Counting Down the Days to Tanzania
One of the most exciting aspects of my summer is something that I haven’t even mentioned yet: I am traveling to Tanzania, Africa in the month of May. Wooohooo!!!!
Maybe you have heard of “J-Terms” (June terms) with some other schools–where School gets out in late May, and students immediately study abroad for about a month to earn maybe one class credit. At Concordia, we finish our Spring semester on May 2nd this year, so we call our summer study abroad programs “May-Sems” (May seminars). 
This May-Sem is called “Women and Children of Tanzania.” Professor Bill Snyder (Remember him from my first blog?) will be taking me and five other students to several cities and townships all over Tanzania to visit women’s shelters, orphanages, schools, and medical clinics. For the most part, our purpose there is to observe the social systems for women and children in Tanzania and how they relate to the AIDS pandemic in Africa. According to most scholars, the very first step to slowing the spread of AIDS in third world countries is to improve living conditions, education, and social justice especially among women. If we go and observe these social systems, we will be more globally informed on ways to help the AIDS situation in Tanzania in a long-term sense. After all, “the purpose of Concordia College is to influence the affairs of the world by sending into society thoughtful and informed men and women dedicated to the Christian life.” (Concordia’s Mission Statement)
So I can earn school credit just by traveling to foreign countries? No papers? No tests?
Well, not exactly.
Again, our purpose for going is primarily to observe and gain a world-perspective on the AIDS situation in Africa. But this goal begins months before we leave; with good old fashioned research. Our group has met once about every other week to get travel information from Bill and to share research with one another. While we are in Tanzania, we do have to go to one formal lecture at the University there, and do a brief write-up on it. Throughout our entire trip, we are required to keep a semi-academic journal of our observations, which will help us write a 6-8 page paper on our experiences. We’ll hand the journal and the paper in to Bill sometime after we get back, most likely in late July.
At this point, we’re all still diligently doing the research, double-checking our packing lists, and counting down the days.