{"id":33436,"date":"2014-02-25T06:00:39","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T12:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.olemiss.edu\/?p=33436"},"modified":"2014-09-23T08:26:54","modified_gmt":"2014-09-23T13:26:54","slug":"um-engineers-without-borders-bond-while-working-in-togo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web20.olemiss.edu\/news\/wordpress\/um-engineers-without-borders-bond-while-working-in-togo\/","title":{"rendered":"UM Engineers Without Borders Bond While Working in Togo"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"University<\/a>

University of Mississippi Office of Communications student intern Sudu Upadhyay, right, films Ole Miss Engineers Without Borders working in Hedome, Togo.<\/p><\/div>\n

HEDOME, Togo, — If you were to take out a globe and tell an average American to point out the country of Togo, they probably couldn\u2019t. I certainly didn\u2019t know where it was until I went there during Winter Intersession in January.<\/p>\n

As the 2013 fall semester ended, my journalism adviser told me to come see her for a \u201cgreat opportunity.\u201d\u00a0 Now, me being a broadcast journalism major and a Newswatch sports anchor, I assumed she found me a winter internship at ESPN or something similar.\u00a0 Instead, I got to do something cooler.\u00a0 I got to follow and document the University of Mississippi’s Engineers Without Borders students as they built a school for children of the Hedome village in Togo.<\/p>\n

Togo, a narrow slither of terrain along Africa’s west coast between Ghana and Benin, is very small and struggles without much foreign aid. The country has long been criticized for its human rights record and also for the failures of its government. The country where life expectancy is only fifty-seven years, is slightly smaller than the state of West Virginia, but has the population three times the size of the state.\u00a0 Contraception is not as prevalent and little children run wild almost everywhere.\u00a0 For such a large population of children, the country does not provide an adequate education for all of them.\u00a0 Those who are lucky enough to be born in the capital city or to wealthy parents get a good or decent education, but those born in villages like Hedome are lucky if they get one.<\/p>\n

While in Hedome I got a chance to interview a teacher who helped put into perspective how significant the work of the Ole Miss team was.\u00a0 The teacher told me,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMany people today think Togo is independent but it\u2019s not.\u00a0 This independence is only on paper not in reality.\u00a0 That\u2019s why we hope this school will help the educated make Togo truly independent.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We spent a total of 10 days in Togo and every day was pretty much the same.\u00a0 We would wake up at 7 a.m., eat breakfast on the balcony, load up in a big van and drive to the work site, which was only a 10-minute ride away.\u00a0 As we approached the job site every morning, we were greeted by many kids running beside our vehicle and waving their hands.\u00a0 At the work site, the engineers would get out and start working alongside some of the villagers, while I would hover around them with my camera, capturing and documenting their every move like Big Brother.\u00a0 If you\u2019re wondering, yes, I do have footage of some embarrassing things.\u00a0 I still can\u2019t believe I didn\u2019t get punched or worse, get my camera broken, but I guess I\u2019m just lucky.<\/p>\n

At 10 a.m. each day, we sat under a tree on benches that made up our classroom, and ate lunches our cooks had specially packed for us.\u00a0 After lunch, the work continued until 5 p.m. when we packed up all of our stuff, loaded the van and drove back to the hotel as the local kids ran after us waving.\u00a0 Once we got back to the hotel, we’d enjoy a nice dinner on the balcony and then head off to bed. \u00a0We kept up the same monotonous routine for 10 days, but I enjoyed every minute of it.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a month since the trip, but I still miss spending time with my fellow Ole Miss peers who were there and I also miss the villagers.<\/p>\n

This trip has made me realize what family really means at Ole Miss. During my freshman orientation, UM Chancellor Dan Jones talked about family and I didn\u2019t really understand what he meant until I went to Togo with a team of Ole Miss folks.\u00a0 The way all of the students on the trip and I bonded is an example of the family vibe Jones mentioned.\u00a0 Another example is the way we bonded with the people in the village. These people were complete strangers to us, yet there wasn\u2019t a person I met that I didn\u2019t feel comfortable around. I think my experiences as an Ole Miss student helped with that.<\/p>\n

\"Sudu<\/a>

Sudu Upadhyay, left, in Hedome, Togo, with the Ole Miss Engineers Without Borders in January 2014.<\/p><\/div>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HEDOME, Togo, — If you were to take out a globe and tell an average American to point out the country of Togo, they probably couldn\u2019t. I certainly didn\u2019t know where it was until I went there during Winter Intersession in January. As the 2013 fall semester ended, my journalism adviser told me to comeRead the story …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[899],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nUM Engineers Without Borders Bond While Working in Togo - Ole Miss News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/news.olemiss.edu\/um-engineers-without-borders-bond-while-working-in-togo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UM Engineers Without Borders Bond While Working in Togo - Ole Miss News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"HEDOME, Togo, — If you were to take out a globe and tell an average American to point out the country of Togo, they probably couldn\u2019t. 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