Uncomfortable Feelings. Incredible Experiences
Di Scipio’s year of different was grand in all the right ways
Mike Brohard
The chance to study abroad was something she so wanted to experience. Until she arrived.
Then Maggie Di Scipio immediately wanted to leave. First impressions under duress are never reliable.
“First day, I was thinking this was the worst decision of my life. I was coming off 36 hours of travel, zero sleep, and they’re eight hours ahead of us,” Colorado State’s junior diver said. “I got there in the middle of the day, my phone wasn’t working, I was gross, the shower was cold. Slept that night, woke up and it was great the rest of the time. I did get homesick because it was so different from anything I’d ever done. It’s the best decision I’ve made to be honest.”
“There” was Livingstone, Zambia, a town in the southern part of the country with Victoria Falls – one of the seven natural wonders of the world – located nearby. As a freshman in the honors program, Di Scipio looked at study abroad programs, figuring they were out of the question due to the swimming and diving season. But she found the trip to Zambia, figured why not and applied in February.
The day she walked into the CRWC Natatorium for the Mountain West Championships in Houston, Texas, she received the acceptance email. It was a precursor to what would be a life-altering weekend for the product of Falls Church, Virg.
The reason for her dour mood upon arrival is pretty understandable. She took her last test of the semester on May 10, was on a plane in Denver on May 11 and didn’t land in Africa until May 13. Bored at the airport in London, she did a video call with her family back home.
Over the next 18 days, the combined experiences would change her mind.
The trip was planned in partnership with the organization African Impact, a non-governmental group through the African Impact Foundation, which Di Scipio explained donates money throughout the continent with the goal of breaking the cycle of poverty. The four pillars of the group are education, wellness, gender equality and livelihoods. Di Scipio, a biomedical sciences major, chose education as her focus.
For one, she wanted to branch out from her normal day-to-day studies. Secondly, her mother, Peggy, is a teacher. The choice was a bit touching, and also made sense.
“I think it was nice for her to have that experience because she loves working with kids,” Peggy said. “She’s done a lot of coaching over the years.”
The task was not simple, by any means. She taught math, which was fine. The main language spoken there is English, but not immediately. And the class ratios were a shock. Each day a van would take the volunteers to the school, where she would work with Mr. Praddy to assist with fifth- through seventh-grade students.
“The kids at the school, it’s an 80-1 student-to-teacher student ratio. The class sizes were huge, so the volunteers like us come in to try to help the kids get more one-on-one attention to increase their learning,” Maggie said. “When it’s a class that big, so many kids fall through the cracks. It was a challenge. English is the national language, but they don’t start teaching it until grade four. Prior to that, they teach in their local languages. Grade four, everything, teaching and testing, changes to English.
“The kids a lot of time looked at me like, ‘still learning English.’ It was a challenge, but it also made it a fun game to figure out how to work around the kids’ ability with what they could and couldn’t understand. Numbers, thankfully, are a universal language. That made it easier for me.”
When you go to a new country you step out and people can tell you’re a tourist, but in this situation, you knew you were not part of their culture. It was interesting to learn their ways, sit back and really observe. That was my biggest thing, I was just observing a different part of the world and how they live their life.Maggie Di Scipio
The volunteers did have free time to explore the area. The city, a bit smaller than Fort Collins in population, was explored, as were the surrounding areas, with weekends allowing for grander excursions.
There was definitely a trip to Victoria Falls, but the highlight – even if frightening – was an overnight safari stay.
“It was really scary. There was nothing keeping the lions getting to me,” Maggie said. “Clearly, none of them had been eaten by a lion or they wouldn’t have it as an option. You went to a base camp in the park, and the animals are all around you. That night around the campfire, our guide said not to leave or shoes outside of the hyenas and honey badgers will play dodgeball with your shoes.
“It was definitely an experience of a lifetime. Zoos are not something I’m interest in going back to, because when you see all the animals all around you, it was like being in the Lion King. You’d drive out and all the animals are at the watering hole together. I did sleep a little. But every sound, I was a bit freaked.”
The education she received went well beyond the credits she earned for her honors program. It wasn’t just the culture of the country she was in which she absorbed, but staying in a hostel with volunteers from around the globe gave her the opportunity to learn about a host of people and places.
For a person who had traveled with her family around the globe, this was different. When the family went to Mexico or Denmark, they stayed at hotels or resorts. They were in the tourist parts of the cities for the most part.
In Livingstone, she was in the middle of the town, where people lived and interacted, constructing their lives.
“I was still having fun, and I still had time to relax, but it was so much more interesting to be a part of what was happening. Being there always felt odd because they have a word for us, mzungu, basically a white person,” Maggie said. “You’d walk down the street; people would say it and it was an interesting feeling. When you go to a new country you step out and people can tell you’re a tourist, but in this situation, you knew you were not part of their culture. It was interesting to learn their ways, sit back and really observe. That was my biggest thing, I was just observing a different part of the world and how they live their life.”
