Summer Activities


Danielle Reiff


District 7230: USA

With nothing but a black carry-on/backpack and a plastic bookstore bag full of last-minute additions, including snacks, I left my apartment key on the kitchen table, hugged my roommate good-bye and walked past the Bastille to the train station. I had officially become a homeless nomad.

Several hours later, the train pulled up to the station in Geneva, Switzerland. I had been writing on my laptop, but when I looked up I forgot about everything but the stunning and snow-capped mountain peaks I saw through the window and across one of Switzerland’s great lakes. I was only switching trains, however, and was sad to have to leave such magnificence behind—until I arrived in the rural European paradise called Rorschach, home of Landegg International University.

The Landegg campus is nestled on top of a hill overlooking another breathtaking view, this time of Lake Constance which forms the border with Germany. Throughout the two weeks I studied there, I spent all my spare time reading in the fresh, thick grass (which eventually led to my first sunburn of 2003), swimming in the lake, and playing ping-pong outside with professors and fellow students—all the while pondering and discussing world peace and how to get there. I was truly inspired by both the members of the Landegg community and the innovative and groundbreaking approaches to development and conflict resolution taught there. There are so many reasons for me to go back—and I hope to very soon.

The next time I got off the train, I was back in France, only this time in Strasbourg. Anyone who’s ever seen the cathedral there will know that it’s dizzying to look at, a veritable rose-quartz stairway to heaven covered with intricate Gothic carvings and spires. In the week that followed, I had the opportunity to stay in a country cabin off the beaten path with one of my World Peace Scholar friends, his family (all on vacation from Mexico), his kind Rotarian host counselor and his wife, parents and children. Together we discovered the food and culture (an inviting blend of French and German traditions), wine routes and old walled cities of the Alsace and Lorraine regions. My final day there, Bastille Day, was spent in the city of Nancy, in Stanislas Place, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a town square built up and almost-completely guilded by the Russian himself. It was a French national celebration to beat the band, including some fabulous fireworks. So what if they were set to American music straight from the soundtracks of Steven Spielberg films? So much for the French cultural exception…

Anyone who’s ever spent any summertime with me should know that I find fireworks among the most beautiful things in the world (along with good stained glass windows). After an equally discovery-filled few days in Belgium with our Jamaican World Peace Scholar, I finally arrived in the Hague, the Netherlands to find the International Fireworks Festival about to begin. Between the almost nightly fireworks, the long walks on the beach (scene of my second sunburn of 2003), and the outstanding company in the month that followed, I was once again inspired.

So who was this outstanding company? And what was the real reason I was in the Hague? Several years ago, I found information about a summer course in mediation and conflict resolution on the internet. Thanks to my Rotary World Peace Scholarship, this summer I was finally able to attend this course after having dreamed about it for so long. The 2003 International Student Symposium on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution met all of my expectations and then some. Lecturers included the UN Force Commander in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, the first ever prosecutor for the International Criminal Court and several of the world’s leading academics and practitioners in the field. We were formally trained in mediation and participated in simulations on real international conflicts. We also benefited from field trips to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice. Among my fellow participants were three other World Peace Scholars, including from the centers in Berkeley and Tokyo, and almost one hundred other young scholars and activists, each with a similar vision of how the world can be run more justly and peacefully, and working diligently to achieve that vision. I am sure to continue to draw on the friendships and contacts made in the Hague for many years to come.

If you’re already tired of reading about my travels, imagine how tired I was by this point in the summer. Luckily, my planning had anticipated the need for some rest—and the fact that most of my money had already been spent. Within 72 hours of leaving the Hague, I was headed back to West Africa for the first time since I left the Peace Corps three years ago. After some sightseeing in Niger, including seeing over 35 giraffes in the wild outside Niamey, I proceeded to the relaxing part of my adventure. While in Burkina Faso, I was welcomed back to my village with multiple chickens and more fresh eggs than I could count. From the eastern region to the capital and everywhere in between, my friends and family cooked all my favorite dishes, took me out dancing, chatted with me for hours on end, and let me sleep in until hours after the sun came up. I wandered through the bush past my favorite baobab trees and ran into my former students both in the fields and the cities, the grand majority of whom I was proud to learn are still in school and doing quite well. And my biggest expense was merely to regularly replenish my supply of mosquito repellant!

After a summer spent in the Hague, the Netherlands and the Sahel (though not the Vatican), I’m now back in the Bronx to reflect on it all. What I’ve realized is that this vacation has been a watershed period in my life. In various places on three continents while spending four different currencies and speaking three languages, I was renewed in so many ways—intellectually, spiritually, socially, emotionally and culturally. A year ago as I entered Sciences Po, I was unsure of myself, my direction and my place in the world. Throughout the school year I was frustrated and often beaten down by the French system. As I prepare to return to Paris for my second year, I am ready to face whatever challenges may arise in the future. For through my summer adventures, I have found inside myself a well of personal strength, self-confidence and peace.

I sign off once again feeling only the deepest gratitude to the Rotarians who have made this possible. I admire all of your dedication to the processes, which lead to peace, both on local and global scales.



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