The Traveling School

Dear Oprah:

            I am writing to tell you of an experience that I can no longer keep to just myself and family, an experience I never imagined could exist, and an experience that I certainly never imagined I would be fortunate enough to have.
Ever since I was young girl I have always had a strong desire to travel and delve into new ideas and cultures.  Through experiences abroad, I wanted to find out how I could change the world.  Even then I thought I was in over my head, but underlying my desire was a hidden certainty that I was meant to accomplish something big, something meaningful.  Although I knew I could gain this passion from life regardless of my location, I admit that I found it difficult to glean inspiration from my home in Los Angeles.
But then I heard about the Traveling School: a traveling high school that takes a group of girls to foreign countries for a semester.  While abroad, they draw in the culture of the country, assist with service projects, and complete high school courses taught by the teachers who run the program.  The studies are built around the destination countries, allowing the students to be fully engaged in their surroundings.  Thus, they acquire knowledge that can be utilized immediately rather than sit lifelessly on the pages of an impenetrable textbook.
It sounded impossibly perfect.  And once it became my reality, I realized it was.
The fall 2007 semester of my senior year was spent in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Zambia.  Along with 12 other high school girls and four teachers from around the United States, we traveled along the bumpy African roads in a huge beige safari truck with our kind driver, Japhet, and our amazing cook, Crispen.  Part of our grand adventure included learning African languages from native speakers, visiting historic sites, reading moving novels by African writers, and having hands-on scientific experience on safari rides. Even outside of scheduled class time, we gathered both academic knowledge and important life skills: the world was our classroom, and our learning never ceased.
I am experiencing now what I felt when composing my college essay about Africa and what I still experience when people ask, “How was Africa?”: I have too much to say and know that others may have too little time to listen.  And even if I do find a listening ear, I do not know how best to entertain it.  As I feel I often demean my experiences with too many unheard words, I will give you a brief selection of my semester there.  I hope you will find them interesting and want to know more.      

• Re-enacting the 1838 Battle of Blood River in the early morning hours on the historic site where it occurred;
• Spending a day with the children at an after school center where many had lost family to AIDS;
• Shouting poetry from the southernmost tip of Africa;
• Visiting a Peace Corps volunteer working at a local school in Namibia where we painted a mural of worldwide HIV rates;
• Meeting the inspirational woman, Dr. Laurie Marker, behind the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia and clearing land for cheetahs on the reserve;
• Completing service projects with a youth group called Generation for Change in the Capricorn township outside of Cape Town, South Africa and writing a non-profit business proposal for an extension of their organization in the United States;
• Oh and then there was that one time where we were fortunate enough to stand mere feet from—I don’t know if you have heard of him—someone by the name of Nelson Mandela?

All of these, especially the last, will take far more explaining. If you ask, I can talk endlessly: there is so much more I saw, heard, and felt, about all of which I am just itching to write a novel-length letter.
But my main purpose in writing is to inform you of this incredible school.  I imagine that you, an inspirational and successful woman, would wish for others, especially the youth, to take active control of their lives and gain the pleasure of its infinite possibilities.  Given my previous reluctance to participate fully in my own life and utilize all of my abilities, I admit that I doubted my generation’s active involvement in effecting positive change.  It seemed that too much technology and too many things to occupy our time had produced an apathetic generation with little direction for success in life.  But after a semester adventuring through Africa with the Traveling School, I am now fully convinced that my generation is the generation to change the world.  Our apathy is from lack of direction, not lack of energy. Having gained a new perspective and, simultaneously, a new passion for living my life to its utmost possibility, I wish for others to receive that as well. 
The only unfortunate part of this story is that as a young organization, the Traveling School has not received enough funding to be entirely non-profit and provide full scholarships.  Thus, with a few exceptions, it is limited to students who are able to pay a majority of the tuition.  Any girl with the desire to fully embrace life’s unending offerings and not just watch her life unfold as convention dictates should be able to attend the Traveling School. 
The Traveling School runs one trip per semester: in the fall, the destination is usually Africa; in the spring, South America.  The school is adding a new trip to Mexico/Central America next year, but will still run only one trip per semester.  It is a small, individualized program that allows the faculty to focus specifically on each individual, thus creating a community with healthy interactions among and between the students and teachers. I think it important for the school to remain small and specialized so it remains true to its foundation without getting carried away.  But like I said, I want anyone with a desire to be able to attend, regardless of her financial situation.  I think the first step in this happening is by giving the Traveling School more of the publicity it deserves.  As of now, people hear about it primarily by word of mouth.  If more people know about it, I believe more students will recognize its incredible potential and more donors will want to help it thrive.  I also know that you, Oprah, opened a school in South Africa and I feel future Traveling School semesters would love to form a connection with it and complete service projects there if you would like.
As I mentioned, the girls and I have begun our own Generation for Change in the United States and we have just started a website targeting our intent.  You can view our blog at http://generationforchange.blogspot.com.  While inchoate now, we hope that we may gain support and be able to start a scholarship fund for new Traveling School students. 
Every other Traveling School alumna I have spoken with shares the same passion as I do for this program.  Because of the school, we have found inspiration and developed our self-expression.  We have discovered all there is yet to be learned and all that we can positively affect.  And so I feel I must give back.  I feel that many more girls can benefit as I, and others before me, have.  I feel that there so many that, like Nelson Mandela, can become the “genesis of greatness”.
I hope you see in this school what I see.  While I and the other girls on my semester have been spreading the word and working on our website, we realize it is a large feat for us to do alone.  I hope you will see our potential and aid us in the process.

Warmly,

Justine, 17, California --TTS 10