Fall 2017

MIDDLEBURY GEOGRAPHIC

Fall 2017

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Photo by Chloe Ferrone

MIDDLEBURY

GEOGRAPHIC Fall Edition 2017

FEATURES 8

Visitors in The Sacred Valley Peru

By Mike Pallozzi

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La Dolce Vita Italy

By Isabella Eptein

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The Mystic Roadtrip United States, Canada

By Aidan Acosta

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Kettle Crest Washington

By Hannah Redmon

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Below the Surface The Bahamas

By Grace Maley

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Sadieville Kentucky

By Mac Christopher

Breathe Ireland

By Liam Fowler

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Summer in Svalbard Svalbard

By Sebastian Zavoico

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Faces of the Future Iceland

By Daniel Krugman

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Wandering in Havana Cuba

By Qian Li

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Jodhpuri: Some of the Blue City's Poorest and Youngest India

By Zeke Hodkin

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Southern Africa Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, Uganda

By Eliza Smallwood

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Photo by Aidan Acosta

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From the Editors Each one of us is gifted with a lens through which to view the world. With our own eyes, we see differently the earth that we inhabit, as one. Drawn from many different backgrounds, experiences, races, ethnicities, and cultures, Middlebury College students are encouraged to look through those lenses as individuals in order to create something of a photograph, a more comprehensive understanding of the world we live in.

In this, our fourteenth edition of Middlebury Geographic, we hope to reestablish your faith in the magic that this world possesses. Though times of darkness often cast a shadow on our world, it is the moments of light that illuminate the sky above us. No matter what, the sun always rises. And until the day it fails to rise, we cannot forget that. The photos and articles featured in this issue serve as a reminder that the world is truly more beautiful than we can even imagine.

In this life you will venture to breath taking places and meet people who will take your breath away. We invite you to flip through these pages and see some of the people and places that left us breathless.

We hope you enjoy, Isabella & Liam

Photo by Grace Maley 4

Our Editors

Isabella Epstein ’20

Isabella is a sophomore International and Global Studies major. She was born and raised in Connecticut, but she bleeds Colombian blood. A lover of life, Isabella speaks five languages, is passionate about food, photography, long talks, singing, dancing, and adventure. She's infected by wanderlust and dreams of traveling the world. If Isabella wasn't at Middlebury she'd be off exploring the world, turning strangers into friends.

Liam Fowler ’20

Liam's a New Englander from Portland, Maine. A year off showed him the world was bigger than the North East, and his dad's old film camera gave him his first lens to capture it and an appreciation/ fondness of photo-journalism. At Middlebury, Liam is pursuing a path of environmental studies with a focus in geography, as well as interests in food sustainability and global health.

Grace Maley ’21

Our Contributors

Aidan Acosta ’20.5

Aidan is a sophomore feb from Rockport, Maine and is not yet declared.

He enjoys spending his free time riding bikes, taking hikes, skiing, and taking photos and often wishes that he spent more of his free time in these ways while at Middlebury.

and conservation efforts.

Mike Pallozzi ’18.5

Mac Christopher ’18

Mac is a senior who enjoys rewatching "Freaks and Geeks", listening to folk songs, and kicking it with my family and dogs. He has aspirations to document the 21st century American experience and hopes to renovate his grandpa's painting studio into a media group in Southern Vermont: "The Dibble Barn Collective".

Zeke Hodkin ’21

Zeke is in his first year at Middlebury and is loving the creative community around him. He is an avid photographer and writer, which fits well with his interests in international communities and journalism, among many others.

Daniel Krugman ’21

Daniel is a prospective anthropology major hailing from the Charm City in Maryland. A lover of life, culture, mountains, and anything adventurous, he enjoys ripping on the water with the crew team and other outdoor activities.

Qian Li ’19

Qian is from Shanghai, China and is a ENAM-FMMC joint major at Middlebury. She is interested in experimenting different ways of storytelling: photography, film, creative writing, etc.

Grace is from Columbus, Ohio. Despite growing up in a land-locked state, she fell in love with scuba diving and the underwater world. She plans on majoring in physics and going on to graduate school for engineering in hopes of contributing to environmental

ing photos.

Mike is an Environment Science-Geography joint major. He volunteers as the Procurement Manager for Middlebury Foods, is a captain on the varsity track team, and occasionally cooks pizza at The Knoll. He loves shooting friends on film and hopes to work in the world of food and agriculture, and never stop tak-

Hannah Redmon ’20

Hannah is an Environmental Nonfiction major from Lexington, Massachusetts. She likes to go for long walks just about anywhere and play in the snow.

The more time she spends outdoors the more she believes in the power of community, mountains, and chocolate to develop connections and individual character. She thinks living on a boat would be cool.

