Washington D.C. – Letter Home
2008-2009

Composed by IHP Trustees Fellow Sabra Loewus with assistance from RG Students William Coffey and Timothy Robb

Twenty-six students and many of their parents arrived in Washington, DC, eager (and nervous!) to start the Rethinking Globalization (RG) program. After briefly getting to know one another and an enticing presentation by IHP faculty of the journey on which we were about to embark, everyone bid farewell to their families and we boarded the bus to the Concord Retreat in West Virginia to kick off the first week of RG.

Within just the first day, the group was already bonding and having a great time together. The Concord Retreat provided a beautiful setting to continue getting to know each other and experience our first shot at communal living on RG. After a yummy dinner and trying our best to memorize each other’s names, everyone headed off to bed to rest up for the first full IHP day. Most of the students shared bunk beds, but some chose to sleep outside, under the stars…and rain.

Our week at the retreat was full of group building and orientation activities, such as IHP’s version of “speed dating” and discussions about safety, vacation planning, culture shock and other challenges expected on the journey ahead. The week also included introductions to the various topics we will explore throughout the year. Before long, the academic program was underway.

Introductions to social movements, economics and development, anthropology, ecology, and environmental policy and governance courses were thought-provoking and gave us a chance to get to know our wonderful faculty team and all of the experience they have to share. In addition to our first classes, the students blew everyone away with their excellent poster presentations about global issues, social movements, and questions about the world that personally affect them. Topics ranged from reflections about identity to experiences with consumption patterns and recycling/reusing efforts to global indicators of happiness. In groups, the students also facilitated great discussions about the summer readings. Throughout all of these learning opportunities, we started ongoing conversations about the diverse issues that will set the foundation for our quest to “rethink” globalization. These intense classroom discussions carried over to meal times, where the professors and students shared more personal perspectives on the issues brought up during lectures.

In addition to the academic program, students exercised their leadership skills in running meetings, formulating group norms, and organizing responsibilities. During our free time at the retreat, we had lots of fun exploring the grassy, hilly property through running, walking, swimming in a nearby river, playing volleyball, having campfires and s’mores, building forts, watching documentaries, engaging in late night conversations, racing through an obstacle course, and playing capture the flag – a more dangerous activity than anticipated!

After our first week in the woods of West Virginia, we returned to DC for the remainder of the US program. On the way back, we had an inspiring site visit to Polyface Farms – the now famous sustainable farm with environmentally-friendly farming practices featured in Michael Pollan’s book: The Omnivore’s Dilemna. Owner and farmer Joel Salatin gave us a great tour of the farm including its innovative portable sheltering systems for the animals and compost piles. Joel also offered us many words of wisdom that guide the farm’s mission. He commented, “Nature tends to go back and reestablish normalcy” and “local is always better than organic,” reinforcing some of the farming principles at Polyface Farms of utilizing natural cycles and retaining the knowledge of the land around us – neither of which require certification stamps. He urged us to also “find something [we’re passionate about] and believe in it,” stating that the most important thing in life is to follow your heart and “be true to yourself.” Of course, we couldn’t leave without purchasing local food from this “non-industrial food production oasis” to cook up and sample once we got back to DC.

In DC, we had the opportunity to visit and hear from various organizations ranging from the World Bank to environmental NGOs, along with the continuation of our classes. The personal stories from the National Coalition for the Homeless speakers panel touched all of us, and inspired us to break the stereotypes about homelessness and volunteer more of our time in our own communities. At the World Bank, we learned about the dominant approach to global development and their Inspection Panel. During the environmental NGO case study day, students broke up into groups to visit eight organizations including the Wilderness Society, the Center for a New American Dream, The Natural Resource Defence Council, Co-op America, African Wildlife Foundation, Friends of the Earth, Population Connection and the Center for Ecotourism and Sustainable Development. We also had a great session with John Cavanagh and Sarah Anderson at the Institute for Policy Studies, where they asserted that the era of free market fundamentalism is shifting and commented about the overall history of social movements in the United States. During independent research day, students explored more NGOs, visited several national museums, viewed educational films, and rode tandem bicycles around the city.

For our last Saturday in the States, we enjoyed a wonderful alumni panel discussion and dinner. The alums provided valuable advice about what to pack, what to leave behind, how to spend our final days in the States, what our homestays might be like, the bonds we will continue to form, and a reminder to always appreciate this amazing experience by living in the moment. The current students proved to be quite receptive to the advice, as they immediately began unpacking and figuring out what to send home right after dinner.

The next day, we heard from young organizers and learned about ENGAGE as a resource for returning study abroad students to build networks and continue working with the communities we meet abroad. We also participated in a migration workshop with Mexicanas Sin Fronteras (Mexicans Without Borders) and heard powerful stories from a migrant speaker panel.

