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HOW TO PACK FOR SPRING BREAK
A volunteer vacation
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With checkpoint alcohol allotment at a three- Need a little sugar to cut the booze? Fruit Men-
ounce max, you owe yourself at least that. Kaluha tos, Fruit Stripe gum (with extra-fun zebra tat-
will suit your pre-beach mood, but if you're feel- toos) or Watermelon Bubblicious are airport
ing risky, try slipping a little extra into a plastic classics; and a hefty Cadbury bar will suffice for
drugstore tlask - they look exactly like the Flex chocolate lovers.nBonus: Chewing gum will allevi-
shampoo hottles circa 1990 - or it all else fails, ate air-pressure induced
Bacardi 151 is the exact color of original Listerine ear pain.
(the brown kind). ;"
Maybe you need a little more intellectual stimula-
tion than Us Weekly can offer. Try Will Shortz's
puzzle cards, or, if you're really hardcore, bring
that LSAT prep book along.
3
7
You're staying in the Haitian
mountainside, spending your days
building raincatchers to filter and
store fresh water for the impover-
ished local community. Before you
arrived, women and children hod
to walk hours to the nearest fresh
water source - disease-infested
water, at that. One evening, the
doctor you're staying with tells
you something you won't ever for-
get: "You have seen this, now you
bear the responsibility.You haveno
excuse, take the responsibility seri-
ously."
It's a bit different than taking
body shots off of a stripper in an
Acapulco nightclub.
Every year, hundreds of Univer-
sity students eschew the stereotyp-
ical drink-til-you-forget-your-name
spring break in favor of a com-
munity service-oriented one. In
the last decade or so, "alternative
spring breaks," as they've come to
be known, have become less of an
"alternative" and more of a spring
break norm.
In 1990, the University's Alter-
native Spring Break launched its
hest Pri eCnrdnteed M OM
ti l for rptwinsco sa-ean
Sell Trips, Earn Cash and Go free!!!
first trips: 15 students traveled to
work at Habitat for Humanity sites
in Niles and Kalamazoo, Mich. This
year, over 350 students will travel
to 34 different sites with what has
become the country's largest ASB
program.
How did two small trips to
western Michigan balloon into an
array of different trips provided by
various groups? Talking to partici-
pants, the same cliche pops up: It's
a life-changing experience.
University alum Gaia Sten-
son is the site leader for New Life
Church's spring break trip to Haiti
for a second consecutive year this
year. It was Stenson who promised
the doctor that she wouldn't forget
what she saw in Haiti and would
take seriously her new responsibil-
ity to helping those in need.
From the moment Stenson's
group landed in Haiti's capital,
Port-au-Prince,shewasunprepared
for the scene in front of her. She had
known what to expect: over-crowd-
ing and a standard of living unlike
she'd ever seen. But seeing it in per-
son was very different than reading
it in a newspaper.
"It's just a profound experi-
ence," she said. "I can't plead
ignorance anymore."
Somehow though, this doesn't
seem all that exciting. Everyone
who goes onan alternative spring
break comes home with the same
incredible story. The places
change - Chicago, Uruguay, New
Orleans - and the work changes
- rebuilding homes, tutoring stu-
dents, delivering food - but in a
strange way, they're interchange-
able. The simple formula for these
programs remains the same:
Step one: Take a student some-
where completely out of his or her
comfort zone.
The alien worlds of Uruguay and
Haiti make obvious examples of
this, but leaving the country isn't
the only way to leave what you
know behind.
Maddie Serena, a member of the
It's about
changing lives,
especially
your own.
ASB leadership team who gradu-
ated last semester, participated in
two different spring breaks in two
of the most familiar cities in the
country: Chicago and New York.
While Serena said her evenings
were filled with activities like shop-
ping, eating out or simply bouncing
around the city, her days were spent
far away from the bubbles of down-
town Chicago and the Upper West
Side, where her group was housed.
In Chicago, Serena took an hour-
long bus ride to a middle school in
a crumbling South Side neighbor-
hood. In New York, she delivered
food to some of the roughest parts
of the Bronx.
Step two: Make them pitch in.
Most trips house students in
churches or hotels slightly removed
from the worst conditions, but
when it comes time to work, stu-
dents become a part of the local
fabric. When a student works all
week in a foreign environment, it
becomes impossible to forget what
he or she has seen. Spending a week
in the Bronx isn't the same as mak-
ing a wrong turn on your way to
Yankee Stadium.
LSA sophomore Shelley Rosen-
berg, who spent last spring break
with a Hillel program building
homes in Uruguay, said the first
house - belonging to a family of
three - was startling.
"The house they were living in
was pretty much a cardboard box
with some pieces of tin - literally
anything they could find," she said.
"It was half the size of my dorm
room."
But she said that seeing every
house and seeing every family with
the same problems was the true
lasting image.
"The closest description would
be American Hoovervilles in the
Great Depression," she said. "It was
eye-opening."
Rosenberg is a site leader for this
spring's Hillel trip to New Orleans.
Just because the formula is
simple, however, doesn't mean it
doesn't work. If the goal of spring
break is to comeback with an amaz-
ing story, these programs certainly
don't disappoint. A cynic might say
that a week of spring break can't
solve the problems it sets out to
solve. An optimist might say, "Who
cares?"
Stenson isn't naive about the
effects of one week's work. She said
she believes that all service affects
change in the community, but
- the long-term results of a spring
break service trip are even great-
er for the student.
"I just really think there's a
complete possibility of your life
being drastically changed," she
said.
Maybe this explains the spiritual
component that exists in the pro-
grams. Even in the non-religious
atmosphere of the University's
ASB, reflection and strengthening
the bonds between the students
are major parts of each day, Serena
said. Many of the other programs
are affiliated directly with religious
groups like Hillel and New Life.
Despite the affiliation, these trips
aren't inherently religious. Stenson
said there were several non-Chris-
tians going on the various New Life
trips and - with a few exceptions
- volunteers aren't out to convert
people. She said there was time
set aside for reading the Bible and
prayer, but these were not manda-
tory. In fact, both Stenson and Ser-
ena used the terms to describe the
post-workday process "debriefing"
and "reflection." Prayer isn't a part
of Hillel's trips, though the meals
are kosher and Saturday - the Jew-
ish Sabbath - is a mandatory day of
rest.
This comes back to the original
question: How did these programs
take off? The answer may be a little
cheesy: it's because everyone comes
back with the same story. That
same story is incredible. When
Serena walked into the all-black
middle school where she tutored,
all the students called her "Lil'
Whitey." By the end of the week,
she had become inseparable with
her five sixth-grade students. They
opened up to her about their lives
and some of the struggles they'd
gone through by age 11. When she
left, they told her that because of
her they all planned to go to col-
lege. Serena still writes to them.
And they write back.
It's the same story, but reading it
in the newspaper isn't the same as
seeing it in real life.
- Mekelburg is an outgoing
Daily news editor and a winter
semester opinion columnist.
f
There's nothing like recycled airplane air to suck
the moisture right out of your ready-to-tan skin.
Some all-purpose handsalve should solve that;
good for hands, elbows and feet, or a few dabs to
add a little shine to wilted locks
pre-landing.
And finally, to protect your feet from that nasty
airplane carpet (and bad circulation), pack a pair of
socks, preferably the kind with rubber nubs on the
bottom. Now you can do lunges in the aisles with-
out slipping, and if you've been paying attention,
that all-purpose salve will work on those rough
winter toes. Really. It's like an airplane pedi.