Maia Abroad: UWC Waterford

Leaving South Africa felt like giving up. It felt like a personal weakness, a concession. It was a misty morning and the airport was so empty I felt as if I had managed to wander in by mistake past the 'closed' signs. This week has been interesting. There's been so much support from friends all around the world - friendly messages, offers of homes to stay in and introductions to be made. I appreciate all of it so much - if I've been poor at responding to messages, I'm sorry. It's just been a bit overwhelming. It looks like all of my friends have made it home safely, for which I'm deeply grateful. I'm also incredibly grateful to the airport and airline staff who have continued to work, and are making it possible for me and heaps of other people to get home. In the gate for my first flight, the crisis was more visible to me that it had been before. There were families swathed in plastic ponchos and wearing laboratory goggles. One couple had donned white ...

At the end of my last year at Waterford, I collaborated with two friends on a devised theatre piece. It told the story of three friends from three different contexts, who experienced an unspecified, dramatic event that forced them to leave one another. It followed them through their separated lives through a series of monologues. While we were creating the piece we discussed what the catalyst should be, before deciding to leave it to the audience. We represented it by the audio of an explosion, and simply referred to it as 'The Move.' 'The Move,' we decided, could represent climate crisis, financial crash, war, natural disaster, and more. I don't think we ever talked about a pandemic. Each of our characters had different reactions to the move, each of them could only do so much, each was limited by her context. During the workshopping process, we had long talks about how we would feel if we ever had to leave Waterford, if we were forced out. I thought a lot about th...

Mozambique felt like the beaches and small towns of my childhood - market stalls under rusted corrugated metal roofs, pyramids of tomatoes, no shoes in site but flip flops, clear water and sizzled skin and greenery. We arrived in the afternoon, piling out of our kombi. It took a bit of walking before arriving at our Airbnb - a barebones house up a hill that could fit the ten of us quite comfortably. We made a food run, and spent the first night crashed in the living room lit by lamps and candles (there was a town wide power outage.) We ate freshly baked bread and drank cheap Mozambican rum and beer and played drinking games in the dark. (Credit to Endi and Julia - they came up with a Waterford-specific boardgame called 'Highway to Hell.' Emhlabeni people take a shot.) The next morning sent us in search of the beach. It was wonderful. I haven't swum in the Indian ocean since I was fourteen, and it felt like it welcomed me back. The water was warm, the wav...