Eliza Smallwood ’20

Eliza is a Conservation Psychology and Film double major whose greatest passions include running, hiking, filming, photographing, and really any activities spent outside. Her family always prioritized traveling as they believed it was essential to experience a multitude of cultures, values, and communities.

Sebastian Zavoico ’17.5

Sebastian loves wandering, taking pictures, laughing, and observing the heterogeneity of the world. At Middlebury, he is a Conservation Biology major, and he is completely enamored with the North!

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Photo by Isabella Epstein

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VISITORS IN THE SACRED VALLEY PASSING THROUGH PERU

by Mike Pallozzi

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A little boy and his mountain

Tourists in Cusco

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Assesing the damage of the previous day's wildfire

Waiting for ride down

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All smiles 14

Shoemakers prefer privacy

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la dolce vita

by Isabella Epstein

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Docking for the day.

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Sea caves on the coast.

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From Island to Island.

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The port of Naples.

Looking out on the Island of Ischia .

Postiano: The cliffside village of the Amalfi Coast

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A family enjoys the sweet life in Positano.

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Bandlands Moon Rise (South Dakota) 24

THE MYSTIC ROADTRIP Journey Through the United States and Canada

by Aidan Acosta

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Rooftop Stars (Oregon)

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View from the North Dome (California)

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Glacier's Beach (Montana)

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by Hannah Redmon

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Descending Abercrombie Mountain in northeastern Washington as smoke from nearby wildfires sets in.

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hen the sun starts to coat the fields of lupine in a farewell glow I find my second wind. Early this morning I left Orient, WA, the “unincorporated community” in whose park I slept last night. Since then I have walked about 25 miles on forest roads that wind through the valley in various stages of abandon. All day a combination of electropop and revitalized folk ballads pumps in my ears to keep my mind off the clouds of dust and endless monotony of the forest roads. At 4:30, I finally hit a trailhead and start up to the ridgeline of the Kettle Crest. On top of Copper Butte, the 7,140-foot-high point of this section of trail, I stop for my first break in some five hours and eat crackers and cheese by the mouthful until my shirt is littered with crumbs. For one of the first nights in the two weeks I have been on trail the air is cool enough to make my hands tighten up by the time I get moving again.

As I start to hike again, the russet-gold hills of eastern Washington sprawl beneath me.

Groves of pine weave their way over the otherwise open ridge and I cut a path between them and the fields of sweet-smelling grasses. My muscles ripple with strength as my legs pump across the slope.

In the past two weeks I have walked about 450 miles, from the Continental Divide in Glacier National Park, Montana to this mountain ridge rising from dry eastern Washington ranchland. I am hiking one of the youngest National Scenic Trails, the Pacific Northwest Trail (PNT). The PNT does not rank among the most popular long-distance trails in the United States but it is gaining exposure every year. This year some 100 “thru hikers”, or hikers planning to complete the entire 1,200 miles of trail in one calendar year, are expected to head to either Glacier, the eastern terminus, or Olympic National Park, the western terminus and attempt to make their way to the other end. These numbers are a far cry from the three to four thousand recorded attempting the Appalachian and Pacific Crest trails in recent years but represent a doubling of traffic just since the past summer on the PNT.

Unfortunately for me, the lack of crowds means I have yet to find anyone to hike with. I met a dozen hikers in my first few days on trail but most were new to long-distance hiking and after leaving them behind in Montana I covered 200 miles without seeing another hiker. Two nights ago, I finally met two other thru hikers and fell in trail-love with the idea of having them as hiking partners. After following a fire detour down out of the Salmo Priest Wilderness while helicopters roared

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Hiking through the Pasayten Wilderness.

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Hiking through the Pasayten Wilderness.

over my head dumping water on the nearby wildfires, I hobbled in to Metaline Falls, Washington. A young woman in a green velvet dress and no shoes appeared in the deserted street and directed me to her family’s backyard. She introduced herself as Siri, the daughter of the local trail angel. Trail angels in the thru hiking community are people who go out of their way to help hikers whether that is by bringing food to us on trail, giving us rides into town, or even inviting us into their homes. Siri invited me to sleep in their backyard and told me that two other hikers remained in town.

When I turned the corner, I saw a large, blond man in gray shorts, a black puffy, and a mesh Patagonia hat standing in the grass. Beside him, another tall man, this one with dark hair and a gray polo shirt, was sitting, legs crossed, in a lawn chair.

“I’m Zucchini,” I blurted out.

“I’m Brainstorm,” the man in gray responded.

“Then you must be Tiny,” I exclaimed to the other before he had a chance to introduce himself. “I’ve been seeing your names in all the trail registers for days now.” Once I had started I could not stop talking. After a week without speaking to another hiker, words and stories had built up inside of me, ready to tumble out at the 34

slightest breaching of the dam. I settled myself on top of my pack in the grass before the two of them, breathlessly rehashing the trail so far. After a few minutes Siri asked if I would like to sit in a chair.

