As I write this, I'm waiting for our students to return from their weXplore, a five-day excursion that takes students beyond their host city for immersive cultural experiences. For the past two months, we as a school have called Maun, Botswana, our home. It's a small town on the edge of the Okavango Delta and, for many travelers, a doorway into Africa. But Maun is only one perspective, and it...
Read MoreAs I write this, I’m waiting for our students to return from their weXplore, a five-day excursion that takes students beyond their host city for immersive cultural experiences. For the past two months, we as a school have called Maun, Botswana, our home. It’s a small town on the edge of the Okavango Delta and, for many travelers, a doorway into Africa.
An aerial view of Maun, Botswana. Population: roughly 85,000.
But Maun is only one perspective, and it is only a glimpse of one part of Africa. The continent is vast: 54 countries, thousands of languages, and an extraordinary range of cultures and landscapes. No one place can represent the whole, and no single story can capture it.
A few weeks ago, I had a rich conversation with some of our students that challenged my own thinking. As a first-time visitor to Africa, I realized I, too, had absorbed narrow narratives, shaped by news channels, TV shows, and social media. However, as Dipo Faloyin points out in his book Africa Is Not a Country (shared with me by student Maya), the continent is often mistakenly imagined as one place, rather than the complex, diverse reality it is.
Africa stretches from the deserts of Morocco to the mountains of Lesotho, from the busy streets of Johannesburg to the quieter, dustier streets of Maun. Each region, country, and community brings its own history, language, food, music, and way of life. And we must be aware that reducing it to a single story erases the richness of this diverse continent.
A Microcosm of the World
The same is true for our THINK Global School community. Identity cannot be summed up in a single word or a single experience. Each student brings layers of history, language, tradition, and personal stories from around the world. When those layers come together, they form something far more interesting than any single piece can on its own.
Our community is a collection of voices that sometimes harmonize, sometimes clash, and often surprise each other. That mix is where learning happens. Conversations at lunch, traditions shared during our community meetings, and perspectives voiced in class remind us that understanding grows when we listen to more than one story.
In this way, our school becomes a small-scale version of the world our students are preparing to enter: diverse, complex, and impossible to sum up neatly. The beauty lies in leaning into that complexity rather than looking for a single narrative.
Life Beside the Delta
This term, living near the Okavango Delta has also been a gift in itself. It is one of the world’s largest inland deltas, and each year, floods arrive from distant rains in Angola, transforming dry plains into wetlands and sustaining a dazzling array of life. The Delta is never static; it ebbs and flows with the seasons, shifting the landscape and the lives that depend on it. I was fortunate enough to experience this recently on a flight across the Delta, an experience captured in this short video.
In many ways, our time at THINK Global School feels similar to the Delta. Like the floodwaters, each term brings us to a new country, reshaping our routines and expanding our perspectives. Just as the Delta reveals different faces depending on which season you encounter it, our school experience is also defined by time and place. What we learn here in Maun, during this particular season of our journey, will not be the same as what we discover when we head to Oaxaca, Mexico, next term. Yet, together, these changing moments create the larger story of who we are becoming.
So yes, Maun is part of Africa, but it is only a glimpse. The same is true for any place we stand. To understand the world, and each other, we must keep looking beyond the single story, listening to new voices, and holding space for complexity. That’s the work of being a global citizen and the work we practice together every day at THINK Global School.