All it took was a text from her sister, and she was confident with her decision. All it took was a phone call to her mom, and she was signing her second semester away at the drop of a hat. No second guessing. No time for regrets. Within half an hour, she had made a decision and put down a significant amount of money, on something that would take most people months to decide. Senior Margo Brookfield was to embark on her second trip with the Traveling School, this time to Central America. And she knew it was the right decision.
“With big decisions like that, I don’t think about them, I kinda just go with my gut,” Brookfield said. “I know that if I was sitting here second semester of senior year, with not much to do I would be like, ‘OK, I wish I was with traveling school.’”
And her gut instinct has proven to serve her well. Last fall, Brookfield traveled to Africa with Traveling School, an organization that takes a group of girls to different places around the world to experience things they would never even imagine seeing in a traditional school. Carrying all of their possessions on their backs, the 13 girls trekked across Africa, making stops at various towns and hostels. They white water rafted down rushing rapids, camped out under the stars, watched the sun rise from the top of a sand dune, volunteered at local schools and spent science classes drawing the strata of rocks. Oh, and they somehow managed to fit a semester’s worth of schooling in there, too.
Aside from the views begging to be placed in a National Geographic shoot or the school lessons that were actually interesting, it was the self-discovery that urged Margo to go back. It was through the diverse people and challenging experiences that she learned a lot about herself.
These experiences are what Brookfield craves instead traditional classroom learning. One of her most life-changing experiences was when they were in Botswana and took an open-air jeep to a salt pan, an old dried up sea the size of Switzerland. Everything was completely silent. They were no bugs, no trees, literally no life. All that was visible was miles and miles of empty white space. They set up a campfire and beds around and then were instructed to walk away as far as they want and be in the complete silence.
“I walked out there completely alone, pitch black on this salt pan,” Brookfield said. “It was literally complete silence. I cried as I looked around and was like ‘Shoot, I’m in the middle of Africa in a salt pan. What am I doing?’”
She didn’t cry for fear or for loneliness though. They were tears of pure wonder.
“I can’t describe it,” Brookfield said. “It was the coolest experience ever. I was just trying to grasp everything, I was so far away from home and I had so much left on the journey and it was awesome.”
Brookfield remembers the ride home from the salt pan vividly.
“It was kind of like one of those moments that you realize you are growing up and are on your own,” Brookfield said. “You realize that you are almost an adult.”
At the heart of her journey of self-discovery, were the teachers guiding her through. Ranging from the sixth best kayaker in the world to an advocate for women’s rights in Pakistan, these teachers represented a diverse and accomplished group of women.
“Just the fact that these four women who are mid-thirties are leading a group of people through a foreign country that is just so inspiring,” Brookfield said. “I think a lot of people have a mentality that girls couldn’t do that because guys are stronger but it was just so cool to be with this group of girls.”
She often looked to the teachers as role models for her own life.
“The teachers that I have had and know am going to have, have been the most inspiring people I have ever met in my life,” Brookfield said. “I’m going to college next year and I really want to gain insight from my teachers and people in the group to figure out which path I want to take in my life.”
Another reason to return was for the girls. On the first trip, Brookfield was exposed to people she would have never imagined. Phoebe from Wyoming spent half of her life in Nepal and her dad was a National Geographic explorer. Kendall from New York had spent her life traveling through the Caribbean on a boat. Not exactly the kind of girls one would encounter in Kansas.
With this set up of 13 very different girls spending every waking minute together, it would appear to be a recipe for disaster. But in fact, it was quite the opposite.
“The fact that we all had very different backgrounds helped us get along,” Brookfield said. “It was kind of like we could learn something from each other because we all had such different experiences. We all got really close.”
Besides the obvious changes: new girls and new country, Brookfield anticipates there will be other adjustments. The last trip she went on to Africa, they took a truck, whereas this one they will mostly take public transportation. They also will be staying in a lot more hostels, instead of huts and villages in the cities.
Brookfield also expects to contribute to this trip in a different way. Having one more year of experience and being at a different place in her life, she views the purpose of the trip in a different light.
“Last trip I was newly a junior and I wasn’t even thinking about college or what I wanted to do in the future,” Brookfield said. “Now I want to talk to the teachers about what worked for them, what didn’t and how they got to where they are now.”
She also wants to focus on getting to know every girl on the trip.
“On the last trip, we got to the end of the trip and there was one girl and I didn’t know she had a brother,” Brookfield said. “It was crazy because I had spent four months with this girl and I hadn’t even asked about her family.”
As for now, Brookfield’s goal lies solely in making the days pass.
“I think about it every day,” Brookfield said. “It’s still so surreal. I’m counting down till February 1st.”
Another reason to return was for the girls. On the first trip, Brookfield was exposed to people she would have never imagined. Phoebe from Wyoming spent half of her life in Nepal and her dad was a National Geographic explorer. Kendall from New York had spent her life traveling through the Caribbean on a boat. Not exactly the kind of girls one would encounter in Kansas.
Leave a Reply