The children of Kathmandu, where Francesca Bessey worked last summer
Taylor Smariga worked as a staff photographer in Brasov, Romania
Francesca Bessey ‘11
Taylor Smariga ’11
Francesca worked for one month in Kathmandu in a clinic for malnourished children. She stayed with a local family and walked to and from the center each day. She travelled/explored the city on the weekends. She also worked at local schools and at a similar home for children with HIV/AIDS.
Taylor worked as a staff photographer for The Village magazine, which is based in Brasov, Romania, and focuses on aspects of local culture that those who run the magazine want to preserve and make available to a wider audience – traditional food, clothing, history, etc. In addition to being a staff photographer, she was taught a lot about photographic technique and the different things that can be done with digital photography.
My last summer vacation was definitely not normal... Everyone’s had those ‘oh my God, what have I gotten myself into?’ moments before –but I spent a month in an environment where I had several of them a day. To explain, I had the opportunity to travel to Nepal last summer and do volunteer work at a rehabilitation clinic for malnourished children known as the Nutritional Rehabilitation Home. And it was both the most fascinating and most challenging experience of my life. A 30-page journal and 700 photos later, and I know there’s still no hope that those mediums express even half of what I saw and learned in Kathmandu. I certainly can’t capture it here. I can say that living in a country where rice was a staple of literally every meal, it was accepted and even encouraged to argue with taxi drivers about their prices, and the use of toilet paper was considered unusual was very, very... different. But I offer here one of my most memorable experiences, from when I and three other volunteers accompanied one of the few English-speaking staff members at NRH on a “field visit” to a small village outside the city: We took a 45-minute public bus ride (an adventure in itself) to get out of Kathmandu, and seemed to get off at a random location on the side of the road (a little intimidating). We then proceeded to hike down a treacherous mountain trail, following a woman native to the area, whom Lolit asked for directions. This woman impressed me enormously: while the rest of us struggled in our sneakers and stepped in rice paddies, she expertly led the way down this steep and rocky pathway, complete with poisonous plants and the occasional rushing stream of water or puddle to sidestep, while wearing sandals and carrying a toddler on her back. The only things perhaps more impressive were the views of the mountains and valley you could see from where we were walking. When we arrived in the village, things were fairly quiet because many of the villagers were out working in the fields. However, a lot of the people that were around came to greet us; the arrival of four Westerners was a bit of a spectacle. The family we were visiting was extremely receptive: they gave us straw mats to sit on and didn’t mind at all that we were snapping pictures like crazy. They even showed us inside their house, which was one of many wake-up calls I got in Nepal about how lucky I am to live like I do...
Romania: when we first hear the name, most of us conjure up visions of steep, foggy green mountains dotted with stony castles, along with screeching bats and a grinning Dracula. The reality is a little different. Over the summer, I travelled there on a grant from the William M. Haney Fellowship, offered to all Fifth Formers at the Abbey. I was on a photojournalism program, run by a company called Projects Abroad. My host family’s house was an old Saxon one, meaning white walls, rounded corners, and a lot of stone. The woman whom I was staying with, named Rodícha, spoke no English whatsoever. Fortunately, another Projects Abroad volunteer from Germany was also staying with us, and she had thought to bring a phrasebook. It only translated from German to Romanian, but it was better than nothing. The food was, for the most part, what you would expect from Eastern Europe: potatoes in various forms, lots of meat, and sparse vegetables. There were definitely surprises, though. For instance, in Romania, Vlad Tepes, or Dracula, is considered a national hero. To the Romanians, he helped them fight for their independence against the Turks; he wasn’t the pale specter depicted in Bram Stoker’s famous novel. It was also surprising to see how far Western culture had – and hadn’t – permeated their lives. They had cell phones, certainly – but in small towns, they also had horse-drawn wagons as the normal mode of transportation. Even on some of their highways, you’ll see just as many horses pulling wagons as cars. Hannah Montana was also present in Romania, sold on t-shirts in popular tourist destinations alongside traditional daggers and homemade cheese. American songs crowded their music video channels, artists like Sean Paul, Rihanna, and Lady Gaga singing alongside the Romanian pop artists...
To read more from our Haney Fellows, or to find out more about the program, please visit http://www.portsmouthabbey.org/ page/6784 (under the Academics tab on the School Website.)
WINTER BULLETIN 2011
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