By Pridhvi Vegesna

“What did I do to deserve this?”

This question grips me as I enter a restaurant in India. Aromas of toasted breads, creamy curries, and fiery spices induce my senses into a state of bliss reflective of the passionate Indian spirit. I absorb the wonders which bless me, only to be interrupted by a server who asks me for my order.

The waiter is a 6 year old boy; his 1000 watt smile is radiant enough to distract anyone from the troubles of their day. But it wasn’t enough to stop me from realizing that this boy was missing an arm.

I moved to the Bay Area as a baby, travelling to my native land of India once every other year. There, the question still haunts me: “what did I do to deserve this?”

When I was 10, my Uncle and I were caught in the congested streets of Bhimavaram, Southern India when a young girl approached us. With a baby on her back, she mustered the energy to trudge to our car, where she submissively yielded her head and put forth her hands to beg for alms. Our eyes met for a second.

“Ksssshhhhh”.

My uncle rolled up the window and sighed: “eentuuku vallu mana bora tintunaru” – Telugu for “why do they bother us.” Living in India his entire life has numbed him to beggars. But I couldn’t resist: I bolted out into the streets, tapped her shoulder, and placed some money in her hand before returning to the car. That night, I went to bed proud. But, the next day, I saw the same girl, on the same corner, stuck in the same miserable state.

I gave her charity, but I couldn’t give her justice. I became livid with the system of injustice that blinded my uncle to her humanity. I couldn’t bear the thought that poverty was constant — unchanging. But most of all, I was young and was hiding from the anger that I had with myself. I felt blessed, but inadequate and this frustrated me. I didn’t know how to share the gifts of my blessings.

I was released from the burden of ire while engaged in a debate over the minimum wage. I argued that America could benefit from a hike in the minimum wage. I spent hours amassing mounds of evidence — studies which showed the beneficial impacts of increasing the minimum wage. All the hours I put in meant that I couldn’t lose to my opponent (well, at least until their last speech). He introduced evidence about an island that had its entire economy based on the fishing industry. After the government raised the minimum wage on the island, companies outsourced all the fishing jobs leaving the economy in ruins. Years after the raise in the wage, 23.8% of the population was unemployed.

Although I lost that argument, I had won as a person: I found debate and, in the process, I discovered an outlet for all the rage that lived inside of me. Sure, the activity is more theoretical than concrete, but I’ve learned that before I can bring about the change that I so deeply desire, I need to learn how to combat my problems intellectually. Fixing poverty is more complicated than raising the minimum wage and it’s definitely not as easy as getting angry with my uncle.

Whereas the reminiscence of that little girl fixated me, frustrating me all the more, I’m now able to approach situations beyond their moral pull and embrace the complexity of policy behind each issue. No longer bedridden by my same old self-induced resentment, I’ve become critical, composed, and curious with debate. And these new skills will propel me to enact change in the real world.

The question is no longer “what did I do to deserve this?” Instead, I ask, “what will I do to fix it?”

Pridhvi Vegesna, a 2017 graduate of Saint Francis High School in Mountain View, California

Attention Juniors

Write for the Future’s First Early Bird Deadline for the Class of 2018 is approaching.

November 15 is the First Deadline!

For More Information:

Contact us at appointments@writeforthefuture.com

By Helena Sanchez

“Helena, Abby just ate a rock!”

“What?”

So much for a peaceful walk in the woods with my ten campers. Add to that–a recent stomach virus caused the health center to shut down to care for the 32 sick campers and staff members.

I immediately race to Abby to prevent her from becoming number 33. She is smiling and fine. Before she has the chance to put another small pebble in her mouth, I warn her not to accept any more dares. She throws the rock away and we continue our march through the woods. I love every minute of it–minus thoughts of Abby’s digestive system.

We passed the outdoor greenhouse with growing vegetables. I see my life in that space as a garden growing with passions– children that I babysit, campers that I lead through the woods, dances that I perform and choreograph, classmates whose houses can feel like microcosms of other countries, debates with classmates and family gatherings filled with soul food and motown on one side and Dominican cuisine and bachata on the other. This is the biodiversity of my life.