“Oh. Yeah, thank you, I didn’t even think about that!” I perched on the lawn chair she offered me, still feeling more like a wild animal that the kind of human who might spend a summer night sitting out on the patio, and looked down at my legs. My sun-browned skin was coated in a layer of dust from the miles of dry road and trail I had walked. Patches of blood and thin cuts crisscrossed my arms and legs, reminders of the long bushwhack I had forced my way through the day before and the many miles of overgrown trail or trailless ridges I had traversed. I had not showered once since leaving my parents’ house a week and a half and 347 miles before.

Sweat inundated my shirt and my black spandex shorts were covered with snot, dirt, and soot from burned trees. Each fingernail had a half moon of dirt to match the grime on my hands and face. In short, I looked (and smelled) like a thru hiker. My company seemed bemused by my late arrival and explosion of energy. Brainstorm gave me some cheese and crackers, and Siri brought out salsa and snow peas. I ate with grimy hands until I had

plowed my way through almost everything they offered.

By the time Tiny, Brainstorm, and I laid our sleeping bags out in the backyard and fell asleep after chatting like kids at a sleepover, I felt bonded to these two smiling hikers. Unfortunately, I had to wait until the post office opened late the next morning to pick up a new sleeping pad, so we hiked out at different times and I failed to get a hitch for the next 17-mile paved roadwalk, leaving me a few hours behind the next night.

Now, a couple days later, as I hike above spacious views, I think I must be right on their tail. If I can just hike a few extra miles I should stumble upon their campsite and reunite with the only other hikers I have met on trail willing to do regular 30-mile days.

A dusky purple permeates the ridge as I open up my stride along the smooth dirt trail. Good, even ground is rare on the PNT. By the end of my hike, I will feel like I have spent almost half of my time on roads, mainly dirt but some paved, a few days traveling cross country over talus fields and open alpine meadows with no trail, a few hours pushing through honest-to-God bushwhacks, a lot of time on overgrown trails abandoned by maintenance crews, and less than a third of my time on graded trail that does not present constant tripping hazards. The section of trail I am on now is

the highlight of eastern Washington, a high, mellow ridgewalk with sweeping views and no road crossings for 20 to 30 miles depending on which route you take.

I notice a velvety-racked stag standing some 40 feet off the trail among the sage and wild grasses.

Already today I have come face to face with a young black bear and tailed a herd of more than 25 cows for almost half an hour. I pause and nod to him in the dim quiet. Twilight has fallen but I keep walking. I feel the excitement that comes from chasing down the setting sun. At the thought of camping with other people, my heartbeat surges. I have spent some four total nights on trail with other hikers and I ache for conversation with more than just the chipmunks and me.

At 7:15, I come to the spring I had picked out a few hours earlier to aim for. The spring is piped straight out of the ground right next to a beautiful tentsite. I fill my hands with water and drink deeply before topping off my bottles. Already I am 30 miles into my day, a typical mileage, but the picturesque terrain and cool dusk air has me buzzing with energy. Maybe there will be hikers on the next shoulder I can make out in the topographic lines of my map. I plan to hike there, and if no one is there, I can cruise around the side of the mountain to the next spring a mile or two

Brainstorm shivering on the top of Cameron Pass in Olympic National Park as the sun starts to set.

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west. No further, I tell myself. If no one is camping at either of those spots I will stop anyway, set up my tent on the beautiful ridge, and enjoy the calm of solitude. Before getting to the next shoulder I have to climb a few hundred feet up Jungle Hill, but I am cruising on endorphins and excitement now, and the soft dirt disappears beneath my feet.

When I get to the first level spot I see nothing but rocks and trees. I push on. As I round out the mountain and head toward the next spring, the sun lights the sky on fire. Watercolors of pink, blue, and orange bleed across the clouds as I race past the trees. I hike faster. The uphills melt away and the pain in my feet from shoes with a couple hundred too many miles on them evaporates.

At 8:25 I get to the spring I had promised myself I would stop at. Not only is no one there but the only flat area is the narrow strip of trail itself, wide enough for my sleeping pad maybe, but unlikely to be comfortable. The blip in my plan barely crosses my radar. I could walk all night. I push on.

As the last light fades away, I fly down the trail. The ferns whip by, and I only need to pull my headlamp out for the last ten minutes. At 9:15, I get to Highway 20, one of the roads leading in to the next town I am headed for: Republic, Washington. I break my stride at a trail register in a wooden box by the road. It only takes a second to realize that Tiny and Brainstorm have not signed

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in. They must have taken the old trail, which my map indicated was likely closed, while I was on the alternate, and in my haste I passed them. I scribble something illegible in the notebook, leave my phone number so they can text me when they get to town, mark the time, and stumble down to the parking lot to set up my tent in the picnic area.

