Abroad Experience
The six photographs in this slide show were selected from this year’s Barlow Off-Campus Study Photo Exhibition of more than 60 images.
Watch the slide show
"I spent my entire time in Sweden baking with my 16-year-old host sister, Linnea. For my 21st birthday, after waking me up by singing and waving both Swedish and Danish flags, she and my host mother made me prinsessa tårta, a traditional Swedish cake filled with vanilla cream and raspberry jam, covered with green marzipan, and dotted with handmade pink marzipan flowers. Here, Linnea decided to spell my name in powdered sugar on top. Later, she made sure that I had both the first and last pieces of cake." — Louisa Demmitt ’09, Bromma, Sweden
“My friend Dominic holds a crate of tomatoes we picked together in a co-op field once controlled by the Mafia. Local farmers now work these fields but fear that the Mafia will take back their land. The farmers receive help from school organizations such as ours, which aid in harvesting their crops.” — Lisa Hartung ’10, Florence, Italy
“These men are working in the tanneries of Fez, famous for fine leathers. The animal hides are treated in colorful dye vats and then spread on the rooftops to dry. This traditional tannery uses poppies, henna, and saffron to get the unusual red, brown, and yellow colors.” — Sara Sinicropi-Yao ’10, Fez, Morocco
“We climbed Masada in the Negev desert at dawn to watch the sun rise over the mountains of Jordan, illuminating the Dead Sea. It was incredible how quickly the chilly darkness became sweltering sunlight. To think that in a country with so much turmoil there could be a moment so pristine and peaceful left me hopeful for the future — even if it may be a very distant one.” — Leah Citrin ’09, Masada, Israel
"While we camped, drunk military personnel challenged our permit papers, then escorted us to Ureca, a nearby village. Sobering up, they realized that we 'knew' important people in the capital of Malabo, so they allowed us — left to right, two Guinean students, an American student, and our program director — to play in this waterfall. I was thinking about contradiction. Here’s this beautiful, waterfall-spotted coastline, and we’re being escorted by military personnel with guns.” — Mark Andrews ’09, Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea
Click on thumbnails, above, to view the slide show.
Featured image
“I spent a week documenting sustainable energies in Denmark and came across a series of wind turbines scattered throughout a farm of canola flowers. The seeds are used to create biofuel.” — David Al-Ibrahim ’09, Fyn, Denmark
We chose them for mostly subjective reasons, like the sweet spectrum of yellow seen in the first two photographs — canola flowers seen here and saffron dye in the second image.
Another reason came from Mark Andrews ’09, whose photograph from Equatorial Guinea is in this slide show, taken while armed military personnel were escorting him and his friends from their camping area.
Mark was asked what he was thinking at that moment. About contradiction, he said, between the beautiful place and the peril of the moment.
French professor Alex Dauge-Roth, who led students to Rwanda in May to conduct oral histories with orphans of the genocide, recently showed me a student’s journal entry after a visit to the Murambi memorial.
She wrote about trying to reconcile the gorgeous Rwandan countryside with the horror of what had occurred at that spot. Dauge-Roth shared the text while describing the spaces between what we know and what others have experienced.
The photos hint at those spaces, large and small, and a sense of them closing.
H. Jay Burns