Our evenings in DC were complemented with a delicious variety of food for dinners made by each country group. The first country group set the bar quite high and each subsequent group was up to the challenge! All of the cooks even managed to cater to all of our peculiar dietary preferences. Our stomachs thanked us for these yummy meals and we’ve discovered that chocolate is a favorite indulgence for many of us!

In between all of the structured activities, we had lots of fun exploring DC and hanging out with each other. We visited the great monuments, national buildings, museums, and parks that DC has to offer. There were many late nights of talking, watching movies, snacking, reading, and teaching each other fresh dance moves.

Overall, our first three weeks together laid the groundwork for the next eight months we’ll spend abroad. We have already explored many issues and raised lots of questions, recognizing that many of them may not even have clear answers by the end of our program.

We’re gearing up for our first flight and excited to be off to Tanzania to continue learning about globalization firsthand!

IHP Rethinking Globalization 2008-2009
Tanzania Letter Home

Composed by IHP Trustees Fellow Sabra Loewus and RG Students Mary Crawford-Roberts, Eli Dibner-Dunlap, Chris Girgenti, Lucas Guilkey, and Brie Robertori

Jambo friends and family! The last few months in Tanzania have been full of diverse experiences, as we began our journey in the large city of Dar es Salaam and ended in Arusha at the foot of Mt. Meru. We have made new friends, enjoyed delicious food, learned basic Kiswahili, and embraced the local attire of kangas and kikois.

Upon arrival in Dar, after nearly 24 hours of travel, we were greeted by Fatma, Munira, Prisca, and Chambi, members of the hard-working IHP Tanzania coordinating team. We settled into our rooms at the YWCA in the center of town, rested, and awaited our first Tanzanian dinner, where we enjoyed a thoroughly foreign, albeit delicious, first meal abroad. We were fortunate to arrive in Dar during the week of Durga Puja, an Indian festival in celebration of a Hindu goddess named Durga, and be able to partake in the nightly festivities.

Our program in Dar provided a variety of foundation lectures featuring local academics and activists. We learned about colonialism, globalization, social movements, Pan-Africanism, women’s rights, land rights, and natural resources. Beyond the formal lectures, we participated in a theatre workshop at the University of Dar es Salaam to learn how singing, dancing, and acting can be used as tools for social development. A highlight of the week included an amazing theatre performance by performers who were formerly street youth, but are now employed by a non-profit organization called THT. We did our best to learn some of their dance skills and share the song we learned at the theatre workshop, laughing the whole time in acknowledgement of our need for more time to practice! Another highlight was our opportunity to participate in a public forum on the Tanzanian food and fuel crises that was organized by the Mwalimu Nyerere Institute at the University of Dar es Salaam. The debate was presented in palava style, similar to American town hall meetings, and public commentary fired around the hall. A few RG students even made it onto local television when the filming of this forum aired!

The first week in Tanzania flew by and we were soon on the ferry to Zanzibar. Our homestay families greeted us at the port and brought us to our new homes for the next two weeks. Living with our new families, we immersed ourselves in Zanzibari life, as we learned more about the local culture, shared our histories, and faced communication struggles.

In Zanzibar, we focused on the island’s history and its connection with the mainland, resistance, human rights, ecology, ecotourism, local Muslim culture, and women’s identity issues. After a week of classes that contextualized political and social intricacies, we divided into groups to engage with three different conservation and sustainable development efforts. Our classrooms became Jozani Forest, Chumbe Island, and Uroa, a small fishing village, where we learned on the ground and with the people. “I can’t believe I’m in class right now!” became our mantra as we hung out with Red Colobus monkeys and trekked through mangrove forests in Jozani Forest; snorkeled among coral reefs and saw first-class ecotourism on Chumbe Island; and witnessed a fishing village opening to international tourism and the global economy through seaweed cultivation. Visits to a spiritual cave and traditional healer also added to our stay in Uroa.

In our free time, we got lost in the winding streets of Stone Town in Zanzibar, overloaded our senses in the markets, frolicked in the turquoise sea, lounged on the white sandy beaches, danced to the beat of local music, and traversed the length of Zanzibar in the cramped, bumpy dalla-dalla commuter trucks.

After Zanzibar, we headed into northern Tanzania. Driving toward Moshi, breathtaking Mt. Kilimanjaro (also known as “the roof of Africa”) peeked through the clouds. To explore one of Tanzania’s key cash crop economies, we visited a sisal estate and factory where we learned about smallholder sisal farmers, the production of biofuel in a globalized economy, and sisal’s manufacturing process as it goes from plant to product, such as rope and carpet. We also followed the Tanzanian coffee economy in its various development modes (e.g., cooperatives, private global economy, and parastatal economy), visited a coffee farm and processing factory, and then sat in on the Moshi coffee auction that exports most of Tanzania’s coffee beans.

We then visited the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, where we learned more about the complex human rights history of Rwanda and engaged in thought-provoking discussions about the tribunal process that tries the accused of the Rwandan genocide.

