Strangers To Friends?

When students, with the help of their parents and legal guardians sign up for the CIEE Global Navigators High School Summer Abroad program, they often do so aware that they will be meeting and engaging with 10+ complete strangers for a period of time. For some students and legal guardians, this is a welcome adventure! For others it is a daunting venture, one that triggers anxiety. It can be even more daunting for people who are introverted. But miracles happen!

Last night in conversation with Hrithika, one of the students on the program, I learned that rapport building among the students and leaders started at the JFK airport at New York while they were waiting to get on the flight to Ghana. With plenty of time to wait at the airport, it was only right that they would start getting to know each other at the airport. Outside of initial conversations at the airport, many spent the first few days observing, trying to figure out who they are naturally drawn to or share common interests with. 

In the last couple of weeks and some, however, we have watched our seventeen Global Navigators steadily adjust to the strangers they got for roommates, warm up to and make friends, make and resolve little conflicts between them, and deepen the relationships they have formed so far. We have watched them look out for one another, chit chat about everything and nothing while waiting for meals, try out Ghanaian playground games they picked up from the pupils at the Billa Mahmud Memorial School where they serve, and huddle together in a room to see a movie together or play Uno during their free time. Jillian and Sara jokingly shared with me the other night that they have practically been making bank from their stipends for dinner as they share meals to avoid waste. They are looking forward to spending the money on mementos to take back home to their friends and family. For many of them, it took showing up as their true selves to get to this point of camaraderie.

It takes a lot to travel miles and miles and miles of wire away from family and loved ones for three weeks. For many of our seventeen Global Navigators in the first session of the High School Summer Abroad program, it is a first. However, they have all been nothing but brave. They have taken each day at a time and have made it to day twenty with a few more fun and fulfilling activities to look forward to before the day ends. 

We know it only gets better from here.