Participants Blog

Anecdote: A few indicators I’m in the right place

• My house is adorned with Jadotica Bobitica (strawberry shortcake in bosnian) paraphernalia, my childhood super hero.

• Baton twirling can be seen on the streets of GVU, alongside soccer and hop scotch, almost as if it were a normal activity! As a former competitive twirler, this is as exciting to me as it is shocking; baton twirling has nearly gone the way of the dodo, and in fact, was never really known except in cheesy football parades and the equally cheesy feature film Miss Congeniality! It turns out, students are learning baton as part of gym class, so I’ve been more than happy to use my not-so-much-in-high-demand skill to teach enthusiastic kids some new tricks.

• Citizens of GVU use vespas, vintage bicycles, and their good old-fashioned legs to get from place A to B, bringing a smile to my environmentalist face. Some have cars, but they aren’t really needed considering the size of the town where everything is 5 minutes walking distance.
-Brigette DePape