Maybe I discovered my garden the first day I picked up Alex after school two years ago. I fell in love with babysitting, which evolved into a passion for working with children. From that moment on, I took the responsibility of nurturing and encouraging this 6 year old. She became a small flower in my garden.

A garden cannot thrive without a lifeline–water. My family is my water– the source of my personal growth–the center of my garden on the diverse corner of 110th street. I am also watered intellectually at Chapin, where it is comfortable to have controversial conversations about feminism or gun control sitting at lunch with friends, some I have known since kindergarten. Now, as a Peer Leader tasked with advisement ranging from academic time management to peer pressure, I am nurturing the sapling freshmen. It is a mission made for me–a natural teacher, camp counselor, leader and someone who has lived through the ups and downs of high school.

My garden moves with the grace of pirouettes and chaîné turns. TLC is the cultivation of a flourishing garden, sunlight — positive examples and encouragement from others — has been essential for me. Once, as a younger dancer, I sat cradled on the balsa floor attempting to rub away the pain after a rehearsal in pointes for the first time. It was then that Ms. Alison, my dance teacher, affectionately divulged some tricks of the trade: numbing cream before rehearsal, sticking cotton in between your toes to ease friction with the floor, and exercises to relieve the inevitable foot cramps. Her advice was vital.
I pass on the same for other young dancers as a volunteer at Dancing Dreams, assisting children with disabilities so they can live their dreams of dancing. My garden possesses the branches intertwining my love of teaching children and dance. At 16, I challenge my years of training and choreograph my first piece for 5 young dancers at different levels. I incorporate the teacher in my garden through companion planting– the sowing of seeds in a way that promotes cooperation over competition. My instructional techniques enable the dancers to feel confident and graceful on performance night.

The diversity of my garden is intertwined and feeds dynamism, that extra umph embedded in our nature. Like how on nothing but a whim and an opportunity, I flew to Elorrio, in the Basque Country, where I wasn’t yet fluent in the language, to teach English.
Other times we need the wherewithal to pause and do some life maintenance — or weeding as I like to think of it. Late nights, early mornings, and subsequent lack of sleep from juggling school, dance, and other extracurriculars take their toll but also create my sprawling ecosystem of passions and ideas living and thriving within me.

Helena Sanchez, a 2017 graduate of The Chapin School, is a freshman at Wesleyan.

By Zoe Akoto

“You’re really bringing that?”

I shout from the doorway, walking into the room as my brother packs his suitcase. In his hands, he holds about twenty gingham shirts, varying only in color and Vineyard Vines purchase date.

“These are good shirts,” he says, eyes to the floor, not looking up from his packing as he stuffs the shirts into his bag.

Alex was getting ready to leave for medical school this time. I was seven years old when he first left for boarding school, and eleven when he headed off to college. Now, at fifteen, I knew the routine: the packing, the kitchen goodbyes, the final waves from the driveway.

Growing up, my big brothers, Max and Alex, were my anchors. As the only girl in my family, I was an anomaly, signalling to my parents a deviation from the parenting style to which they were accustomed. While they accommodated my variance in kind, their established style used with my brothers still lingered. You could find me on the soccer field and in ballet class, tumbling in gymnastics and wrestling with my brothers in our living room. In exploring both the interests assigned to girls and boys, I found a confidence in my breadth of abilities, existing in an in-between space that allowed me to stand alongside my brothers.

However, when they both left home for boarding school, college, and beyond, my brothers’ absences and the knowledge of them outside our small town–not their permanency in my home life–centered me. They were experiencing and coming to understand the world around them; demonstrating there was more to the world than Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.

Eventually I learned I could not fully engage the wider world solely from my brothers’ hand-me-down memories. By the time Alex left for medical school, I was pursuing my own dreams. Seeing the audacity of my brothers as explorers seizing new challenges inspired me to do the same. However, I did so on my own terms. I refused to go to boarding school when the opportunity arose and discovered passageways in my hometown to explore, such as a transformative position at my school’s literary magazine, Tapestry.

