2013-07-14
It felt odd. Sitting in English class on the last day of school, I hear my classmates talk about their dorm assignments and what they’ll major in at college. While they use the summer to relax and get ready for their college journey, I am fully immersed in studying Spanish to prepare for my Gap Year in Ecuador, hoping that...
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2013-07-14
When the summer of 5th grade came around I was beyond excited, nervous, and ready to see what it would have in store. My church takes one group of middle schoolers and two groups of high schoolers on mission trips. Middle schoolers go in early July and high schoolers go in late July. Now I...
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2013-07-13
Hello everyone and welcome to my blog! My name is Ilana Marder-Eppstein, and I will be spending the next school year in Ecuador through the program Global Citizen Year. I grew up in Evanston, a town right outside of Chicago. Like most children, when I was young I spent my days finding new places to venture and play...
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2013-07-12
The first time I got into any kind of “real” trouble was in my third grade class. Perhaps it was the sun shining through the windows or the fact that she was teaching times tables that I had already memorized, but either way, my restless nine-year-old self deemed the classroom too confining, the lesson irritatingly effortless, and...
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2013-07-12
Life, as I have learned, is full of changes. And it goes without saying that my life is – and will continue to be – full of worldly adjustments to cater to those changes. As anybody who has lived in Cheshire will tell you, it’s a very friendly small town, wonderful for raising a family,...
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2013-07-10
I am awoken each morning by the sounds of Arabic prayer calls piercing out from the loudspeakers of a nearby mosque into the thick, clicking dark. Not a day goes by that I don’t make a baby cry or a donkey cart-driving seven year-old squeal out “Toubab!” in sickening delight based solely on the fact...
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2013-07-10
Colonization and Its Legacy The world is in a constant state of flux. Empires rise and fall while the nations of the conquered seen to fade back in the shadows of their conquerors. The history of the dominating Romans pervades our ideas of the ancient world and it has always been from the perspective of...
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