Change: the one-syllable, six-letter word that fear almost always follows.
Ms. Hoffman always used to say, “Change is a good thing,” when attempting the impossible task of comforting my grade after announcing that we would be the first to take exams as 7th graders, or after hearing Chef Patterson announce that Le Bistro’s famous chocolate chip cookies would only be served once a week.
You see, I’m not a huge fan of adjustments. I like the older and more predictable routines. That being said, when I came into this summer expecting three months of normality, I was unprepared for the amount of change that was about to hit me. But eventually when change did arrive, I learned, little by little, to embrace and love it.
My summer began just like usual: with three weeks at a sleepaway camp, the way I’ve been starting my summers since I was nine. After that, I spent three weeks in Southeast Asia, which I naively thought I had seen all there was to see from my travels to Thailand last year. I had picked my summer knowing (or thinking) that I left little room for change.
It was my last year at Camp Laurel South, my home away from home. I hadn’t even considered how different my camp experience would be as part of the oldest agegroup on campus, the Campers in Transition (CITs). Coming out of freshman year, the perpetually intimidated youngin of the high school crowd, to the group of oldest campers was a huge change in itself. In my last year at Laurel South, I noticed that I was becoming more and more willingly adventurous every summer; I was just too stubborn to admit it until now.
Three weeks later while I was suffering camp withdrawal, I reflected on my time at camp. Although I wanted to stay a camper forever in that moment, I knew it was time to move on; it was time for change. I couldn’t believe it, but I had learned to accept change, recognizing that the time I spent at camp was my last and that it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I was just transitioning out of one part of my life and into another.
Just a week later, I was packed up, waving goodbye to my parents, and heading to Southeast Asia. 36 hours later, I arrived in Cambodia.
Cambodia has been through a lot in the past 30 years with the horrific Khmer Rouge, poverty, danger with its land mines, and its corrupt government. I learned all about its history while living with my homestay family in Cambodia’s floating villages, home to 25,000 very low-income families in floating wooden houses on the Tonle Sap river. During my stay, sleeping on mats, going to floating bathrooms next to crocodile farms, and using toilets that didn’t flush were all considered the norm.
Though adapting to these new daily routines presented a lot of difficulties, I also got the chance to track potential history in the making as Cambodia’s governmental elections took place. The two parties running were the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP). The CPP has been controlling Cambodia for 30 years. 5 million Khmer people suffer from poverty, do not have access to education, and have inadequate job opportunities under the party’s rule; additionally, the hundreds of million dollars the government has made from Cambodian natural resources have not circulated back into the country to help these people. In the last election, the CPP won 90 seats while the CNRP won only 22 seats. This close election was said to make history.
As I sat with my homestay family waiting to hear the final results of the race, it dawned on me that I had been wishing away change my whole life while the Khmer people had been praying for it for the past decades; I felt selfish for having taken change for granted. If I have wanted to get out of a situation, I have always had the ability to speak up and do something. I didn’t realize the importance of change until that moment, seeing how hard it was for the Khmer people to reach.
Ultimately and unfortunately, the CPP won the election, but the CNCP had won many more seats than it had in previous years: in a 123-seat parliament, the CPP had won 63 seats, and the CNRP had won 55 seats. This was a huge win for the CNCP and a step closer to the greatly wanted change in Cambodia.
A few days after my return to the states, I realized that there was going to be even more adjusting to do. My sister Sofia Stafford, ’13 was leaving for college! There wasn’t going to be someone at the house when I got home anymore, or someone to quiz me for my hardest tests, or someone to watch late-night Grey’s Anatomy marathons with me. This is probably the hardest adjustment I’ve had to face this summer. Learning to live apart from someone so close to you who you’ve lived with your whole life is really difficult. But this new page in my life is even more important to my sister, who has the next four years ahead of her to embrace new challenges with open arms, and that is most definitely worth the change.
So to new Hewitt freshmen: high school is nothing like middle school, so prepare yourselves for a whole bunch of changes, but don’t shy away from them. Change is something to look forward to. Get excited for the small changes at school like new classrooms, new teachers, and new courses. Take risks, step outside of your comfort zones, and finally, learn to love change.