Submitted by Kylie Boggs on the 2019 World Scholars fall semester program in New Zealand…
I recently returned from my “Spring Break” this semester, and the most impactful portion of it was my trip to the South Island. A group of freshmen and I were planning a four-day trip to explore Christchurch, the Franz Joseph Glacier, and Queenstown all at once! However, everything just kept falling apart. The buses weren’t cooperating with our schedules or our budgets, our housing restricted us to Christchurch for the majority of the time, and the weather was dreadful. Not to mention, none of us had fully realized the impact of the Christchurch earthquakes back in 2011; the city was empty and the city bustle we were used to was gone. That first night we spent in a hostel was truly a bonding experience for the six of us.
The next day was about salvaging what we had. We spent the day exploring the parks of Christchurch and visiting the Quake City Museum that detailed the devastation of the 2011 earthquake. The exhibit housed a long, intimate interview of dozens of the earthquake’s survivors describing how they felt during and after, and I cried. Seeing the efforts of so many people to rebuild what they had lost was inspiring, and it made my travel worries feel a lot smaller in comparison…
The perseverance of the first responders, the students, and the survivors of Christchurch deeply inspired me to make to the most of our trip, and honestly, I’m so glad that it did. The experiences I had there will probably be my favorite memories of New Zealand overall, whether it be sharing a room with five freshmen, riding scooters in Hagley Park, petting huskies at the International Antarctic Center, or zip-lining on the highest and longest line in New Zealand. However, the lesson of perseverance and flexibility really shone when we spent a day in Akaroa and climbed up one of several peaks to look down on the French Bay. Three of the six of us were asthmatic, myself included, and I was really struggling during the first half of the hike – I wanted to quit. I thought the views we’d seen were sufficient enough. I was wrong, and I’m glad I kept going, though, because it only got more and more beautiful and more and more rewarding as I climbed. The pain of climbing up a hill and the pain of a natural disaster, while not comparable, are both proportional to the feelings of elation and satisfaction that come later. As the people of Christchurch fight the uphill battle of rebuilding their infrastructure and their economy, I hope that the reward they receive one day is equally worth all of their blood and sweat. I am eternally grateful to the city for being my home for those few days and teaching me something that I will carry for the rest of my life.
