Feature

September 10, 2014

Summer not just about beach

bumming: programs challenge,
enrich participants over break

Compiled by Carmen Vescia and Abigail Wang

R
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Summer has come to a close, and the hallways are now full of students

with exciting summer stories to tell. Some return as world travelers, others
with experience at local jobs and internshipsthe list goes on. We searched
the school for unique stories, and heres what we found:

Volunteer work at
HIV/AIDS Clinic
in Tanzania

Cara Green, senior

Where? Dar es Salaam, the largest city in

Tanzania
Time? Three weeks
How? My parents used to live in Africa in the
80s, so we knew a friend there who had worked
in the clinic, and she recommended that [we] go
volunteer.
What? One day I worked at the reception helping file, and another day I worked in the pharmacy helping get medications, looking at doctors orders. I also worked with children there which was
the main part because because they didnt really
have much to do, so we brought tons of suitcases
of random art supplies and cool things for them
to do, like making lanyards and bracelets.

Brianna Rosales, junior

Photo courtesy of Cara Green

Favorite memory? Probably just being exposed to the

youth of Africa and playing with the children. That was
really cool because that was something I couldnt do in
the US, just being able to interact with these kids.

Theater
camp in
San
Francisco

Elijah Punzal, junior

Where? Youth Out and Aware

United Program, San Francisco
Time? Five weeks
How? I was introduced by the GSA
adviser, Ms. Nguyen, and she said, Hey
theres this scholarship theater program
that you could take in the city over the
summer.
What? We learned how to do a lot
of script writing and acting and taking
LGBTQ issues and figures and everything of that culture and implementing it
into realistic scenes to make a showcase
at the end.
Why? The people in this program were
very insightful. The whole point of this
program was to implement different
perspectives from different parts of
cultures and society and use them in
queer community and from that bring up
this form of theater and empowerment
of youth.
Lesson learned? You can always do
more than you think you can. That
applies to a lot of stuff. For acting I never
knew I could write that many scripts,
I never knew I could portray certain
characters, particular roles. I didnt know
so much about myself.

Internship at Facebook

Where? Facebook, Palo Alto

Time? Six weeks
How? My counselor, Ms. Perez, told me about it.
It was for people who live in East Palo Alto area and
Benhaven area.
What? I was part of two departments; one of them
was the Events and Facilities Department, and the
other was the Transportation Department. For
events we set up tables, chairs, and tents for people
from businesses who come to have an event [at
Facebook]. For the Transportation Department, it
was pretty interesting because we had to find routes
from Facebook to get to, for example the San Jose
airport. We had to figure out what was the cheapest
and fastest way to get there.

Why? It was really worth it because I got a lot out

of it, like raising my self-confidence; it can help me
in the future, and I got a lot of friends out of it.
Perks?Theres this place [on the Facebook campus]
called the Sweet Shop and its really cool because
it has desserts like ice cream and cupcakes, and its
all for free, so whenever youre on on your break
you can just go and be like, Can I have a scoop of
rainbow sherbet?
Celebrity run-ins? Hillary Clinton came, and we
didnt get to meet her, but we got to see her in
person, which was cool.
Photo courtesy of Brianna Rosales

Meanwhile, your teachers were just traveling the world:

Compiled by Claire Bugos, Emily Ducker and Sabrina Villanueva Avalos

John Kerry was just here and theres the

theory that when statesmen are visiting,
the [government] shuts the factories
down so the skies are blue.

[Sarajevo, which was under siege in

1994], is this beautiful town but there
are also some visual reminders of the
horrible things that happened there.

Lydia Cuffman, China

English has somehow become the

official language of the world; if you
know English, you can almost always
find someone you can communicate
with.
Takeshi Kaneko

Karin Zarcone, the Balkans

[In Chang Mai] we went to an elephant

sanctuary... we got to bathe them and
feed them and wander around the
premises with them.

Ben Canning, Southeast Asia