At Lake Manyara National Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area, both popular tourist destinations, we hopped into safari vehicles, cameras in tow, and roamed the plains, our eyes perked for wildlife. We learned about conservation in protected areas and the roles of tourism and local communities in relation to environmental protection. At one of the campsites, we couldn’t resist indulging in a Halloween celebration. We’re enjoying celebrating local holidays as well as holidays from back home with our new RG family. Because clothes are few among us, our outfits have become part of our identities, so this year Halloween was a time to don another person’s outfit and personality, while enjoying lots of candy and exchanging IOUs to share our personal skills with each other. As another day faded into dusk, we gathered in a circle at the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater and initiated a powerful, sensory group conversation where we shared and learned through each others’ interpretations.

Next, it was onto our homestays in a Maasai village outside of Arusha. During our five-day stay, we journeyed back and forth between a campsite in Terrat with formal lectures and our smoke-filled boma homes for experience-based learning. We conversed with our Maasai homestay families over a kindled fire at night and worked with the community around the boma in the early morning. Projects included re-mudding the houses to prepare for the rainy season, wrangling donkeys for market delivery, fetching milk from the cattle herd, and caring for the children of the boma. We all continue to reflect on and react to our stay with the Maasai. While some of us felt that we left with a new family and friends, our thoughts return to both the foreignness and familiarity of the East African pastoralists.

Throughout our time in Tanzania, there was a lot of discussion about the upcoming U.S. presidential election and our challenges with absentee voting. From a “forgotten corner of the world,” we sat clustered in front of the television on the rooftop of the Arusha Backpackers as the historical moment of Obama’s victory was broadcast worldwide. It was a special privilege to celebrate the event as hope-filled Americans among proud Africans. It wasn’t long before local radio stations played Obama songs and kangas with Obama designs could be found in the markets.

The Tanzania program closed with an incredible, tear-inducing performance by the students to share their experiences in Tanzania through theatre. While words cannot fully capture the beauty of this performance, partially comprised of the following rap about land rights by RG student Lucas Guilkey, you can see the profound insight that has already been gained:

I’d like to talk about the human right to land,
Whether it be soil, icy mountain, or sand.
It’s an important topic we all should know.
I’ll assume many voices, so follow my flow.

Much of it began at the Berlin Conference,
When European powers birthed imperial hubris.
It was 1886 at a German table
When an entire continent was deliberately disabled.

“It’s a cake for us but let’s share,” they said.
“You can have the foot if you let me have the head.”
Their favorite term was the word pacification.
The white man’s burden and racial subordination.

Soon Tanganyika was a centralized state,
Implementing policy that fostered hate.
A colonized body and a colonized mind.
“I’ll fight ‘til I die if you take what’s mine.”

You can have your power, you can have your might,
But in your heart of darkness, do you know what’s right?
Do you know my rights?
In your heart of darkness, can you hear my plight?
Can you resist my fight?

In 1895 there was a German decree,
Declaring all these lands German state property.
In 1920 the British got the land
And took the same control that Germany had.

Then came the sixties, revolution worldwide.
In the states Malcom X, Ella Baker, Freedom Rides.
In Africa, Nkruma and Nyerere.
The Maasai told the British, “Yo, Olecere!”

But black liberation’s not the only unity.
Indigenous struggle was linking you and she.
It’s all about AIM and taking back Wounded Knee.
Land access matters if we want to be free.

It was a time of hope and a new sense of power,
But soon in many mouths it left a taste of sour.
Cointelpro took out the Black Panthers
And Ujamaa still gave state-centric answers.

And then a neo-liberal Reagan-Thatcher revolution,
A second colonialism masquerading as the solution.
“You can have your power, you can have your might,
But in your heart of darkness can their ever shine a light?”

Modern Tanzania erodes Zanzibar sovereignty
And increases in number national park policy,
Like they drew the nations, they create park boundaries.
I hear all the elephants yelling, “Don’t surround me!”

The environmental policy is to put up a fence?
The state makes dollars but it doesn’t make sense!

Nearly 20 parks on 30 percent of the land.
Violent displacement by the state’s iron hand.
In the name of investment, in the name of conservation.
Lives are lost from paramilitary operations.

As a rich, white Westerner, I’ve learned from the two Ts.
Terrorism for you and tourism for me.

But as a human being, I know one more thing.
You will always resist, and solidarity I’ll bring.

Our week-long vacations included plans ranging from hiking Mt. Meru to relaxing in the beautiful countryside of Lushoto to living with bushmen tribes in the Kidero Mountains, as we awaited the next leg of our journey to India. It is hard to believe that we are already departing Tanzania, but we thank all of those who have contributed to this amazing experience that we will always remember and hope to be back to visit soon!

Stay tuned for our update from India in a few months! Kwaheri all!