Away and Back

From this coast to the other, from this continent to one of several others, a handful of Thacher juniors annually seek and find other mountains to trek —the real and the metaphoric—for a few months or for an entire year, thanks to Chewonki Semester and School Year Abroad. Thacher was a founding school of the former, known originally as Maine Coast Semester, and has been a member school of the latter since that organization’s inception in 1964. With its home-stay and a rigorous academic program, it is widely reputed as unparalleled for language acquisition—and for the kind of deep cultural immersion that is, more often than not, genuinely life-changing.

Recently off the plane from Maine: Giovanna Grigsby-Rocca, Walker Conyngham, and Mac Combs, who saw sugar maples turn scarlet and felt Atlantic spray on their increasingly ruddy cheeks—and who jumped whole hog into a curriculum and co-curriculum rooted in environmental studies. Giovanna’s interest in the program sprang from a simple notion-turned-imperative: “I just love being outside.” Like Mac and Walker, she’d noticed that Chewonki alums returning to Thacher “had a kind of special energy around them.” As for Walker, going to Wiscasset was returning to a previous home: “I used to live in Maine and thought that a semester away from California heat would be a nice change of pace.” Mac felt the urge to go more as a je ne sais quois: “I don't quite know how to describe it but I kind of just knew that this was something I [wanted to do].” The school—forty students small—provided hands-on experiences not available at Thacher: milking the community cow, building window inserts, keeping the woodstove burning through the night (and splitting the firewood to feed it), mowing lawns, harvesting potatoes, onions, tomatoes, lettuce—the list runs a country mile. “Waking up at 6:30 every morning to milk cows was a bit of a shock,” Walker confesses, “but just like freshman year and horses, everyone had to do it at some point.”

What’s the bring-back? For Walker, “a great appreciation for free time and sports” and a powerful memory of “mountain biking with the Natural History teacher instead of studying on a Sunday.” For Giovanna, “a newfound appreciation for our natural surroundings in the Ojai Valley” and a heightened sense of activism and involvement, “a new perspective on how a small community really works. You’re part of every piece; what you do actually helps the school to keep running.” For his part, Mac returned with the refinement of a skill basic to every Thacher camper: “Layering.” That, and two indelible images: "Stepping out of my cabin, away from the warmth of the wood stove, to be engulfed by a sea of orange and yellow leaves falling from the expansive canopy above"--and its temperature antithesis: "Sitting around a campfire with a ukulele, banjo, and a guitar strumming along to Talking Heads and some old Pete Seeger."

Back in Thacher’s embrace, too, is Molly Wyman, who spent four months in Vietnam with the SYA program in Hanoi, in only its second year. Molly wanted, in part, to go where “no Wyman had gone before”—her CdeP lineage including a father, sister, and brother who attended, and a grandfather who headed the school for many years. A conversation on a camping trip with Katherine Halsey (an SYA grad, a family placement advisor at SYA France, and mother to SYA grads of the China, France, and Italy programs) prompted Molly’s initial interest. “Spain seemed like the safe and easy option,” Molly says, “whereas the newest program, in Vietnam, seemed the most challenging. That appealed to me.” While there, in addition to taking a full load of classes, Molly volunteered in a veterinary hospital and in orphanages, worked with Agent Orange victims, and taught English to both schoolchildren and adults. She credits Thacher with planting the original seeds of service: “Although these projects weren’t as easy as visiting the elderly as Los Robles retirement center, the desire and effort to make a difference and reach out to others was something that I learned at Thacher.” The most significant challenge? “Seeing extreme poverty. I had seen pictures and read about how people live in developing countries, but experiencing it firsthand and for an extended period of time was completely different—and something I won't ever forget. I now realize how lucky and blessed we are here at Thacher. . . to have food, shelter and the opportunity to learn in such an accepting community.”

Two other SYA intrepideers, currently writing their own stories on year-long programs: Derek Gulick-Stutz in Beijing, China and Zoey Poll in Rennes, France. On the cusp of heading to Chewonki for the delights of winter, mud season and spring, for the adventure of a solo camping trip, of “living more off the land, and of seeing lambs born,” is Margot Hughan.

Last year’s SYA participants included current seniors Mackenzie Boss and Avery Hellman (Vietnam), Sara Brody (France), Lili Pike (China), and Cynthia Santos (Spain), all of whom have much to say about the transformative nature of their time away. Sara: “SYA was good for me because it opened my world: where I could go, who I could be friends with, what I could do with my free time. I was given a lot to explore, and in doing so I became more confident because I could watch myself overcoming challenges and being rewarded for my hard work. I also think I learned a lot about having fun, since French culture is in many ways more easy-going than American culture. I learned to reach out to other people and really enjoy myself.” Lili’s experience abroad proved that keeping a risk-taking frame of mind ends with “there’s no reason you can’t do something [you want to do].” Cynthia agreed, adding, “I know myself better now—and extending myself to others comes naturally.” Catching some of the paradox, and the magic, of time spent studying in another country was Avery’s assessment: “I thought I’d be completely different immediately afterwards, but [the impact] is more subtle than that, more gradual. It’s actually when you come back that you change, because you bring the awareness that there’s so much you can do now to have real content in your life—as opposed to just stuff in it.” (Read Mackenzie’s essay to read just how high the quality of that content can rise.)

Channeling nearly everyone who leaves CdeP and returns, Lili Pike finished with some heartfelt flag-waving: “Thacher’s a really good place to come home to.”

To hear a conversation among Lili, Cynthia, and Joy Sawyer-Mulligan at the Head's kitchen counter, listen up here.