Even though it is long past my bedtime when I finally strip off my hiking clothes and cram dirty fistfuls of dinner into my mouth, I am still riding high from the late night of fast hiking. All told I have covered around 37 miles today, my longest day on trail this year. I may only have walked three miles per hour, almost four for the last few miles, but the endorphins and excitement of the wild land and cruiser trail leave me feeling like I have moved fast enough to generate an adrenaline rush. I may be spending my fourth night in a row camped next to a road, but the trail register gives me a basic idea of where other hikers are and I feel certain that I will find Tiny and Brainstorm within the next couple days. After all, though this trail allows for a make-your-own-adventure style of hiking, at the end of the day we are all heading west.

At least I have worn myself down enough to sink into a deep, dark sleep as my muscles melt toward the earth, and I drift off dreamlessly toward my 5:30 a.m. alarm when it will be time to start over again.

Brainstorm at the top of the Elwha snowfinger on the southern end of the Bailey Range in Olympic National Park

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Below The Surface

by GRACE MALEY

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This coral is one of the few healthy corals in the area.

There's something magical about the underwater world. It's so unknown, so misunderstood. Most people prefer to keep their heads above the water, but it just takes one good look below the surface to get hooked.

This past summer, I got hooked. I spent a month scuba diving on Andros Island in the Bahamas. In that month, I fell in love with the ocean and all its mystery. However, during that month, I also suffered a great heart break. I learned that the majority of reefs around the world are projected to die in the next 30 years.

The ecosystem that I spent a month studying and photographing very well may cease to exist in my lifetime.

As I photographed my surroundings, I realized that theses images might one day reflect a not so distant history, but a history nonetheless. I hope that by sharing images of the beauty that most people don't get to see, we can realize what we are so close to losing.

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This school of bar jacks seems unphased by the intimidating barricuda lurking in the background.

This grouper always liked to hang around below the dive boats as it looks around for lunch.

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Blue Tangs are some of the more common fish that I saw while diving in the Bahamas. Their briliant blue scales made them easy to spot.

Bruce the sea turtle is well known by divers in the area. Here he is pictured coasting by with a Remora. Sometimes he likes to hang around groups of divers. Unnamed glacier in Blackstone Bay, Prince William Sound.

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I took this picture during my safety stop 5 meters below the surface. The tiny jellyfish was drifting by, and if it hadn't gone right past my face, I probably wouldn't have seen it.

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I love taking macro shots of coral because it reveals just how intricate the various species are.

While many people think coral is a plant, it is actually an animal. It is a unique system of tiny individual polyps that grow on and add to the limestone skeleton.

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SADIEVILLE, KENTUCKY

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il splatters over the vintage stovetop, as Beth grabs three blue eggs from the pile she gathered this morning. Before meeting her, we were stranded in a Louisville Greyhound Station and busking Celtic tunes for a hefty head gasket repair. We were sitting in front of an arcade that had the consistent clatter of young children banging on the inoperative machines. The only light source was a flickering red “EXIT” sign and the fluorescent glow of the ticket booth on the far side of the room. Beth–a farmer with a thick bun and highly magnified glasses–graciously offered her living room as a shelter until our testy 1980’s camper was repaired.

As we prepare for our third installment of a “Harry Potter” film marathon, Beth brings over a heaping plate of veggie omelets and says, “It’s been so nice hav-

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ing yall’ around. I love my hubbie more than the world, but he does not entertain my fantastical imaginations.

Jim likes his Wayne Westerns and his James Bonds.”

Jim and Beth live in a small farmhouse in Sadieville, which is ten minutes from a gas station and thirty minutes from a grocery store. The kitchen–and the rest of the home for that matter–is filled with cardboard boxes of assorted items: VHS films, records, fantasy novels, newspapers, and empty egg cartons. Most of the walls are covered with framed polaroid images and stitched quotes like “This House May Not Be Perfect, But a Loving Family Lives Here” and “Yes! I drive stick” underlined with a broomstick.

When we first told Beth that we were non-fiction film-makers, she gave us a full history of the farm in a long breath of nostalgia and recollection: Jim would

leave his program at NASA, they would apply for a farmloan, Beth would plant oak tree ten feet behind the back porch, and decades would go by. Then–after a pause–she muttered, “It’s been a different place since the kids left.”

Four days and many conversations later with Beth later, we talk about the snowbanks of the small town of Peru, Vermont. Outside the kitchen window, I, for the first time, spot Jim: this is his day off from a 72-hour graveyard shift workweek at the nearby Subaru factory. He stands around seven feet tall and is a lanky 150 pounds. As I track his movements by the red “Ford Tractor” hat that peaks over the shrub pathways, Beth says, “He’s going to finish mowing the path to the pond.”

