Lillian Wu, CGIS Peer Advisor: What made you interested in study abroad vs another semester at the University of Michigan?

Gloria Kawai: I chose to study abroad…to see more of the world.

LW: Why did you choose to study abroad on this program? Why a field expedition instead of a classroom?

GK: MAP, ecology. Africa seemed cool, Tanzania is amazing and not a place many people get to go. It’s so out there. I want to do wildlife conservation. Experience you can’t get in Michigan. We get a good theoretical background in conservation.

LU: A day in the life/day-to-day schedule?

GK: SFS: The first half was academic-based. 4 classes. We would do weeklong expeditions, multiple national parks. We’d have periods of Swahili every day, then none for a week. Culture shock. Breakfast at 7 every day, 6 days of class, 1 free day–hiking, art workshop, local tourist lodge and playing card games. After the mid-semester break, we only did directed research. We got to pick from a list or make your own project–my group made our own project.
We were on our own campus, 20 students in a group. Roughly 30 faculty and staff. We were 5-10 min walk to Rhotia, which was a small town. We were free to go shopping, get tailored clothing, and play soccer with the local kids.

LU: How was the academic experience different from at U-M?

GK: Nature of the fieldwork–academically less rigorous. Not constantly doing readings or homework. My first exposure to real fieldwork, camping in tents for 5-6 days at a time and coming back to analyze it. It was more physically and mentally rigorous, we were constantly doing fieldwork and data collection.

LU: What was housing like?

GK: We had bandas, little cabins with two rooms. 4 ppl per building. Each room had its bathroom, mosquito net. Concrete everything. Separate building for lounging, kitchen, classroom building. 2 min walk across campus. Only sharing my bathroom with my roommate–better than Michigan freshman dorm. Very similar to a dorm hallway, a sense of community.
Almost everyone was from a different school, different areas of the country. It was a lot of fun, we had a lot of diversity. Range of experiences, fun to talk about. It helped that I was coming from a big school into a smaller environment.

LU: What are some local activities you’d recommend?

GK: They have a list of pre-approved activities that they’d drive us to. We really liked the art workshops: knife painting. Using the artist palette knives, scraping the paint on. Only have a few colors and we mix them. I made an elephant. They tailor it to you, how good you are at art.Boutique workshop, making a wax tapestry of different colors.Our favorite was a tourist lodge called Nomad’s Rest. The staff came to know our names, they threw us a going away party.

LU: What is something that you took away from this experience? A story or anecdote that you'd like to share?

GK: Our final expedition: the Serenghetti, classic. The best one we went on. Prior to that, we camped outside national parks and drove in. But in the S, we were right in the middle; we’d step out in the morning and see zebras and buffalo across the river. One night, 2 good friends and I were stargazing. My friend spotted an elephant, we looked over and there was an elephant just 30 meters from us, wandering around. We got the staff, they made sure we were safe, but we got to watch the elephant walk along the back of our campsite and eat from the trees. One girl came out of her tent and didn’t realize there was an elephant, so all she saw was us gesturing not to come out. She looked terrified. It was a surreal experience.

LU: What are you most proud of doing while abroad?

GK: The directed research project we focused on. We surveyed reptiles and amphibians, the first abundance survey in that specific area of Tanzania. Our presentation was presented to local government officials, local farmers, directors of national parks–the lodge staff came too. Valuable: not just the academic side, but communicating to locals and a general audience.

LU: Is there anything you'd like to share about your identity that shaped your experience abroad?

GK: Culturally, Tanzania was very different. The staff was very open and very kind, but there were times when researching or in the local community–culturally, women typically don’t do hard labor. When we worked with locals, they didn’t let us dig the holes in our research. There was some communication issue. There were some comments made from people in the community about being Asian, assuming I was Chinese. Not prejudice or racism, but just cultural difference.

LU: What was your biggest challenge? That is, in hindsight, what would you make a note of to your pre-departure self?

GK: Being a woman and being Asian, we got some comments. In the capital, it was more city-like, people would say ni hao to us. In the early semester, it was more of a shock.

LU: What do you think you'll remember the most about your experience abroad in 20 years?

GK: 2 things. The wildlife, our expeditions, that I got to do fieldwork in such a cool place. Very lucky. And the people, we got very close very quickly. We had all our classes together, our meals together, and struggled through not having Internet together. Lifelong connections.

LU: Anything else you want to say about the experience?

GK: I really recommend this. SFS is great with scholarships and grants. The homesickness was something I wasn’t anticipating–it was hard to balance appreciation for being in Africa and missing loved ones at home. (It helped that I got an international data plan, I called my parents and friends at least once a week. Took a lot of pictures. One thing that helped me was making a scrapbook to keep my memories to show friends my week by week.)