Sunday 17 November 2013

Missing home, loving MUWCI

'Aaah, sibenyaaa, babaditchibaba!'

This night, there was African & Middle-Eastern regional evening! For me, it was the best regional evening so far, their cultures are so warm and so rich! (To feel how I feel now, please play 'Circle of life' by Lion King!!)

MUWCI, do I love you! Do I love every second I spend here! Do I love every square centimeter here! Do I love every person here! Will I ever be able to leave this place? I'm not sure...

This is something that Safieh from Bangladesh wrote, for 'the MUWCI times', a kind of magazine we have here on campus. It is so amazingly beautiful and true, I think she's able to express how I feel, in actual nice words!
(PS: Keep on listening to Circle of Life!)


"Welcome to MUWCI, and this universe has different lighting – fairy lights only, and the occasional sunset off internet hill, a hill with no internet. You can only get internet with the mosquito net open, the mosquitoes are in permanent assault, the rain, when it starts, doesn’t necessarily stop, and there is always one dryer which isn’t working. You are advised to shower occasionally, as you are advised to attend first block, but neither is strictly mandatory. Cakes at midnight on birthdays are mandatory, as are inane conversations at the frazzled split-ends of a day – ‘Dude, which Wada is dead this year?’
Welcome to MUWCI, and your nails are almost always dirty, there is almost always mac ’n’ cheese cooking in your common room at 2 a.m. Courtyard mattresses smell of dog piss. Your roommate eats pomegranates in the rain, people on personal days ask you in the cafeteria, ‘Does language restrict the scope of human thought?’ You look left on the way to the library, and the mountains are a semi-colon to your exhaustion; eight people are dancing on the courtyard slabs on Wednesday night and each has an essay to write, half are folding in from the sheer weight of the bags under their eyes, but just eleven minutes more, because what kind of time is 12:49 to leave, anyway.
Welcome to MUWCI, and Philosophy consumes your brain: does the ‘self’ exist? But either way, you have had to find a ‘you’ to present to three hundred people. What colour do you paint your walls? Do you care where your meat comes from? Forget to miss your parents. Feel guilty about drinking tea out of paper cups at college meeting, do nothing about it. Realise how average you are, use multiple metaphors of fish and ponds to describe it, continue to feel entirely inadequate. See your first two shooting stars on the same night. Turn pink at festivals, leave your clothes outside to wash in the rain, retrieve them a month later. Shower with two frogs at a time, flush a third down the toilet by torturous accident. Put your trash in the wrong bin, steal slightly expired butter from the Wada fridge, wear someone else’s boxers to brunch. Never miss Tuesday lunch. Never cook maggi with its own masala or expect pale pants to stay pale. Understand that Sagar Inn will not serve your food on time. Listen to the same twenty songs on repeat on Saturday nights, watch thirty people from twenty countries dance to them in the rain. Realise that it doesn’t really matter where they’re from. Realise that you’ve begun to recognise them by the slope of their shoulders, the stripes of their sweaters, the way their hair curls sideways when it gets too long. Smile at Kurt Hahn’s success, crack another joke about your Nigerian friend in the dark.
Welcome to MUWCI, and have you yet walked through a cloud? Do your neighbours play guitar sitting on their  walls? Have you pierced your nose, shaved your head, eaten gummy-bears close to dawn? Do you curse PNC on Friday afternoons, know what post-modernism means? How many beds have you slept in? Why is no one ever done with their EE? Why the hell does shaking your hands beside your head mean ‘I agree’?
Welcome to MUWCI. Walk barefoot. Or don’t. Live isn’t an autological word. Do it anyway."
 
 
I'm sure you get how I love MUWCI. Though there are some people who don't feel like me here, I do really encourage y'all to apply. Please.
 
And for the others, the more aged people, be crazy. Swim in a lake or go on a roadtrip in Italy, paint your hair pink, take a tattoo! Play the guitar in the streets, dance in the mall, sing to trees. Be crazy, please, and be grateful, as it won't last forever.
 
I love you all!

Monday 11 November 2013

Life in a postcard

Heyhey,

I had the most amazing exeat that I could imagine! Carole, Indi and I stayed with a family in Mumbai, that I knew via my aunt. It was really wonderful: we discovered some new and surprising sides of India, that we hadn't seen before. We had a lot of good food, went shopping, saw touristy-things and laughed a lot. It was so nice, I don't think that I will ever forget these 5 days.


Me, Indi (UK) and Carole (Luxemburg)


Furthermore, MUWCI life is just going on. Yesterday, I had a ''house-dinner'' for the first time! It's a concept here: the eight girls (or guys, when it's a guys house) who live in your house cook something and then you eat together in the courtyard. We had a Moroccan dish, real salad, sushi,...

Starting from me, clockwise: Me, Gauri (India), Jamie (the Netherlands), Indi (UK), So Hee (South-Korea), Ilayda (Turkey), Doha (Morroco) and Sonali (India)
 
 
 
Nothing really special has been happening (though you can actually never say that in MUWCI), but it's been a nice time. Two and a half months far, I got very close to some people but however, I'm still getting to know more people better, and honestly, I've never seen such a high concentration of amazing people in one place! I've been doing crazy things, like sleeping on the roof, or painting my hair orange with wall paint, or staying up until 6 am, just talking,...
Also, I'm getting closer to the teachers here, who are really nice! After writing this, I'll be visiting one of the teachers. We hug our teachers, sing karaoke with them, dance or play music with them,... The difference with what I used to know is huge, and I like it (: The only problem will be to adapt again, once this is over! I don't really know what to say, so I'll just put some photos of events in the past few months!
 
 
Buddyball
Aida (Morocco), Amulya (India), Rachel (Malaysia), me, Disket (India), Meghna (India), Louise (South-Africa)

INDIA

A drawing I made for my friend Rhiana's birthday!

The main gate

Enjoyinh the view with Tapiwa (Zimbabwe), Malaika (India) and Garima (India)

Ganesh

Life in a postcard!

Ganesh with Disha (Mauritius), Shruti (India), Shreya (India), Yarden (Israel), Numaya (Bangladesh) and Shabab (Bangladesh)

Fashion show
Dress-code: white!

Ganesh

Pune

Carole (Luxemburg) and me
 
 
 
In 27 days, I'll be home! I'm very happy to be going home soon, I miss everyone and everything so much! Looking forward to seeing my family again at Christmas, and hanging out with friends after their exams, and spending time with the newborn baby of a close friend,... It's going to be awesomeee!
 
On saturday, it was my birthday! It was really nice, some people made cake and I got to spend a lot of time with a few of my best friends and in the evening, I went to a restaurant in Paud with 11 friends which was also pretty cool (:. Though it was a really nice day, birthdays are one of these days that you really wish you were home, with your family and friends! But I had a lot of fun, so it's okay (:
 
Oh, also, two days ago, the second of the two infodays  of UWC Belgium took place. If you did go, CONGRATS, I hope they were able to convince you to apply! If not, contact me via mail or facebook or just comment here, I would love to help you out if you have any questions!
 
Love
Louise