Heads Blog: A taste for travel

This Malagassy shrub is known as Turraea. It is a great injustice that the plant’s original Latin name, Baretia bonafidia did not stick since it was a fitting tribute to the gifted French botanist Jeanne Baret (1740-1807), now widely recognised as the first woman to circumnavigate the globe.

You really couldn’t make Baret’s story up! She joined de Bougainville’s famous voyage of circumnavigation in 1766–1769 as a botanist, cunningly disguised as a man. With her partner and fellow botanist, Philibert Commerçon they collected and transported dozens of specimens back from South America. The voyage got as far as Haiti before Commerçon died and Baret’s true identity was discovered. She then spent several years running a successful tavern in Mauritius where she established herself independently before completing her circumnavigation by returning to France.

This week we celebrated a similar thirst for adventure, this time, shown by some of our students, who applied for the Friends’ Education Awards, the GS Blackburn Travel Awards and the GDST Travel Scholarships.

We are delighted that Daisy, Georgia, Laura (RHB alumna 2022), Mya and Iris will receive support to travel and broaden their educational experiences. The girls spoke eloquently about their plans which have the potential to have a profound and positive impact on their futures. Read about their plans in more detail on our website.

In turn, I shared tales of my youth spent volunteering in Israel and Hungary which sparked my belief in the value of travel and the many experiences it offers.

On Kibbutz Ruchama, I found the trial of transporting diseased chicken carcasses to the desert to leave for the jackals some way out of my comfort zone, but it is something that I will never forget. Likewise in Budapest, though less icky, I will always remember my students’ successfully mastering the present continuous in English - through the medium of Suzanne Vega’s Tom’s Diner. This remains truly formative as my first teacher’s ‘lightbulb moment.’

It is wonderful to see similar opportunities and adventures being taken up by our students and I hope that our younger students are inspired to put themselves forward for similar awards in future – you never know where that adventure may lead!