“Having a farm is all about the little changes, cause the land really does have a plan of its own.

We have so many projects to get to, and you never know which ones you never will touch.” Beth continues as she stirs a cup of tea, “There are always been the same number of hours in a day, but we are finally finding time on the farm with those hours.”

“It will be so nice to be able to see the pond. I think the Goldfish my daughter stocked years ago are still trooping along,” Beth says. I look down to my laptop with the intent of writing a piece on our time on the

farm. I visualize my parents 15 hours up various interstates and backroads in Vermont. I see the young kids in the Greyhound station, whose intoxicated mother vomits in an overflowing garbage bin. I wonder what I am doing here? Do I deserve these hot meals and a warm place to sleep? Where did my headache of anxiety disappear to, and why have I not needed the sedation of alcohol or nicotine? I cannot help but feel warm.

I want to write about the dust; the dust that covers the empty egg cartons; the dust that morphs the piles of toys and cassettes; the dust that is strung with the threads of the pullout couch; the dust that has been growing as it flows through the hallways and strikes the natural light of the home. Beth gives me a glance as I finish a photo-essay that I know she will enjoy: it talks of the oak tree that represents the lifecycle of a home, it described their blind mutt Myra that greets every visitor from her tartan porch-bed, and it illustrates a beautiful setting where farmer is one with the rolling hills of Kentucky. I let her read it and all I can wonder is if she too sees the dust: the dust that is shining in front of her as the sun gives a fading glow through the kitchen window.

Jim rushes through the backdoor and gives us a generous smile and nod. He opens the re-

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frigerator and makes a bologna sandwich on puffy whole wheat bread, and gives us a wave and says, “Beth, I’m going to check on those pups.”

“He will warm up to you tonight,” Beth tell us. “You may think he doesn’t like you, but that is just the way he is.”

A slow rain begins to thump the roof and windows and we move to the rocking chairs on the front porch. The cool, moist air starts to liven the wind chimes and Myra comes bustling out of her dog house as she now has company outside the house.

In the center of an ashtray and some potted plants, I see a small figurine from one of the first movies I had ever seen. Beth tells me that the character’s name is Spike and I am brought back to soft linen, brotherhood, footsie pajamas, and rear projected television sets. I feel the weight of the thousands of minutes I have spent under this roof and the millions of minutes of my childhood.

Hours later, the headlights of Jim’s baby blue Pickup meander up the dirt driveway and after two solid claps of old metal, a tall shadow approaches the porch.

“Beth, I was thinking of some names, but you always know, “Jim says with ginger furred puppy rested in his hefty palms.

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“What do you have so far?” Beth responds.

“Well–I was thinking Rosy, Maisy, or Music,” Jim says as the shepherd hops from his hands and confronts Myra, the blind dog who slowly sniffs out a new canine presence.

“Where does music come from?”

“Randy Travis: A Horse Called Music. I’ve always liked the name.”

Jim sits down on the top step of the porch, pulls out his pack of Pall Mall cigarettes and gives me a warm handshake and greets me by name. Although there had never been a formal introduction, Jim had made it seem like being under the same roof had already bonded us: of course, he knew the name of the stubbly twenty somethings in his living room. He asks me what I think about the name, and I reply, Rosy.

After Beth brings the unnamed pup to her makeshift dog house, she brings a “Randy Travis: Greatest Hits” record into the kitchen. A soothing melody of tinny acoustic and resonant country twang emits from the cloud of dust as the needle skates through the residue of time. I look up and see the framed quilt “A Loving Family Lives Here.” I close my eyes to the weight of dust and minutes.

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Inhale.

Breathe. (Glendalough Vally, County Wicklow, Ireland) 48

Exhale.

by Liam Fowler

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Enjoying The View - And Food (Giants Causeway, County Antrim, Ireland)

Above & Below (Wicklow Mountains National Park, County Wicklow, Ireland) 50

Everything is Melting (Glacier, Alaska)

Breathe. (Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland)

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Close up

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A midnight sun ray pokes through the clouds in the high-Arctic.

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SUMMER IN SVALBARD

by Sebastian Zavoico

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Passhytte. The end of the valley opens up into a vast, open landscape draped with melting snow. Sleeping in Passhytte, you feel a special open freedom, and all worries dissipate into the void.

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Inner Adventdalen. Summer comes late in the inner valleys of Svalbard, but when it does, you can feel every animal around you rejoice in the new life of a new year.

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Late spring. Reindeer eagerly await the first few buds of spring in the high-Arctic, where the first vegetation comes out in mid-July.

