A cartoon illustrator while at Colby, Weinberg focused on images, while his girlfriend, Casey Scieszka, focused on words. “I love picture books,” Weinberg said at a Colby alumni reunion talk this summer. “We have this form we love as kids, but then we lose it as we grow up.” With snapshots of places and cultures, To Timbuktu describes the couple's experiences teaching in Beijing and traveling through Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and Mali.

Weinberg, an art and government double major, grew up outside Washington, D.C., and traveled internationally with his parents. While studying abroad in Morocco as a junior, he met Scieszka. The two shared interest in living abroad, engaging in a creative pursuit, and being together after college.

After Beijing they traveled to Timbuktu, in West Africa. Their experiences there, including cultural challenges, led them to create the book. “Timbuktu's really out there,” Weinberg said. “You can't get there by car half the year and you only get there by boat. It was a really fun place and we made friends.”

Upon leaving Timbuktu, Weinberg moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he helps run a nonprofit called Local Language Literacy.

Students flock to Selah Tea Café on Main Street, Waterville, to study-and socialize.

With decor that fuses Asian teahouse and American coffeehouse and a menu that includes local coffee, a global tea selection, and specials like roasted Mediterranean vegetables and pesto on ciabatta, Selah Tea Café is Colby students' new go-to spot in downtown Waterville. When it opened last spring, it promptly advertised “Up Late Studying for Finals?-free wireless, open until 10 p.m.” Lots of students go for a quiet place to work, and perhaps just as many go for a comfortable place to hang out with friends

Colby's first cinema studies professor, but you started your undergraduate career in engineering? What's that all about?
I was the first male in my extended family to attend college, so I didn't really know what I was getting into. A guidance counselor in high school told us that engineers had really good starting salaries, so I started out as an engineer. And I absolutely hated it. I could handle the math and the science, that was fine, but I just didn't like my fellow students and the classes were really boring. … I took a cinema class as an elective, and it was like as if I had found a kind of personal and intellectual calling. So I dropped that engineering major as fast as I could [laugh]. Studying cinema, I was studying literature, I was studying painting, art history, history-all the things I wanted to be doing and studying were coming out of cinema studies. And suddenly I was happy.

You mark the beginning of cinema studies at Colby. For students, what is there to gain from studying film?
Well, “mark the beginning” only sort of, because there were all these people here teaching film-related classes, particularly Sarah Keller in the English Department. You know Sarah-yeah, she's amazing. … There were all these courses already in place, so I think bringing me in was like labeling someone as specifically cinema studies and asking me to bring all of these pieces together. … And what can cinema studies offer a Colby student? I think intellectually rigorous and focused engagement with questions that are central to the liberal arts, all the while exploring something that most students love: cinema.

In an alternate universe, where would you be and what would you be doing if not teaching?
Wow. If I wasn't teaching? I can't imagine not teaching. I contemplate retirement and it's like, why would I retire? I watch movies, I read books, I talk to students, I listen to their ideas, I write-and they pay me and I get health insurance. I mean I can't imagine anything better. 

I think if I wasn't teaching, the best other job I've had-and I've had a lot of jobs-was tending bar. Which in some ways (I'm sure for some of my colleagues this would just make them shudder with disgust), there's a way in which tending bar and teaching aren't all that different. You're perpetually meeting new people, you're having conversations, you're engaging them, and if you're good at the shtick  behind the bar then you're creating a kind of atmosphere where everyone feels comfortable expressing themselves … much like a classroom.

Waterville is quite a change from D.C.
Yeah, yeah it is.

How are you enjoying (or not) living in Maine? Do you have favorite spots on campus or downtown? Anything you really miss about the city?
I love Maine. I taught at Bowdoin for a year ages ago, and when I left that job I wanted to find a way to come back to Maine. So there's ways in which I've been waiting and waiting and waiting for a job to open teaching cinema in Maine. But moving here has been an adjustment. Living in D.C. I didn't have a car for the past eight years. So switching to automobility and not being able to walk everywhere or take a subway has been kind of a change. I thought I was going to miss movies and the National Gallery and the Hirshhorn, my two favorite museums in D.C. And I do miss some of my movie opportunities in D.C and those two galleries. But Railroad Square certainly goes a long way for compensating for that, and one of the selling points of Colby when I came here for my on-campus visit was walking through the museum. So those are two of my favorite things about Waterville. … Once I purchase a small boat I think I'll be a lot happier in Maine and in Waterville. … Just a small rowboat that I can toss in the back of my truck and at the end of the day drive to a body of water, toss it in, and unwind.

