Rotary District Conference

On Friday morning I woke up a little after 9am, ate breakfast, and then began panicking about whether or not I would make the train that would take me to Leamington Spa where I would take a small 2 carriage train the rest of the way to Stratford-upon-Avon.

I rushed throwing things into a small carry-on, ran out the door, and made my way to London Marylbone station. I would like to say that I arrived at the station with plenty of time to spare but the reality was that I got to the station, ran through the gates, and just got my bag onto the train when the doors shut behind me.

The next two hours were very peaceful in comparison, rolling through the North England's countryside. In fact, I became quite homesick with the rolling hills, farm lands, and all the sheep, horses, and cows out in the green pastures.

When I transferred trains in Leamington Spa, I walked across the platform to get to the next train, stepped on, sat down, and had just gotten out my laptop to try and do a 'little bit' of reading (see previous post), when I looked to my left. I laughed out loud and the couple sitting next to me chuckled too. Somehow the President of the Rotary club of Putney (Barry) and his wife Paddy were sitting right next to me.

The next 45mins were spent in conversation about the conference, how busy the past few weeks had been, and general comments about the dramatic change in weather the past few days.

While the English countryside was very pretty, it was nothing compared to the charm and beauty of Stratford-upon-Avon. Walking down the cobblestone streets with old English cottages and stretches of storefronts coming from the station the city opened up into the waterways and park areas. The hotels that the Rotary members were staying in were all within a short walk of each other and the city itself was quite small and could be walked in its entirety in maybe an hour or two. So while the city proudly promotes its VIP on almost every door knocker, it hasn't been commercialized in a way that the US is sometimes subjected to in regards to history and art.

Before the dinner that evening and after getting settled into my hotel I spent a little time walking the city visiting Shakespeare Street, his birthplace and walking a little bit of the trail towards Anne Hathaways cottage (no, not that Anne Hathaway).

After wandering about a bit, I made my way back to the Crowne Plaza for dinner and caught up with Rotarians and the other London Global Scholars.

I can't even begin to explain how phenomenal they all are and how grateful I am that we are all so close. While we are all fairly like minded we all have such unique and different perspectives on the world and conversations take on a life of their own every time we find a new topic.

They are some of my closest friends and because we are all experiencing being far from our homes for the same reason, we all seem to understand each other's struggles and successes a little bit better than student advisers and even other international students.

Friday evening after some unabridged Shakespeare entertainment was one of the best nights out I have had during my time in the UK. There is really only one pub that is open past midnight in Stratford and it only seemed appropriate to go since it was "Shakespeare's No. 1 Pub".

A large number of scholars all went out, danced to a range of American 80s, 90s, and 2000's hits, and encountered some of the locality in that great English habitat.

By 2:30am, most of us were all slowly making our way back to the hotels in a quiet city. I couldn't help but be a little star-struck by the older buildings, monuments in the town square and the sound of the water in the canal quietly lapping against the rough stone edges when a swan or duck disturbed the serenity.

Interestingly (surprisingly), I somehow awoke at 6am without an alarm and was very pleased to realize that I didn't want to stay in bed but rather get up and explore the city as the sun was just starting to come up.

After sitting by the canal for a little while I made my way over to my hotel for a full English breakfast (beans, sausage, eggs, hashbrowns, and bacon) and some tea. After making myself successfully full and content with food, I went to the conference hall to meet up with the other scholars for our brief presentation.

A few of the scholars were not as peppy as some of the others but in reality I think it was more of the lack of sleep and excessive dancing than the wine and drink that proceeded it.

Our presentation consisted of three representatives, one, Shiori from Japan/Mexico, giving her personal background, another demonstrated our more abstract skills by singing 'Come Fly With Me' (on that note Caroline you can't say that you are just a hobby singer and then outdo all of us shower singers exponentially), and then finally Caitlyn closed giving our thanks to our Rotarians. Which I would like to once again promote here.

Rotary has become one of the greatest resources and sources of stability in my life. They are constantly working to improve not only their communities but their relationships and by extension the relationships of the scholars assigned to them.

I could not be more proud of them and more honored to represent them and the program.

After the presentation there were several speakers talking on the projects Rotary in London had worked on in the past year and what was coming. This included massive school meal packing initiatives for the largest 'slum' community in Kenya with a conservative estimated 1 million people living without running water or electricity. 1 in 5 children do not live past age five and the average mortality is just 30 years. Somehow Rotary in London managed to pack 100,000 meals which would last three schools in the area 7 months and not only provided nourishment but incentives for schooling for the hundreds of thousands of children living in the community.

There were also wonderful presentations on Dementia care initiatives which I found personally very moving and a presentation on human slavery and trafficking in the world today.

This last project being undertaken by Rotary made a deep resonating impact on me. Outside of my interest in the topic due to my research and studies in migration and violence/conflict studies I couldn't help but feel a deep necessity to gain further "hands-on" experience. So I am currently looking for projects to talk with rather than just talking about the communities impacted by human trafficking.

If you have any recommendations I would be greatly appreciative of it being passed on :)

Saturday ended with dinner once again and then a wonderful evening of Frank Sinatra and some classic Abba and another trip out to the pub with the scholars.

To be honest, I was terribly sad when I woke up this morning and remembered that I was leaving Stratford-upon-Avon. While I know that the scholars will get together again probably before the end of this week, it is rare for all of us to be together. We are, in my opinion, a closely knit group, and even now, typing up this post on the train back to London I can't help but check my phone and the Whatsapp group chat every few minutes.

But the benefit of going home is watching Tottenham play Liverpool this afternoon, the Vikings play this evening, of course seeing my favorite person (see I got around to mentioning Shane mom), and finding out how Alex (our flatmate) and his family enjoyed their weekend celebrating Alex's brothers engagement.

I know that this post was ridiculously long but to be honest, I am really glad that I've put down as much as I did. When I look back on this year, months, years, decades after it is done I want to be able to go back through these posts and find a little sliver of the incredible adventure that this has turned out to be.

Now, I'll let it rest and enjoy the last few minutes of the train ride with clean crisp fall air outside of the city, before making my way back home.