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FACES OF THE FUTURE

BY DANIEL KRUGMAN

A Ch'orti' baby plays after receiving medical care.

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hrough dirt roads, wooden bridges, and sharp cliffs of Western Honduras, there exists a forgotten people. I was once told that the Mayan civilization had simply disappeared hundreds of years ago, only leaving their massive cities of stone found throughout Central America. Not too far from one of these monuments of this ancient power in the mountains of Western Honduras is their living heritage. Isolated to avoid oppression, labeled as descendants of a tragic empire, lost between converging worlds, the Ch’orti’ Mayan people are the surviving heritage of the Maya. I made the journey to their isolated home four times,

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and four times I left understanding more the resilience of culture and the hope of a disregarded people.

The group I traveled with, a medical, dental, and construction joint mission, was one of a few groups to pass through these villages two or three times a year. Every time I returned over a four-year span, entering their community felt as isolating as the people were themselves. The stares, especially from the children, were harsh at first. They served as another reminder that we did not belong. However, after the skepticism of the outsiders faded in the first few hours, it was the children first who always seemed to open up to the alien visitors.

A rare shot of father and son. Because of long hours in the fields and traditional gender divisions, it is rare to see a male with any child.

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“It is in all of us to see hope in the future, a universal value to have our children live better than ourselves.”

For international aid agencies and developers, the Ch’orti’ of Honduras are a curious case. Less than ten miles away from their villages lies the country of Guatemala, where ethnic groups enjoy full civil liberty as opposed to neglect and repression faced by the four thousand residing just across the border. Through the past forty years, in surviving a government massacre, subjection by Honduran landlords, and economic deprivation, the Ch’orti’ have shown unparalleled courage in their culture, and above all, their children.

Running around with makeshift soccer balls or creating games for themselves, children are the energy and the center of reciprocity and community of Ch’orti’.

Although family units are tight, mothers seem to raise all the children of the small village like they are their own. Children are free to wander in and out of adobe and brick homes as they please while women chase and discipline. Though labeled some of the poorest children in the world, they could not care less. Their days are filled with play, preparing and finding meals, and, unknown to them as the most important part, learning.

K’ohar is the word in Ch’orti’ used by elders for their children and grandchildren. Although these elders are the last ones who will fluently speak their traditional dialect, they trust that the children, who still learn the basics of Ch’orti’ in school, will use Spanish to help advance the village.

While the older generations remember the days when villages tended to their own farms, the parents of these children only know the tenant farming to the agricultural lords that rule Honduran production. As modern serfs to the coffee and fruit plantations and growing up before the times of government schools, Ch’orti’ adults have little education and room for advancement.

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They are the transition between the old world of isolated subsistence farming and the introduction of capitalism, stuck between traditional living and profit driven agriculture. Their children are the first to receive a basic education, the only chance the Ch’orti’ have in breaking out of a developing cycle of monetary dependence on agricultural lords. While the current teenagers of the community did receive basic education, lack of quality dragged them into the farms as well. Through international intervention, these Ch’orti’ children will be the first to have legitimate teachers and a true chance.

Though they resent the impact these aid organization have had on the devolution of their traditions, they realize that they, and the chances they bring their young children, are the only hope they have in recognition by the government and to achieve basic civil rights.

Every day when they wake up to these faces, they see a chance to make it in a world they did not choose.

I had the privilege to see many of these children grow up year after year as I returned to their villages as they did me. It is in all of us to see hope in the future, a universal value to have our children live better than ourselves. Only time and circumstance will tell if this generation of Ch’orti’ will be the one to deliver their people out of their scarred past. But just as they have since their ancestors first met the white men, they will fight, survive, and most of all, hope. These are the faces of the next generation of the Mayan people. These children are hope they see in their long and devastating history.

A toddler plays in the school building before a checkup.

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WANDERING IN HAVANA

BY QIAN LI

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And I waved to the lady in the window on the second floor

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A woman in the market

A woman passes by a very artistic shop 67

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The streets of Havana, Cuba

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JODHPURI:

SOME OF THE BLUE CITY’S POOREST AND YOUNGEST

BY ZEKE HODKIN

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Kawgun Cave

A teacher corralls her students into their classroom at the beginning of the school day in Saraswati Vidya Mandir School, Jodhpur, India.

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A second-grade student at Saraswati Vidya Mandir proudly displays his necklace.

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ndia is the quintessential location to be overwhelmed in. The sights and sounds of any new place can be daunting to internalize, but some countries have seemed to take me aghast more than others. India easily startled me more than any other. Its population of 1.325 billion people is a jarring number. Now, put faces to all those 1.325 billion people, give them bodies, and attribute to them jobs, recreation, home lives, and understand the commotion of any given Indian city.