Favorite movie and favorite place to watch it?
When students ask me what my favorite movie is, I can't answer with one. But I'll tell them about this Stan Brakhage film [Text of Light] where he filmed light reflecting off a glass ashtray. And it's like a sixty-minute long film-no shot is longer than two or three seconds. But at the same time I love the French narrative film 400 Blows. A story film about a little kid coming into adulthood and just screwing up. So yeah, I love avant garde film, but I also love story films, and I like documentary films. … If it's got sprocket holes, I like it. …

Right now, my favorite place to watch films is my living room. I have a large collection of sixteen millimeter films and a projector set up in my living room so I project onto my dining room wall. A few weeks ago there was a handful of faculty in my house and we spent a Saturday evening eating Chinese food and watching movies projected on the wall of my living room.

I always wondered if professors are friends.
Well at a place like Colby you kind of have to be. I mean, if you're a real sort of self-centered ass you don't last at a place like Colby. That's one of the things I really like about being here-my colleagues. There are really, really amazing people here.

World Wildlife Fund scientist Eric Dinerstein addressed Colby students on Sept. 27 about the future of environmental conservation.

Those of us in the midst of a liberal arts education are no strangers to the story. A Jan Plan pottery course or a summer internship at the Bigelow Laboratory opens a whole new world, possibly inspires a change of course. 

For World Wildlife Fund scientist Eric Dinerstein, a summer living with friends in a farmhouse on 250 acres of trees and swamps during college inspired him to drop his film major for a career in environmental science.

Dinerstein volunteered with the Peace Corps, and since then has studied, among other things, bats in Costa Rica and the population of tigers in Nepal- which is how he met Philip Nyhus, assistant professor of Environmental Studies at Colby.

Dinerstein's passion for his work came through in his talk, which focused on the need to protect animal habitats. “We are in the sixth great extinction crisis in the history of our planet,” he said, “species are going extinct at the rate of a hundred to a thousand times faster than it normally should be.” Dinerstein talked to students about the biggest challenges of protecting the diversity of this world and the future of environmental conservation. 

Photo: Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson speaks with students about her work as a foreign correspondent.

I had just come from a yoga class in the nearby community center-a dilapidated building with a cracked concrete floor and drums and old tires stacked in the corner. I followed my friend Patrick, an energetic Kenyan employed by Africa Yoga Project (AYP)-a nonprofit that trains people ages 18 to 25 to be yoga teachers in their communities. I had come to observe Patrick teach his class as part of my independent study with AYP during my semester abroad. Patrick's girlfriend, Catherine, also an AYP teacher, had just given birth to a baby girl, and he wanted me to meet her.

I wanted to meet her, too, but I had no idea at the time that an infant would teach me-a yoga teacher-in-training-so much about how to find balance in life.

Baby Tully, shown here with her father, Patrick, will grow up with a life very different from most American babies-but different doesn't mean worse, the author discovered.

Patrick led the way along a dirt path to their apartment building, past young men hawking used batteries, plastic flip-flops, and candy. We made our way up four (it seemed like more) steep flights of stairs, pausing to look out windows on the small landings at tin roofs as far as the eye could see. We navigated through the pitch-black hallway (there is electrical service only a few hours each day), tripping over shoes and water basins. 

Patrick proudly opened the door to his apartment, a 12x12-foot room that he pays for with the money he earns teaching yoga. It's a private space-a luxury in Kariobangi. A bed took up most of the room. A giant poster of Bob Marley was the only decoration. Their “kitchen” consisted of a small charcoal camping stove in the corner, surrounded by jugs of margarine, rice, and potatoes. Baby Tully lay in her mother's arms, swaddled in blankets though the room was sweltering.

