Paul Ochen, Grade 11
UWCEA (Arusha)
Would you trade your home for any other place?
The first of its kind in Tanzania, Acacia Boma, is a coed 40-student boarding house in the Arusha campus, UWC East Africa. Deriving its name from the native Central African word for community enclosure, Acacia Boma is so astounding a house with its encircling boys and girls’ rooms and the Acacia tree-designed common area in the middle of the ring of rooms. Between the loop of rooms and the common centric area, Acacia Boma features a green expanse of grass, with lilies and dandelions planted at the interspace between doors. Acacia Boma is more than special to me; it is a home that unifies the boarding student fraternity and a place where I have made such fond memories.
Strolling into the campus for the first time during my D1 orientation week, Acacia Boma stood out to me. Its comfy common room couches and snug bean bag chairs were enough to blow me away, and this pleasurable sight was only a foreshadowing of the affectionate memories I would make in that place. With the endless playing of Monopoly and Uno on the common area benches, and touch rugby and soccer on the lawn, Acacia Boma made the orientation week momentous. The culminating night dance at the end of the week was the icing to an already phenomenal cake.
Drawing towards the end of the first semester, Christmas celebrations verged on, and what better place to have a sumptuous festive season’s barbeque than the Acacia Boma. With long tables of nyama choma and steak, and dishes overflowing with cinnamon honey pancakes and waffles, the Boma lawn was at the center of the sensational Christmas celebrations last year, a memory that I still hold so dearly today. What’s more, Acacia Boma has housed countless birthday parties, including my own - a delightful memory I have of Mr. Olivier, my residential parent, treating me to a startling birthday surprise as I nonchalantly walked into the common area after my night’s study. And early in March, when dignitaries from various UWC National Committees and UWC schools all around the world graced our Tanzanian campus, Acacia Boma was yet again the venue for a night’s celebrations filled with laughter and joy, coupled with a lavish dinner.
Acacia Boma is also more than special to me for its facilitation of some unique, or rather bizarre, traditions we hold in my school: infamous midnight snacks, gratuitous purloining of couches, climbing to the top of the common area rooftop, not to mention scrambling for blueberry yogurt. Each of these ‘unique’ traditions has a special place in the hearts of all the boarding students, and taking part in these adoring - yet deplorable - traditions has gone a long way in fastening the social bond that we all share as residential students. Moreover, these unique traditions have given all boarding students a wonderful opportunity to get to know each other personally and appreciate our personal differences.
Also noteworthy about Acacia Boma is its replete kitchen. Right in the middle of boring Math A&A classes, and at the end of a long IB day’s work, my friends and I usually opt to ease off in the common area couches and spoil ourselves with bowls of Kellogg’s Cocoa Krispies and milk from the kitchen. And relaxing on Saturday nights, it became the norm for many residential students to converge in the lawn, with blankets unfurled over the grass, and gaze at the scintillating stars, a habit that has yet also gone far in reinforcing friendships among students and paving a way to create such tender memories.
Reflecting on the seven months I lived in Acacia Boma - right before the coronavirus plague did part us - besides making friendships and fond memories, I have learned such invaluable skills as effective interpersonal relations and harmonious living within a multiracial community. Living in one abode with my peers, Acacia Boma unified us and practically spelled out to us the meaning of a UWC community. With a well-stocked kitchen, comfortable couches, and cosy rooms, Acacia Boma also replicated a typical home setting, an atmosphere that makes me love my boarding house even more.
A feel-at-home, Acacia Boma is not only a gem to me but also to the entire UWC brotherhood in my school. Contrary to the apparatus-filled science laboratories, or the theatrical Performance Area, Acacia Boma offers a restful ambiance with its welcoming rooms and common space and its picturesque African-themed wall designs. I cannot name a place on my campus that has been more instrumental in sticking my UWC community together. Putting it all in a nutshell, Acacia Boma is at the heart of mutual appreciation of community and the celebration of difference in my school, the latter being one of the elemental values of the global UWC movement.
