Since I’ve been here in Solheimer I have had many great experiences. So when asked to talk about a single experience for this blog post was next to impossible. Many of the experiences I have had so far in Iceland have been eye opening. But the experience that stands out most to me is a conversation we had as a group one of the first nights. We hadn’t even known each other for a full 48 hours, and we were sitting in the living room making small talk and playing cards as people do when they first meet. Little did we know this small talk would lead us to discover we aren’t really the small talk type of group. We somehow switched our topic of conversation from discussing our majors and what we packed to what we believed consciousness looked like in different animals, to the Syrian immigration crisis, to the usage of GMO’s in commercial food production systems. We spoke openly. Sharing our differing opinions not worried about being in disagreement with one another. We all listened with open ears and open minds trusting one another with our opinions without knowing much more about each other beyond where we came from. To me that was incredible.
I was so nervous going into this program because a.) It’s scary to go far away from home for a long time and b.) all of the other people participating in the program were already well into college and I just finished my first/last semester of my senior year in high school. Knowing that going into the program made me worried that I wasn’t academically adept enough to participate as actively as I would like to in conversations with the rest of the group. But that night when we the conversations of topics bigger than ourselves blossomed from our small talk and my voice was heard. I felt welcomed and supported and able to understand, respect and learn from the other group members. Thanks to this night I knew I was where I should be and that these people were here for me just as I was for them and together we would learn and grow.
xoxo, Sadie