My journey to becoming editor of Tapestry isn’t heroic. It is not the uplifting tale of a student rising in the ranks until finally reaching the pinnacle of her high school literary career. In fact, it more closely resembles the account of a flight attendant who must take the helm of a crashing plane and narrowly but safely lands it, despite having no serious preparation or training. That’s what Tapestry was on any given day: a plane on the verge of crashing. And that’s what I was when the seniors all bailed and I, now the oldest and most experienced member, became the de facto editor-in-chief: seriously unprepared and untrained. As a junior, I was already determined to take on a bigger role with Tapestry, leading the push to collect posters and spread the word for submissions. Once we received all the submissions, the editors took lead, guiding the staff through deliberations on which pieces to put in the book and doing all the layout work to get the book together for publishing.

Suddenly, I was the sole editor of the magazine and had to take the lead on each step of the process, carrying a greater amount of responsibility than I had yet to face and doing the work of a junior editor-hopeful and current editor at the same time. My upbringing prepared me though, and the confidence and flexibility I’d developed early on became vital as I strained to pull my staff together to produce Tapestry.

Now, as I prepare to board to my next destination, I hold onto the lessons I’ve learned in Kennett Square, lessons that make the foundation on which I’ll continue to observe, learn and thrive, watching from a plane window headed to destinations unknown.

Zoe Akoto, a graduate of Archmere Academy in Clayton, Delaware, is a freshman at Amherst College.

By Michael Charles

It was the battle against the hair on his face. “If you do not walk more than one batter, I will shave my beard.”

My coach, Tom, even came to the mound in the sixth inning to jokingly remind me of his challenge. I won. He shaved the beard he loved. If only pitching, baseball, hiking and history, –the things I love– would be as easy as seeing Tom’s bare face in sixth grade.

Three years later, I walked into Pre-AP World History. “Just to let you guys know, this class will have more work and be more challenging than most the classes you guys have had prior. You have to be willing to put in the work.”

I chuckled as I had heard that speech from other teachers. History had always been my favorite subject– anything less than a A was a failure for me. However arrogance was my downfall. My ego took a hit when she plopped the test on my desk. On my first exam, I did not fail with a B or a C, but a 60.

I refused to lose. I accepted that I could not breeze through a subject just because I loved the interesting material. In addition to reviewing notes and reading chapters, I began watching documentaries and answering practice questions. My test grades surged.

Fast Forward to Summer: I am relaxing with an intense game of FIFA until my phone vibrates rapidly, almost constantly. I scroll through the incoming messages to find friends badgering me to check my AP World History score. A chill comes over me; it is the moment of truth. I log into the college board website, and pause. I click and see a simple number that means the world to me: 4.

A few weeks later, I soaked in the nature around me– the chirping birds, rustling leaves and glaring sun signaled the beginning of yet another adventure. After climbing for several hours, the end was near; the peak was in sight. Bounding towards the finish line, I slipped on a slimy rock hidden by moss and mud. My legs gave out from under me. Collapsing on the ground, I ended up on back gazing at the sun beaming through the treeline above me and felt a stream of blood flow down my shin–a quarter size gash on my knee. Teary eyed and with a limp, I dusted myself off and marched on.

My motto–get back up after a fall– continued to face tougher tests last year. I could not escape the intimidation as I watched my opponents warm up in what promised to be one of the toughest games. I knew this game would be hard fought and I welcomed this challenge. Warming up, my throws were crisp and my fielding was immaculate. In the Second Inning, the wheels fell off. With a runner on first and nobody out, the hitter corked a sharp groundball in my direction. I knew exactly what I was going to do with the ball once I caught it. I turned to fire the ball to second base, but I was missing one thing: the baseball. My teammates shouted to me to take my time and throw to first. However, panic had stole my sense of confidence. I picked up the ball and threw wildly to first, resulting in everyone being safe. I shuffled back to my position with my head down. From here, things spiralled out of control. I left the game without the big smile I wore when Tom lost his beloved beard.

I was constantly replaying that moment in my head on the bus ride. Eventually, I realized that missing the one ground ball would not define me as a player. Baseball is engaging because of the challenges of the sport. Those challenges come with the possibilities of successes and failures. I would move on from the missed ball with the lessons from history and hiking as a guide.

Michael Charles, a graduate of Valley Stream South High School, is freshman at Bates College.