The first of its kind in Tanzania, Acacia Boma, is a coed 40-student boarding house in the Arusha campus, UWC East Africa. Deriving its name from the native Central African word for community enclosure, Acacia Boma is so astounding a house with its encircling boys and girls’ rooms and the Acacia tree-designed common area in the middle of the ring of rooms. Between the loop of rooms and the common centric area, Acacia Boma features a green expanse of grass, with lilies and dandelions planted at the interspace between doors. Acacia Boma is more than special to me; it is a home that unifies the boarding student fraternity and a place where I have made such fond memories.
Strolling into the campus for the first time during my D1 orientation week, Acacia Boma stood out to me. Its comfy common room couches and snug bean bag chairs were enough to blow me away, and this pleasurable sight was only a foreshadowing of the affectionate memories I would make in that place. With the endless playing of Monopoly and Uno on the common area benches, and touch rugby and soccer on the lawn, Acacia Boma made the orientation week momentous. The culminating night dance at the end of the week was the icing to an already phenomenal cake.
Drawing towards the end of the first semester, Christmas celebrations verged on, and what better place to have a sumptuous festive season’s barbeque than the Acacia Boma. With long tables of nyama choma and steak, and dishes overflowing with cinnamon honey pancakes and waffles, the Boma lawn was at the center of the sensational Christmas celebrations last year, a memory that I still hold so dearly today. What’s more, Acacia Boma has housed countless birthday parties, including my own - a delightful memory I have of Mr. Olivier, my residential parent, treating me to a startling birthday surprise as I nonchalantly walked into the common area after my night’s study. And early in March, when dignitaries from various UWC National Committees and UWC schools all around the world graced our Tanzanian campus, Acacia Boma was yet again the venue for a night’s celebrations filled with laughter and joy, coupled with a lavish dinner.
Acacia Boma is also more than special to me for its facilitation of some unique, or rather bizarre, traditions we hold in my school: infamous midnight snacks, gratuitous purloining of couches, climbing to the top of the common area rooftop, not to mention scrambling for blueberry yogurt. Each of these ‘unique’ traditions has a special place in the hearts of all the boarding students, and taking part in these adoring - yet deplorable - traditions has gone a long way in fastening the social bond that we all share as residential students. Moreover, these unique traditions have given all boarding students a wonderful opportunity to get to know each other personally and appreciate our personal differences.
Also noteworthy about Acacia Boma is its replete kitchen. Right in the middle of boring Math A&A classes, and at the end of a long IB day’s work, my friends and I usually opt to ease off in the common area couches and spoil ourselves with bowls of Kellogg’s Cocoa Krispies and milk from the kitchen. And relaxing on Saturday nights, it became the norm for many residential students to converge in the lawn, with blankets unfurled over the grass, and gaze at the scintillating stars, a habit that has yet also gone far in reinforcing friendships among students and paving a way to create such tender memories.
Reflecting on the seven months I lived in Acacia Boma - right before the coronavirus plague did part us - besides making friendships and fond memories, I have learned such invaluable skills as effective interpersonal relations and harmonious living within a multiracial community. Living in one abode with my peers, Acacia Boma unified us and practically spelled out to us the meaning of a UWC community. With a well-stocked kitchen, comfortable couches, and cosy rooms, Acacia Boma also replicated a typical home setting, an atmosphere that makes me love my boarding house even more.
A feel-at-home, Acacia Boma is not only a gem to me but also to the entire UWC brotherhood in my school. Contrary to the apparatus-filled science laboratories, or the theatrical Performance Area, Acacia Boma offers a restful ambiance with its welcoming rooms and common space and its picturesque African-themed wall designs. I cannot name a place on my campus that has been more instrumental in sticking my UWC community together. Putting it all in a nutshell, Acacia Boma is at the heart of mutual appreciation of community and the celebration of difference in my school, the latter being one of the elemental values of the global UWC movement.
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