What better way to explore the sites of Chicago than running around its streets on a scavanger hunt with loads of my new friends from Francaphone Africa? I dropped French after taking it at AS level a year ago, but with the speed at which these girls talk it wasn't long before it came back to me.
I didn't really take an active part in planning the route for the hunt because, typically, I was talking too much! But I learned so much about the political and educational systems of their countries as well as finding out that they knew much of the music that I'd listened to while I was in Ghana last summer. These girls have a totally different energy from my friends back home, and as we walked the streets of Chicago, taking in how beautifully lit up it was at night, we sang and danced and posed for pictures - much to the amusement of the locals. Every time we walked past another group on the scavenger hunt we cheered like mad! I also loved showing a girl from Madagascar who wanted to go into photography how to use my camera and seeing her delight at the pictures she could take with it, as well as a girl from Burundi telling me that she liked to be in pictures, not take them!
By the end of the night, I was half thinking in French, but more importantly I had become very inspired by the stories they had told me of female empowerment in politics in their countries. It seemed to put the United Kingdom to shame, which got me thinking about my action plan....
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