Acolher bem…Welcome. Thank you for visiting “My Mozambique Experience.” My name is Veronica Topolewski. I am about to embark on what may be one of the most unique opportunities of my life. Will you share it with me?

In less than six weeks, I, along with a dozen of some of Wayne State University’s brightest and most ambitious students and professors, depart for Africa. Upon recently meeting them all, I realize I am not alone with not only my positive feelings of excitement, gratefulness and anticipation, but also with my emotions on the other end of the spectrum: anxiousness, nervousness and uncertainty. Why would anyone want to face such extreme and nerve-wracking emotions, one might ask? To be able to take part in WSU’s first African Democracy Project – Mozambique.

Our class will spend its fall semester studying the politics in Africa. Within this time, it will spend two weeks in Mozambique interviewing a variety of its citizens, including its former President, Joaquim Chissano. The class will, among other unique assignments, develop a film documentary to welcome Chissano when he visits Detroit in 2010.

I mentioned “other unique assignments.” Let me explain. Other goals of the course, as stated in its Project Schedule, are to learn how to learn and think creatively – interesting and somewhat foreign concepts for a straightforward, uncreative, get-to-the-numbers-side-of-things Accounting student like me. Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not bashing Accounting. The reason I chose my major is, in part, due to my lack of excelling at anything “artsy.” So, you can imagine that I felt quite overwhelmed on the first day of class when one of the professors suggested including interpretative poetry and interpretative photography into our blog assignments. My first thought?: “Uh oh.” My second thought?: “This actually might be kind of……..neat?”

On that note, I will update my blog on a regular basis (as creatively as I can) to document my experience in this course. Thank you for visiting. Até logo…See you soon!