Tag: gapyear

In my feels at Ukrainian Summer Camp

In my feels at Ukrainian Summer Camp

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 1 Comment

One thing I’m very proud of is the fact that I’m a West Yorkshire girl. We may have cold, rainy weather, and it might be constantly assumed that we drink tea or have some sort of superior authority when it comes to judging a Yorkshire pudding (tho the latter’s true tbf), and it might well be accurate that we struggle to spend money on anything. BUT, it’s because of these facts and many others that I love where I’m from. However, aside from that cheeky bit of patriotism, there are plenty of things about the Northern English psyche that I don’t love all that much.

The main one that was appropriate when it came to my time in Ukraine was our tendency to be emotionally guarded. I grew up in a family where sarcasm is encouraged, and through making digs (lovingly) at each other my siblings and I gained a thicker skin in preparation for the wider world. One consequence of this was that I, like many other Britons, have a tendency to take the mick out of anything that shows excessive enthusiasm or ‘deep’ emotions. By ‘deep’ I mean when you’re sitting with your group of friends and someone brings up the meaning of life, and because you’re English one of you responds with ‘that’s deep’ and you all laugh it off, then change the topic to something ‘lighter’.

A natural avoidance of topics requiring more emotional vulnerability such as this made life in a Ukrainian Summer Camp all the more alien to me. Our first week in the Carpathian mountains was a training week, where counsellors and English teachers got to know one another without any children running around. We played games every day, and brainstormed activities we could do with the kids, but then on an evening we’d sit and have conversations where everyone seemed to willingly bare their souls to strangers. Now I was struggling to get used to the fact that we actually had to learn dance routines for the kids to mimic for 15 minutes before EVERY meal, let alone that everyone would then have heavily emotional chats with each other before bed time…

The Yorkshire lass in me wanted to laugh and take the mick at so many points, but it became clearer that I was the minority in the room when it came to not wanting to publicly emote. It’s apparent in Europe, and from what I’ve seen the rest of the world, that those ‘deep’ conversations the English only seem to have when drunk or in therapy are standard dinner time chit-chat. It’s in this way, amongst others, that we play to our stereotype of being uptight and emotionally closed-off.

To be honest, I do like this characteristic of our culture to an extent. In my eyes, we privilege monumental emotions over minor ones. By this I mean that we don’t emote constantly, but (for want of a better phrase) save it for a big occasion. In this way, we don’t force our emotions onto people excessively, for fear of being branded a ‘downer’ or, in Yorkshire terminology, ‘a whinge’. That being said, this is definitely a toxic trait when it comes to mental health: the English have a real problem with internalising emotions and therefore allowing those feelings to overwhelm and isolate the individual. Through living in Ukraine surrounded by people of all nationalities (not exclusively European), and being in a hyper-emotional environment, I was encouraged to be a lot more vocal and in-tune with my own feelings. Life in a summer camp is effectively a hot box where everything you feel is heightened due to extreme levels of stress, responsibility and a whoooole lot of laughter.

In this week’s concluding paragraph – seen as I just can’t seem to get that A Level English Lit essay structure out of my bones- I basically just want to say that the English need to have some more ‘deep’ conversations. As a community, we need to make it clearer to each other that emotions aren’t scary or unusual. I’m not suggesting that everyone sits and has a cry with each other regularly, although an occasional cry is good for you. But some of the most valuable parts of summer camp for me, and others, was everyone leaving little notes for each other just to say thank you for leaving the art room tidy, or helping with an evening activity, or just to say I think you’re amazing and this is why. Ukraine showed me that when a group of people are almost completely emotionally vulnerable with one another, life is easier. We wound each other up and occasionally we argued, but overall I formed some of the closest friendships I’ve ever had in 2 months flat and laughed until I cried multiple times every day.

So next time someone wants to talk about something ‘deep’, humour it and get involved for a bit. It might be interesting and afterwards you’ll feel good. Plus, then when you want to lighten the mood and have a laugh with each other your relationship is going to be stronger, more genuine and so much more fun.

Culture shock in Fiji

Culture shock in Fiji

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Out of all of my trips, Fiji was an emotional roller coaster: there were a few moments where I almost spent all of my money on a plane trip home. Not due to the scenery being underwhelming, or the people unwelcoming, (definitely nOt the case) but because in many respects the country was so far away from everything I knew and expected.

Quick tip: don’t travel from the North of England all the way to the heart of the Pacific Ocean for 2 weeks. It’s faaaar too long a journey for such a short amount of time. That being said, it’s stunning so give yourself long enough to properly explore. Also make sure that you’ve got a hefty bank account so you can afford the island life: I didn’t have that much money, but I made the best out of it. I even had a wild Manta Ray swim past me in the Pacific Ocean (GAP YAHH)!!!!!

