MUWCI
TWO YEARS AT THE HEART OF INDIA
WRAPPING UP
13 December, 2016
Term 1 has slowly been wrapping up, and the last two weeks have been incredibly amazing. Time flew by so quickly made me remember all the things I had wanted to do in first term, but never managed to. From sunset hikes up Mt. Wilco and Internet Hill, to sleepovers at out Advisors’ or House Parent’s house, getting up in the middle of the night to watch the stars, attempting to cook better food, swims in the Mulshi River, Christmas baking, to late nights hangouts in W5B5. The last two weeks have been the most special so far.
And now, I guess this is it. The end of term one. An amazing four months have gone by, and I’m returning to Bangkok.
“It’s been emotional.”
It feels like yesterday, the day I first set foot on this campus, making it so hard to grasp how the last four months flew by this quickly.
My Canadian co-year once jokingly said “MUWCI sweeps you off our feet and throws you into a sea of insecurity. All of us are drowning in an ocean, but we jumped in holding hands.” First term could not be described any better than this!
I arrived here, very little expectations about this place or this country, and ended up thrown into an entangled collection of surprises, experiences, adventures and loose emotions.
The past four months here have been so intense, making it difficult to sum them up in a short blog post. We call it the ‘MUWCI bubble’ for a reason. Isolated on a hill somewhere in the western Ghats, we tend to be very preoccupied with the very eventful life here and forget about anything that goes on beyond the campus, which can get slightly suffocating from time to times.
I tried seeing more of India, and went beyond campus several times, exploring places such as the local villages, the surrounding areas, Pune, Mumbai, Goa, Dehradun or the Himalayas. But despite that, it’s impossible for me to sum up India in a few sentences, or in a way which would make sense to anyone but me. And answering with ‘It’s incredible’ seems so meaningless, irrelevant and not doing the last four months justice.
India is not necessarily a spiritual place, despite being associated with it, nor is it particularly beautiful or incredible on the surface. But what India is, is different, scary and exciting; an adventure. India is not an easy place, probably not a place that will enchant you immediately. It requires time, an open mind, patience, and understanding.
There is such a lack of order that the banalest things get blown out of proportion, make you laugh or (more commonly) make you shake your head in frustration. From the people to the colors, the sounds, the smells, or the culture, India is a country that hits you full force, both in a positive and negative way.
Being back home, many people have asked me about my experiences, my life in India, and I am honestly greatly failing at putting these experiences into words. I usually start blabbering on about India, the country, the people and the culture and my experiences off campus. I usually then get a follow-up question: “But what about UWC?”
The reason I don’t start with my experiences on campus is because there is no way I can put my experiences in the past four months into words. MUWCI as I know it cannot be explained through infinite amounts of photographs of words, you have to live it.
When I think of the past four months, I think of the campus, the beautiful western Ghats we get to see every day. A breathtaking view and incredible environment we are so lucky to live in.
I think of incredible adventures in the Himalayas or Mumbai, 36-hour train rides, exploring and getting lost in India, going through the frustrating as well as fun parts of being a foreigner in India.
I think of my classes, all the things I have learnt in such a short amount of time. I think of my Global Politics class when we discuss the Israeli/Palestinian conflict with an Israeli teacher and Palestinian, Israeli and Syrian student. Them trying to give the least biased summary of the conflict, while as an observer, you can see them react to the slightly biased comments made by the other.
I think of all the sleepless nights, staying up star-gazing on the roofs of our houses, cooking pasta at 3 am in the morning, walking back from W5B5 at the weirdest times, and not regretting it the next morning when we chug the awful caf coffee to survive the day.
I think of my CAS activities. I think of working for Kriyā, seeing and working with Priyanka every week. Her passion, her energy, her smile, her motivation and her perseverance. (check out tiny.cc/DONATETOKRIYA)
I think of the incredibly amazing conversations I have had with so many special people on this campus.
I think of all the last minute submissions, the deadlines, the stress and the despair. I think of the more challenging, more difficult, sadder and more frustrating times. The tougher side of UWC, which is not talked about that much.
I think of the funniest, saddest, craziest or most random memories, that would only make sense to the people that lived them with me (Anna HI!). All these memories which make me smile when looking back at this term, which I will cherish forever!
But above all, I think of the people I got to share all these memories with. I think of the incredible people that have become so important to me, each in a different way. The amazing friends I have made, whom I'm excited to spend next term with.
Four months later, I’m going back a little older, a little wiser, more experienced, but somehow exactly the same.
People expect to leave this place, this hill, this school and this country as different people, changed somehow, enlightened by the time they spent here. Everything at a UWC affects you, changes you, and it’s almost scary to see how much I’m stretching myself. But weirdly, I still don’t really feel changed nor different. I don’t feel like a completely new person, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
I now live in a room with three other people, I own my first Kurta, have survived several food poisonings, can say a few words of Hindi and know how to haggle for a rickshaw. I eat naan with everything, think of cutlery as redundant, have showered with frogs and have lived through my first real monsoon. I don’t know how all this has shaped me, but I know I’ve had the most amazing four months of my life and have learnt more than I could ever put in words.
It’s been thrilling, exhausting, and beautiful.
MUWCI has become a second home and I’m already eager to return in January. Until then, I’m excited to go home and return to all the things I missed so greatly over the last few months.