That extended to the teaching experience and how the students approached education.
When the day was done, there were after-school programs focusing on various aspects of life and education. Maggie often helped with the reading program, which only bolstered her opinion about the enthusiasm the students carry for learning.
“The kids there, going to school is a privilege. Here, it’s something that its part of your everyday life,” she said. “The kids wanted to be in school and they wanted to learn. Even the after-school programs, there were times they were being rowdy, and we were always with a member of the organization who would communicate in their language. In reading club, they’d say, ‘if you’re going to be loud, go home.’ In the States, they would go home. There, they wanted to be there. Their fervor for education was really inspiring to me, as well as the way they walked through life with a smile on their face. These kids, most of them, lived in poverty. That was the reality of the area we were in, but being at school for them was a release for them.”
As much as Peggy enjoyed seeing the pictures Maggie would send back during the trip, what she may have enjoyed most was the conversations which took place when her daughter returned.
She was the same kid but changed, something the mother and teacher both sensed.
“She just experienced a whole different culture, and I think she gained an appreciation of the school system in the United States,” Peggy said. “She found out they don’t have what we have here.”
So different, which in many ways was the theme of Maggie’s entire year.
She came to the Rams’ swimming and diving program as a walk-on, spending her freshman campaign learning the ropes and adjusting to a higher level of performance and the pressure which comes with the sport.
She had a solid freshman campaign, and at the start of her sophomore season, was making steady progress. Then her season took off. By the end of the year, she propelled herself into the top 10 in program history on all three boards, earned first-team All-Mountain West honors on the 1-meter springboard and qualified for NCAA Zones.
There is a lot of anticipation for her junior season. Excitement too. And a trip to Africa may have been exactly what she needed.
“Honestly, when I was there, I did not think about diving. It sounds like a terrible thing when it’s your whole life, but I just needed a break,” Maggie said. “Diving is a big mental sport, and it takes a big toll on your mental capacity. Getting away from it and living in the moment was really good for me. Even this summer, my training wasn’t super intense. Coming back, this season starting on the boards I felt stronger, better, and more mentally ready to be there than I had been.
“It is so good for your mind and your body. Your body, you work it that hard for that long, it breaks down fast. It was good to get away, experience something new and not worry about things. I knew when I got back on the boards it would fall into place where it needed to be. It might take some time, but I knew I had that time.”
So did CSU diving coach Chris Bergere. He spent the year witnessing a meteoric rise in her ability and her mental toughness. There were moments of pride in watching her add about 50 points to her score on each board from the season prior, capped by an impressive performance at conference.
The look of shocked joy on her face when she realized she qualified for the championship final on the 1-meter will never fade in his mind. She scored a 285.80 at the meet on the board, then placed on platform with a career-best 207.30. It was in Miami where she reset her best on the 3-meter with a 299.48.
When Zones ended, she was exhausted and immediately left for home. Bergere knew she needed a break then, and he knew the one at the end of the school year would prove to be just as positive.
“I think a lot of time off can be really important and beneficial. When you come back, you have a different perspective because you haven’t been doing it the whole time,” Bergere said. “I told her when she left, obviously she couldn’t work out, but just to keep herself in shape. Then when you come back, you’ll be ready to go.
“I’m all for going and visiting new places and new things. You always learn things about yourself, then coming back, you reflect on it, even months later in terms of something else. I think it was all positive for her. What you have to know about Maggie is she’s kind of a child at heart. She really has fun. She’s a fun kid, she laughs. She has a good perspective. As serious as she takes her diving, down underneath, she’s still a kid. That’s what I like about her.”
As this season begins Friday at the Front Range Invitational hosted by Air Force, the kid also has to lead. She’s no longer the young one of the group, joined on the team by a trio of freshmen divers. She has to teach them the culture, the way it was taught to her.
She’s learning the balance of when to be stern and when to pull back, understanding it will take time.
Maggie is also ready for the build of the season. She expects to have a higher starting point, definitely grander exit scores. There will be down times, as well as rewards. She’s acutely aware the expectations of her have grown for a team which finished third in the conference race.
Balancing those is a constant pursuit.
“I definitely put a lot of pressure on myself, which I’m working on. I need to go back to my roots and do what I need to do,” Maggie said. “This season, I just need to try to improve, even a little bit, add a couple of points to your best score. That’s my goal. It’s going to take a couple of meets, so I can’t be too hard on myself those first couple of meets. By midseason, which is where I started pushing out of my shell last year, I want to start pushing the boundaries again this year.”
An uncomfortable place at times. It’s also a place she knows, eventually, she’ll be glad to be.
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