I’m hesitant to be completely honest about my experience in Fiji because I met some really great people there, many of whom I hope to see again. But my first week didn’t give me the same bliss I experienced in the second, on a private island surrounded by the ocean.

I spent the start of my trip helping in a local boys’ school as a teaching assistant, and went into it thinking that it might be similar to my experience in Nepal: it wasn’t. The children themselves were super sweet, but kids are always sweet, they can’t help it. What was more notable, was the underlying physical and emotional violence present within the school. Namely through the teachers in the school using corporal punishment. The class I was with was one of the youngest, and worst behaved, so I watched the teacher strike and verbally intimidate the kids regularly. This created an atmosphere with heightened physical violence where the boys would spend a lot of their break-times hitting each other during playtime. The first thing the teacher I assisted told me was to not get close (emotionally) to the children. I understood that she meant it on a disciplinary level: to create distance and respect between adults and children. But I can’t see how the way she went about it helped the children at all. It was clear to me that many of those who were misbehaving had learning difficulties or experienced physical violence at home, or both.

At this point it became very clear to me that there was very little I could do in that situation. I can’t describe how affecting it is to have a 6 year old child look you in the eye with tears in his eyes as his wrist or ankle is slapped with a wooden ruler, and not be able to do anything. But it comes down to the fact that as the intruder in the room, what right did I have to tell someone that an element of their culture was right or wrong? Some might say that I should have said something, but I didn’t see how that would have achieved anything but made it seem like I was a privileged white girl trying to push my Western views onto another culture. Instead, I tried very hard to stop the boys from doing things to provoke punishment. For those who fell behind in their work, I did my best to catch them up and for those who were about to do something mischievous, I pegged it across the room to try and stop them from doing it. I also allowed them to stand behind me and hug me when their teacher wasn’t looking, seeing as it was obvious that many were starved of positive physical contact.

I’m couldn’t really tell you my opinion of that teacher. On one hand, I watched her hit the kids, and that repulsed me. But then she also seemed like a hard-working, tough woman intent on ensuring that those children received a decent education. Spending time in that classroom, even for such a short time showed me that living in different cultures is not always easy. I have strong views on the subject of corporal punishment in schools as a result of my upbringing in the North of England. That teacher’s views were the polar opposite to my own, but then she had a very different upbringing to me. What is difficult to navigate in that situation, is to what degree I can express my opposition without reeking of western imperialist superiority.

I’m not sure how well I did in such a short time, but I like to think that those kids will remember the hugs I gave them and the parts of the alphabet I taught them.

Life in the Nepali jungle

Life in the Nepali jungle

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

To be honest, the first thing I want to say about Nepal is that it’s just a ridiculously beautiful country that everyone should visit. So that’s the core of this blog established. But hey, whilst we’re here we may as well elaborate. ONWARDS.

Nepal is super famous for it’s mountains, the Himalayas, and all the amazing hiking routes they offer. Saying that, my experience was spent living and volunteering in the heart of the Chitwan jungle. Needless to say, the scenery was some of the most stunning I will EVER see. I could go all English Lit student and spend paragraphs describing it but even then I could never ever do it justice with words. So, to be brief: we woke up to the sound of monkeys and showered surrounded by geckos. Enough said.

3 weeks in this country introduced me to so many breathtaking things: one of the first to strike me, was the overwhelming poverty of the people. You hear so much about third world countries in the news, and see adverts on TV showing images of starving children so often that somehow the tragedies become trivialised. When physically seeing the way some people live every day in a glorified hut in the middle of nowhere however, you’re forced to understand the reality of true poverty. And it’s astonishing.

Actually, the first scene I saw when driving from Kathmandu airport was a naked child relieving himself on what can only be described as a mound of rubbish by the side of a dusty road. But poverty in Nepal manifested itself in so many more ways than just stark images such as that.

I worked as a children’s English teacher with 2 other English girls, and 1 Montenegrin girl in a Buddhist monastery for most of the 3 weeks: the children’s ages ranged from 6 to 18 and there were around 100 of them, some orphans and some not. The Nepali government’s textbooks we used to teach were riddled with grammatical errors and nonsensical sentences. We would correct these mistakes in front of the classes as we read the children the same thing they’d been reading for months, only now we told them what they thought they’d already learnt, was wrong. We constantly fought against confusing them in order to teach them correct English. The kids themselves were an absolute joy to teach: they tried so hard to follow everything we were saying as they scrawled notes in their beloved (dilapidated) exercise books.

