Freshman Year: November 2011
We drove to Little Rock Arkansas where we toured through the Clinton Library and Little Rock Central High School. After we spent a day in Little Rock, we drove to Heifer International where we entered a simulation of what it feels like to be in a third world country. First, Everyone was assigned to either Global Village 1, or Global Village 2. The entire 150 of us weren't allowed to all be in the simulation at once, so while half of us were in simulation, the other half were living in cozy cabins outside of where GV 1 was held. I was in GV 2, and we were able to spend two nights in the cabins first, but once those days were over, our simulation began. In GV 2, we were split into different "continents" that separated us. There was Upper and Lower class United States, Upper, middle and Lower class Tibet, and upper and lower class Mozambique. I was in upper class Tibet, where we spent our nights in what was basically a Tepee that were called yurts, that had beds and mattresses. Middle class Tibet just had mattresses on the ground, and lower class Tibet slept on the ground.. We fed and milked goats for our means of money which we traded for food in the "market place" building. The entire premise of the simulations were to teach our privileged teenage selves an idea of the hardships of living in third world countries compared to the lives of others that are a bit more fortunate.
These are some pictures of the outside of the Clinton Library, and the beauty that surrounded it.
Although there was a lot to see in the Clinton Library, these life-size Lego sculptures were my favorite things to look at.
These are images from Little Rock Central High School. The school looked like a castle on the outside, and looked like a dungeon on the inside, which is ironic due to it's history. Something really cool about taking a tour of this school was that our tour guide was the daughter of one of the African American students that went to this school known as the Little Rock Nine. Her name was MinniJean Brown. MinniJean's daughter would tell us about the gruesome stories of what everyday life was like to be one of eight other African American students to go to this school during the late 1950's.