Chido Murambiwa​, Grade 11
UWC Waterford Kamhlaba

  • Safety: There are certain dos and donts especially when the safety of a person is on the line. At school, I’m able to walk around campus late at night by myself. I enjoy these moments when I can refresh my mind after a long day and not have to worry about being followed or the hour that I’m out. The mass downplay of the safety of women globally has been normalized, rules have been made to cater for the danger that women face. The limited moments I have to enjoy being able to walk around campus in the night with no fear is like having shackles that are constantly on me being released for a moment.
  • Health: I’m a very active person. Sports is where I can release all my energy from sitting in class all day or the gym where I try to push beyond my last session. I know I’m not always grateful for this but being able to do so many activities is something that I definitely enjoy. My physical well being affects other aspects of my life and having it balanced and being taken care of matters to me. As someone who has battles with their mental health, being able to have the care and needs of my mental health taken care of is something that I will never not be grateful for. My holistic existance being healthy makes me function better.
  • My sibling: My sibling is my soulmate. Even though they're younger than me, I truly believe that our souls have been together since I was born. We have our ups and downs but when I’m with them I feel complete. All aspects of my existence feel safe with them. They’re more so a blessing that I sometimes don’t believe I have the privilege to co-exist with. Despite being older, their understanding and interpretation of life is far beyond their age, sometimes it shows that they’re still 15. I love my siblings with every fiber of my being and am beyond grateful to have them in my life.
  • The weather: The first time I traveled out of the region I live in, I genuinely believed I was going to die. The drastic changes in the weather shook my body more than I expected and I fell ill. My country’s weather is mostly warm to hot weather so when I jumped from that to rainy and cold weather, I remember thinking the weather reminded me of stale wet bread. Waterford UWCSA is on a mountain and the weather fluctuations were insane in the beginning. I couldn’t keep up with how it would rain on one side of the campus but be completely dry on the other. I don’t understand what possessed my mother to only give me 2 jackets but I survived. The weather at the beginning was my least favourite part of the school but now I’m immune to the unpredictable changes and sometimes enjoy them. It entertains me when I’m walking to class and it begins to rain with absolutely no cloud in sight. 
  • Friends: being an international student is not as aesthetic as it seems. Being a foreigner in a different country is not always as cute as it seems. I came to the school when I was pretty young and was trying to figure everything out whilst trying to discover new places in the country. My friends and I weren’t together immediately but over time we drifted towards each other and became comfortable with each other. Life was different and sometimes so hard that it became overwhelming but my friends were there with a joke or an aggressive are you ok?. My friends became my siblings over time and I went from viewing them as slightly overly nosy people to my siblings who live in different countries.