Submitted by Collin Willard on the 2020 winter session study abroad program in Athens, Greece sponsored by the Department of English…
Our second week in Greece was full of some incredible experiences. We did so many things this week, and I feel that my program thus far has given me a much different outlook on life than my previous life experiences. On Monday, we traveled to Delphi, stopping at a few places on the way. First, we stopped at an archaeological museum in the town of Thebes, then an extremely old monastery in the mountains of Central Greece, and then the town of Arachova, which neighbors Delphi. Traveling through these mountains was really special as I’ve never been in mountains that were this big or this expansive. It seemed like the mountain range just kept going forever. The next day, we visited the archaeological museum at Delphi and the corresponding archaeological site. We were joined by President and Mrs. Assanis, which was quite an amazing experience. It was really incredible to see how the site had been excavated and it was also very interesting to learn about the cultural influence of the Oracle of Delphi.
Wednesday presented one of the most life-altering experiences for me. We visited the Melissa Network, which is a non-profit that helps immigrant and refugee women with a variety of services. We heard the testimony of an Afghan woman who came to Athens after fleeing war with her two children, and it was incredibly moving. This put a lot of things into perspective for me, especially with regards to how our struggles as Americans often pale in comparison to those from other countries, and how my status as a white male gives me a tremendous amount of privilege that others unfortunately do not have. After this, we went to a library that contained some of the oldest printed books in existence, which I thought was really interesting to see as well. On Thursday, we visited two Jewish synagogues and learned about the history of Greece’s Jewish population, a lot of whom perished under Nazi occupation of Greece. This also put my life into perspective, as it was hard to truly understand how much suffering Greece’s Jewish population was put through. Friday and Saturday were also particularly interesting to me, as we learned about Greece’s government by visiting the Greek Parliament, as well as the government of Ancient Greece when we visited the ancient Agora archaeological site. It was very interesting to hear about Greece’s fight for independence and the broad story of their political climate and history, as well as the setup of the government of ancient Athens and how they made decisions.
In class, we focused on the Iliad and The Odyssey, and also discussed the Old Testament of the Bible. The former two texts I found quite fascinating considering that the stories had been passed down orally for centuries before being written down. The age of the epics is hard to comprehend because they are so incredibly ancient, but their influence on culture is incredible. As for the latter text, I grew up in church, but I never realized the interconnectedness of the stories in the Bible, nor the complexities. I had only really been exposed to the easy-to-digest children’s versions. Ultimately, this past week was extremely busy, but incredibly engaging and informative. I experienced so many things, and I feel like my outlook on life has been altered.