Such a bustling environment exists in Jodhpur, a large city situated in the northwestern state of Rajasthan, some 150 miles from the Pakistani border. It is affectionately dubbed “The Blue City” for its overwhelmingly large percentage of homes coated in blue-hued paint. According to urban legend, the indigo in the paint repels mosquitos, deters heat from concentrating in the home, and even wards away dry-weather boding omens in the arid Thar Desert.

For many, living in the iconic blue homes is and has been a tradition. These homes were strategically built surrounding Mehrangarh Fort, and haven’t changed much in ownership since their inception.

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Such luxury in housing translates to luxurious lifestyles, too. Many of the people living in indigo-clad homes enjoy high-wage jobs in the government, management, handicraft, tourism, and shopkeeping sectors. Outside of the Old City, though, life is different.

The city of Jodhpur enjoys a low poverty rate, but its outskirts do not, and neither does the country of India. Nearly one-quarter of India’s population lives below the poverty line. In Jodhpur alone, there are is multitude of impoverished people lining roads and public spaces during the day, crammed in between other bodies and piled-up trash.

Poverty is most pernicious in projecting its harmful effects on future generations. Youth greatly suffer from poverty, a fact many overlook. I visited Jodhpur for two purposes: to promote water conservation efforts, and to volunteer at a local school. Water reclamation and preservation was a straightforward concept; it relied on community outreach and educating the general public, but the most important component of it was a hands-on effort to remove waste from water supplies.

To understand the means of conserving water in India, one needs to understand the intersection of poverty, foreign aid, accessibility, and public health with potable water access. Arriving at a rudimentary understanding of the Indian water crisis, in which 63.4 million people lack access to potable water, was difficult, but didn’t require repeatedly connecting with the local community. Conversely, volunteering at the K-8 Jodhpuri school was less forward.

Saraswati Vidya Mandir is the school I visited. It is located outside of the Old City, amongst decrepit building sites. The area the school lay in was detached from the vibrant Jodhpur I had seen in pictures. It was obvious that we had arrived at the outskirts of the city when we arrived at the school’s gate; it wasn’t uncommon to drive up to the school alongside cows being herded down the dirt roads.

Saraswati Vidya Mandir is unique in its schooling approach; this individuality transcends its geographical peculiarity. Most notably, the school only enrolls students coming from families living beneath the federal poverty line. This means students are offered schooling opportunities comparable to their wealthy counterparts, yet often unmatched for other youth coming from impoverished backgrounds. Nearly all of the top schools in Jodhpur are private, requiring, at the very minimum, a tuition fee and transportation to the school. Lest these not be enough for an impoverished family to bear the financial burden of, the vast amount of private schools available to Jodhpuri residents requires a diligent - and expensive - search to determine which school is suitable for the student.

The immediate financial hardships associated with education are clear contributing factors to poor families’ decisions to not enroll their children in such schools. To compound the out-of-pocket expenses they must pay, families also consider the toll that sending a viable laborer to school constitutes.

For families living below the poverty line, financial difficulties merit keeping children home to work. In doing so, the adults in power positions in the family hope they can escape cyclical poverty with added laborers, and thus added income. Most poor families, unfortunately, are at the mercy of their incomes. These incomes limit social and capital mobility, effectively rendering families to the lower class of society. Further, these lower wage jobs are typically agricultural ones, meaning they are some of the most susceptible to environmental and elemental damage and harm.

Yogita takes her English vocabulary test.

A second-grade teacher listens to her students recite the alphabet.

This kindergartener looks startled at the camera.

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A teacher enjoys chai, the Hindi term for tea, during recess.

These second-grade students are more than happy to pose for the camera.

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Sixth-grade students are excited to begin the schoolday.

A fourth-grade student looks on from the doorway to her classroom.

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Lunchtime is enjoyed with friends at the same desks used for classwork.

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T

he concept of withholding children from education is idealistic at best, and families likely have a better chance at escaping cyclical poverty by educating their children.

This is because the power of education can go far in India. English language learning is a staple of Indian schools’ curriculums. Learning English opens students up to a world of possible employment options.

Since Jodhpur is so fixated on tourism, adding English to one’s repertoir is especially helpful when seeking higher-level employment. Unfortunately, many families fail to see this. Their near-sighted focus on finances is understandable, but nonetheless depressing.

Saraswati Vidya Mandir seeks to change this perception for poor families. Like all other Jodhpuri schools, it relies on Hindi alongside English in its curriculum to engage students. Unlike its counterparts, though, the K-8 school is far more supportive of the little background its students have in English, inextricably connected to their families’ poor status. Whereas other schools may not embrace a student that required aid, Saraswati Vidya Mandir welcomes them with open arms.

