Wake Forest Athletics
Bohart and Henry Travel the Globe
5/17/2006 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
May 17, 2006
Wake Forest prides itself on being one of the nation's top liberal arts universities. From the finely landscaped grounds of its Reynolda campus, it offers a uniquely intimate educational experience. Through opportunities to study abroad, it offers students a chance to gain new and deeper perspectives about the world in which we live.
Klarysa Henry and Erin Borhart, both seniors on the Wake Forest volleyball team, were very much into their routines of balancing class loads, afternoon practices and matches. The summer prior to their senior years, they both chose to go beyond the microcosm of campus college life, outside their comfort zones and outside the United States for a more worldly education experience. Borhart, a senior setter from Huntley, Ill., is double majoring in anthropology and biology. She spent part of her summer living and testing research methods in the Katmandu valley of Nepal.
Nepal is a country of almost 28-million people and has about the same land area as the state of Arkansas. It is bordered by China to the north and India to the south. The official language is Nepali, but there are more than 40 other major languages and dialects.
During the spring semester prior to Borhart's summer trip, she took a course under Steven J. Folmar titled "People and Cultures of South Asia." Folmar is focusing his research on tourism in Nepal. Borhart said the class taught her much about the culture of south Asian countries and the caste system. Learning the language was something she decided to do on her own. Prior to leaving, Borhart took part in a traditional meal to learn about the food and how to eat appropriately with her hands. However, all the preliminary preparations couldn't fully prepare her for the culture shock she says she experienced.
"It was an exceptional shock," Borhart said. "The house we stayed in had electricity, but some of the other houses didn't. There was no running water, and you couldn't even throw away garbage. We ate with our hands and sitting on the floor. Our beds were hard, and we slept with mosquito netting around us. We were up at six in the morning, so it was quite the experience."
Borhart saw the awe-inspiring Himalaya mountains and the beauty of Nepal. Her accommodations were meager, living as a guest of a family in the village where she was working. As part of their research, Borhart interviewed families to collect census-type data. She looked at how the people lived in their homes and the sizes of families and number of people living in each home. She took measurements, drew blueprints and compared and contrasted those homes that housed tourists with homes that did not.
"I knew it was going to be different, but I didn't know it was going to be that different," Borhart said. " I had to learn the language, so I was really nervous using a language that was nothing like English or any other language I had ever studied. I was nervous because the customs are different. Women there don't show their shoulders or any skin above the knee. The closer the trip came, the more I was concerned about possibly doing something inappropriate in their culture.
"Now, (I appreciate) just little things like having your bathroom inside, things you don't even think about, like having a sink to brush your teeth. There, you just kind of had to brush your teeth in the front yard with bottled water. You could only wash your hair every three days. There was a water shortage while we were there, so we were sparse with our water use."
Borhart said she found the people of Nepal to be proud people who welcomed her warmly to their country and were gracious hosts. Some even talked about wanting to come to the United States, but few people she met could actually afford to make such a trip. "It was a really good experience for me," Borhart said. "It made me appreciate the things I have a lot more. I would go back. I built a lot of great relationships with the family I stayed with and even the people in the village. The last day we were there, everyone was crying and hugging.
"(I learned) there are other ways to look at life. Religion there is big, and you can do things so differently from Americans, and it can still work. There are other ways of living, and you can get by just fine not being rich, not having electricity." Henry is a defensive specialist from Houston, majoring in psychology. She studied for a month in the West African country of Benin. Under the direction of Sylvain H. Boko, Henry's course was titled "Economic Development in Africa." She traveled around Benin, visiting health centers and schools in both small villages and big cities. The goal was to gain perspective on the kinds of economic development that presently exists in Benin.
"This was my last chance to go (abroad) before my senior year, and there was about three choices through Wake Forest that fit with my schedule. Africa was the one that fit me the best. At first I was really excited, but then when it got closer to the time to leave, I thought, 'Do I really want to do this?' But I'm really glad I went. It was long time away from home and in Africa, but it was a good time."
The Republic of Benin is a small country that borders Niger to the south and is on the Gulf of Guinea. It has a population more than 7-million, and the official language is French.
Henry's living conditions were generally better than much of the housing she saw around Benin. "Looking back at the pictures, I don't see how we lived there for a month and thought it was paradise, but it was actually a good situation," Henry said. "It was nicer that anywhere else we saw, but it wasn't the ritziest hotel in Africa. It was what the middle class lives in. We lived in non-air-conditioned rooms. Sometimes we had fans and sometimes we didn't. We had open windows and mosquito nets over our bedding. There was cold water the whole time we were there - no hot showers. It was hot while we were there, so cold showers felt nice, but it was also the rainy season, so there was a lot of humidity. We did have running water and toilets."
Henry said when she traveled to villages there was no running water or electricity. She saw a school with 65 students in a second grade room with one teacher. Village women would carry 25-pound buckets of water on their heads. Health clinics she visited were poorly equipped, and some had no running water.
At the end of the month, Henry was required to write a paper that described the problems associated with poverty in Benin and make recommendations for possible solutions. The reflections are both lasting and life changing.
"We met tons of different people and really got into the culture there," Henry said. "I had seen pictures in National Geographic, but seeing how poor the people really are... It was good to get outside the Wake Forest bubble, outside the United States bubble and see there really are people out there living on less that one dollar a day. It was good for me to see that. It was an opportunity. "It's really kept me grounded throughout the year. I get stressed with the normal Wake Forest life, but thinking back to Africa, I have food I want all the time... It's really made me appreciate what I have now."
