Val on the commonality of loving to laugh

Similarly to what I said about the homestay, I was not at all looking forward to the Human Rights Weekend. Another weekend of structure, forced interaction and no free-time. No availability to hike or explore the city or go out and meet my chiseled blonde model of a future husband whose pastimes include petting cats and serenading brunettes named Valerie with his John Mayer-esque voice (still working on that one). And I love, want, NEED that free-time/alone time unless you’d like to deal with a pissed off, overwhelmed introvert who can be quite feisty when instigated (or, as a friend calls it, “the sass”). I was ready to bar myself off in my room for the weekend before exposing my dear co-educators to that darling side of me (just ask my Mother). It didn’t start out so hot. 

When I went to go grab a coffee during our first stop to pick up our friends from other countries, one of them not only took my window seat (nbd, got to snuggle with who I would soon know as Isaac and the beloved Tina), but he thought my headband, which fell on the floor in front of him, was in fact underwear. And I didn’t know this until about an hour into the trip. So, what I’m saying is there was an hour long period of time when a full grown man thought he was staring at lacy white underwear on the ground and was trying to articulate how he would break it to me that he now knew what my undergarments looked like. And as soon as he awkwardly said “...ahem… are you… missing anything?” call it my insane ability to read minds, or maybe just intuition, but I knew. After a nice awkward laugh and some profuse reassuring, I accepted my fate in what I thought was going to be a weekend where “the sass” was going to come out full force. Following that lovely ice-breaker (a generous way of putting it), we were sitting on a bus that had to be either painfully lost or tracing a circle with its wheels in order to send an important ground signal to any passing aircraft (some kind of code maybe?); why else would we be driving around in a circle for 20 minutes at a time? 

The awkard "getting to know you" start to the weekend

Eventually we got there and met everyone officially, which was one of those forced interaction things that starts out awkward, with people making small talk and displaying body language that screams “I AM UNCOMFORTABLE!”, but after enduring that necessary stage of introductions, I found people to be pretty damn cool. Maria (AKA Ancient Queen Quamata) made me laugh immediately, Brilliant was, well, brilliant, Shaine realized my true essence and started calling me “the cat lady”, Eugene candidly spoke about the Khoi people and Lauren enthusiastically pointed out to Siobhan that her sister’s name is also Siobhan, which didn’t make Siobhan particularly excited since he is in fact a boy.

Val introducing herself 

After that we were all split up into rooms, which were absolutely GORGEOUS in a rustic white-brick kinda way. I spent one night on our back porch that overlooked the whole olive farm with Johnny and Tiny just talking and looking at the sky and I saw, not just my first shooting star, but my second as well, and Tina saw FIVE. The last time I saw so many stars was when I was a little kid at my grand-parents old house in upstate New York. Turns out, even though everyone on the trip spends four fifths of every day together, we all bonded some more, I bonded with my pillow some more, and I got to know some really interesting people. 

Maria & Val enjoying the laughter and the food.

While I didn’t learn as much about everyone individually, as in hearing personal stories, I did learn quite a bit about human rights and people as people. That being that, even countries and cultures apart, people have one commonality: we all love laughing. Even when humor didn’t translate, we spent a good deal of the weekend just laughing with each other. And while I was glad to get back to our home base at the end of the weekend due to total mental exhaustion (we had to think during these workshops, god forbid), I found myself solidly content with the weekend. And also the dessert they served after every meal. A girl could get used to ice cream and French fries after every lunch and jello cake after every dinner. Whichever model said “nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels” really has never had jello cake. Or homemade muffins. Or *insert any food from human rights weekend here*. Food child ensued.

Val receiving her Human Rights Training Certificate at the conclusion of the weekend.