The poverty they experience is all-encompassing. As mentioned, their school equipment is basic to say the least. They eat the same thing every day so their level of sufficient nutrition is non-existent. They rinse their plates under a tap and eat with their hands. They wear the same school uniforms every day and the clothes they have for leisure are clearly second-hand, since they’re covered in holes and stains. They live in the most basic housing and their bathrooms are definitely not sanitary judging from the smell. They shower and clean their clothes in the same area outside with minimal soap. Many of their little bald heads show the marks of ringworm.

These children deserve so much more than the amazing staff of the monastery could ever give them. The nuns and teachers devote most of their lives to the kids and the amount they care is tangible, but there is seriously only so much that they can do with what they have. It became painfully obvious to my 3 new friends and I that everyone there couldn’t even fathom our European lives, nor would we ever really be able to explain it to them.

It’s obviously heart-breaking that people live in situations such as this, without the basic resources the West don’t even pay much attention to. That being said, we, the ‘privileged’, can learn so much from people such as those I met in Nepal. The children and staff in the monastery might have lacked so much when it came to physical things but their love for life and each other shone a different light on my world.

I spent every day in that monastery in total bliss: listening to them sing in the temple at dawn, mealtimes and dusk; lying on the roof with my friends watching my first ever shooting star inside a sea of others; laughing with children and adults who tried so hard to, but could barely understand much of what I said, and most of all, just not even slightly caring about material things. My parents never encouraged me to care much about objects, but the reality is that our society conditions us to rely on them no matter how hard we try.

Obviously we could and should supply these people with more money and resources. Everyone already knows that. On a human level though, I think that every financially comfortable individual should be physically exposed to true poverty. Then assess their own privilege, hold back their pity, and celebrate how humans always find a way to survive, and how they smile whilst they’re at it. Those kids in that jungle are financially poor but I know so many people in the West who are a whole lot poorer than they are when it comes to an appreciation of being alive.

So all in all, Nepal taught me to just take a second. And enjoy.

GAP YAH

GAP YAH

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello! My name is Elizabeth and I’ve spent part of the past year travelling the world. But due to my physical disability, I’ve had to be slightly more creative in how and where I chose to spend my time overseas. So whilst I may not have hiked up the Himalayas, I did sit and paraglide over them- but I’ll come to tell the details of the cool stuff I did this year in future posts. Since this is just an introduction, I couldn’t possibly give too much away so soon…


A main theme of this year has been talking. I LOVE talking. I love to talk about absolutely anything with anyone who wants to talk to me. As far as I’m concerned, conversation is a completely underrated medium of expression. Simply by talking to new people this year I’ve learnt an indescribable amount: about people on a personal level; people in the context of their culture and language; then how all of these elements to someone’s life can affect how they think and communicate. One huge conversation of this year has been answering the question posed to me by my friends: did you find yourself? And I did. Ever so slightly. (And I puked a little just typing that…)


Whilst the phrase ‘to find oneself’ may or may not mean a lot to you, personally, I’m a product of my Northern English working/middle class upbringing so it just makes me cringe. Regardless of this, the past 12 months have taught me that the phrase is relevant to my life. But what does it even mean?


Nerdy moment and big words to follow…


Well the pretentious connotations surrounding the words have largely been created as a result of rich upper class kids exploring the third world, as a kind of penance to pay society back for their inherited wealth (and because they can). This causes those less financially fortunate to feel resentment- both actively and passively- towards that class of people, sometimes leading them to take the mick. This psyche unsurprisingly distracts from the actual meaning of the words themselves. So whilst my observation may seem blunt, it’s been the way of the world for centuries that those with less money than others generally become jealous very quickly. In this country our societal jealousy often manifests itself in humour and mockery. Good old Brits with their sarcasm. But most of the time it’s not even the wealth itself that sparks the jealousy, it’s the opportunities that money provides for people.

In a culture where reality is so easily tainted by apps such as Instagram, it’s no surprise that this pattern continues and has arguably intensified in recent years. At this point it’s important to say that I’m in no way attempting to devalue those with money giving back to the world and travelling, but it’s also difficult for those who’d love to do the same but can’t afford it, to see. Thus the phrase and act of ‘finding oneself’ is mocked alongside the term ‘gap year’ – which is often said in an exaggeratedly ‘posh’ London accent i.e. ‘gap yah’. I’m even guilty of saying it like this and I have harem pants and bead bracelets just like my fellow gap yah-ers. Call me a hypocrite.


Though I don’t believe that you can go and sit in the jungle for a few weeks and ‘find yourself’ definitively by any means, I will argue that completely separating myself from the familiar has given me a new perspective on the world and my place in it. The state of society at the minute is such that we’re provided with lots of opinions as statements, and oftentimes there’s little discussion about what’s said.


SO, I guess I’m going to use this platform to talk about some stuff and I hope that you take enjoyment out of reading it. But if you don’t, then you read to here so I still win.
🙂