. I also see everything in a much bigger picture now.
- Some lessons I can draw are to seriously stop complaining and help people more. My homestay sister never complained and helped constantly around the house without being told anything. She rarely sat down, even for a second, besides meals and after dinner but still had the best connections with her family.
- I connected with and appreciated Sabrina (my homestay sister), Randall, and my homestay mom, the most. Sabrina and I talked about the day every night and she offered me all the help she could, even changing her lifestyle somewhat to match mine. She was open to all the plans I offered up and always encouraged me. Randall put so much effort into this trip and waited patiently while we went through our problems, always listening with a helpful ear. My homestay mom made me feel completely at home and was able to sense any discomfort I had, addressing them immediately and discretely. She is someone I am definitely going to visit in the future.
- I had so many incredibly experiences that it’s impossible to pick one to describe how I feel about this trip. Therefore, I will pick a couple, although, I still won’t be achieving the goal of this question. My first experience was one of the first couple days of homestay. After school, a group of us went to the one house and played soccer out on the red dirt road. A group of about 30 little children watched us on the grass and there were cows to the right of us. Although I am terrible at soccer, I had so much fun and really started to become friends with the students. Another extremely rewarding experience was when Sporah, Lightness, Sabrina, and I sat outside around Sabrina’s sister, who was cooking. We were just joking all together even though we spoke different languages. I really felt as if I had been their friend for years. My last experience that I want to write about is saying goodbye. To summarize, I really didn’t know how much I loved everyone until I had to leave them. I can’t even describe the immense gratitude I feel for everyone at the school, especially my family. They welcomed me as a stranger and let me go as a sister and daughter. I’ve promised to visit them and I plan to fulfill that promise multiple times.