Although the school is detached from Old City Jodhpur and from the systematically, fiscally stringent ways of other Jodhpuri schools, it is not drastically unlike these others. The teachers at Saraswati Vidya Mandir are generally female, while the headmaster and other power-wielders are males. This gender imbalance parallels many of India’s gender imbalances, including but not limited to a general wage gap of nearly 200%, a general lack of property ownership, an imbalanced literacy rate, political invisibility, the imposition of sex-selective abortions, and far more operating against women.

The teachers themselves are not problematic, and neither is their relationship with students. My experiences with Saraswati Vidya Mandir’s teachers were all pleasant, and I was glad to witness them so thoughtfully engaged alongside their students in lessons of English, mathematics, and Hindu grammar and vocabulary. The collaborative environment didn’t indicate any notions of extreme poverty. Rather, I witnessed excitement and energy reverberating through the classroom.

It was evident to me, through exuberant smiles and inescapable charisma, that Saraswati Vidya Mandir was thriving. Its mission is sustainable and vital. The impact that the grassroots initiative of some conscienscious Indian citizens was invaluable to so many poor families and their children. Whereas our

efforts in water conservation in Jodhpur left us disconnected from many locals, volunteering at Saraswati Vidya Mandir intertwined us Americans alongside Indian students. Learning the stories of these children, through the most basic English, was truly incredible. The profiles of Ravina, Dinesh, Deepa, Tarun, Seema, Sokat, Yogita, and more affectionate second graders are etched into my memory.

The narrative of these young, poor students is an important one to tell, and a tough one to shake. In attending Saraswati Vidya Mandir, they were granted access to one of the greatest predicting factors of their lives’ futures successes: a learning of English. In grasping the English language, these students will later have access to employment opportunities and intrapersonal connections their parents simply cannot match.

The efforts of the school, in spite of a largely inherently oppressive schooling system in Jodhpur, to connect with impoverished families and then educate their children is truly spectacular. Theirs is a story of change from the ground up. A commitment to educating the youth will have tangible effects for generations of Indians to come. I only hope to be able to revisit such a special and committed environment.

Seema gladly shares a smile for the camera.

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We came upon four young cheetahs eating an antelope right outside of our camp; we'd been watching these cheetahs for days try to make a kill as they'd just been weened off of their mother and abandoned, so we were really happy that they'd finally made a kill.

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SOUTHERN AFRICA

by Eliza Smallwood

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Standing alone in the Kalahari desert, this was probably one of the biggest elephants we saw in all of Africa.

The baby elephant was playing around in the water and the mom had to hoist the baby up back onto the bank.

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On our first day outside of Johannesburg we came within twenty feet of this lion who was on his own and had a bad scratch on his eye from a fight with another male lion.

I snapped this picture while we were watching the cheetahs hunt down a group of antelopes unsuccessfully; we got to see one cheetah run at full speed, but snapping a picture was nearly impossible at that velocity.

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After hiking 5 miles and bushwhacking through the rainforest in Uganda we finally tracked down a group of gorillas and spent an hour interacting with them and observing.

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his past summer, I spent three weeks in Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, and Uganda, and it was the most insane experience I've ever had, witnessing countries that are so untouched by industrialization and lacking in many of the modern amenities we take for granted, and getting to know people that are so vastly different from anyone I've ever met. They’re the kindest souls in the world; their lives and experiences are humbling and their stories are simply mesmerizing.

The countries I visited are like an entirely different world, with an incredibly rich and unique culture and flooding with absurd animals that somehow you can find just outside of your tent at night. Even on our first night in Africa my brother went to take an outdoor shower and there was a hippo about four feet away from our tent. It was awe-inspiring to experience a land that is flourishing with so much different wildlife and to recognize that this is a place that is not controlled by humans – it is completely wild, and finding that in this day and age is difficult.

Sometimes, when you tell people that you're going to Africa, they will respond "why?"

People seem to have a misconstrued view of Africa, generalizing and thinking of it as an impoverished, underdeveloped country instead of a continent with 54 countries and a multitude of cultures. People ask why on Earth one would go there, but Africa changed my life.

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These two joyous kids were part of the school that sang for us twice; they were some of the happiest kids I've ever seen for having so little.

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Editor-in-Chief

Isabella Epstein

Senior Editor

Liam Fowler

Editors & Designers

Aidan Acosta Grace Maley Zeke Hodkin

Photo & Art Contributors

Chloe Ferrone

Advisors

Jeff Howarth

Photo by Isabella Epstein 86

JOIN THE ADVENTURE If you are interested in submitting travel essays and photographs to MIDDLEBURY GEOGRAPHIC or in being part of the magazine’s editing and design team, please contact us at mg@middlebury.edu Every issue of Middlebury Geographic is available at www.issuu.com/middgeog

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Photo by Isabella Epstein