They served me chai, though hot tea was the last thing I wanted. The smell of smoke filled the unventilated room as the tea water boiled. Communal bathrooms reeked of feces, and the small lock on the wooden door hardly seemed enough protection from the very real likelihood of an armed robbery.

 We sat on the bed taking turns holding Tully. I couldn't help feeling some horror that she would grow up in that tiny space. Tully would probably never have a grassy yard or a room of her own-things many Americans take for granted.

I returned home and resumed my comfortable life, but, with a feeling that I still had work to do there, I returned to Kenya this summer to work with AYP. We built a community center in Kibera, another of Nairobi's slums. And I reconnected with seven-month-old Tully at a packed yoga class. I volunteered to hold Tully while Patrick and Catherine assisted the teacher. Tully rested peacefully in my arms, observing the class and playing with my necklace-a silver pendant with the continent of Africa on one side, and the words, “Unity, Possibility, Peace” on the other.

A few days later the AYP group, including Patrick, Catherine, and Tully, took a six-hour trip to Amboseli National Park to spend a night with the Maasai, a pastoral tribe. Dust filtered into our packed safari van through closed windows, and we sang along to '90s songs from iPod speakers. Tully, bundled in a pink camouflage snowsuit, slept soundly. When she wasn't asleep, she sat on Catherine's lap, watching as we passed young Maasai men herding cows. I waited for the meltdown, the whining and the tantrums familiar on road trips with my baby sister. They never came. I wondered if it might be the snowsuit.

That night, after a yoga class taught by one of AYP's Maasai teachers, we ate dinner under the stars. We shared songs, dances, and conversations and eventually made our way through the cold air to our tents. We spent the night in the center of the village, in a circular area where the Maasai keep their cows at night to protect them from predators. I didn't hear a peep from Tully all night, and she was still sleeping when we woke at six.

Recently, I was working on this essay, e-mailing friends, and checking Facebook. The blinking red light of my Blackberry indicated a new text message. I realized I was a mzungu in every sense of the word, running in circles.

I thought of Tully: calm, resilient, able to navigate the flow of life, the center of a loving, cohesive community. Recalling that sense of horror at her circumstances when we first met, I now realized Tully may be more prepared to face the challenges of her imperiled youth than those of us who spend our childhood distracted from life's simplicities. That's why I felt so close to Tully-because I wanted to stop running in circles and find my own center.

It could be a lifelong pursuit, but I have a good role model.

Nils Carlson '15 (left), Jumana Hashim '15, and Nathan Roberts '15

What's the best thing about not having your parents around?
Nils: “My mom [not being here] makes me motivate myself more so I can prove to her that…I would do work on my own.”
Jumana: “Definitely the freedom and not having to answer to everything you're doing and not telling them where you are going every single time you are going somewhere…you kind of really grow.”

What do you like most about college classes that you did not have in high school?
Nils: “It's not an obligation for you to be there, it's all up to you…that's my favorite part of college…Professors also lay everything out for the whole semester... they really care about you learning the material.”
Nathan: “The informality of the professor-student relationship…it feels a lot easier to communicate with the teachers.”

What was the biggest personal adjustment you needed to make after arriving at Colby?
Nils: “I thought I could be more independent and do things on my own…you have to do things with people or else you miss out on a lot of stuff, you can't just sit all day by yourself and not do anything.”
Jumana: “I'm the kind of person who kind of will do whatever, the spur of the moment kind of thing.  But then you suddenly realize that no matter what you hear about college being all fun and everything…you actually have to plan out your time.”

Co-presidents Joseph Whitfield '15 and Justin Deckert '15.

Alexandra Ojerholm '14 recently sat down with roommates Justin Deckert '15 and Joseph Whitfield '15 to discuss their election as class presidents, their early impressions of Colby, and what it's like to live and work together.

How did you guys run your campaign?

Joseph: “Even before we started running, we tried to get to know our classmates. We knew a decent amount of people.”

Justin: “Probably the best tool we used to market ourselves was we ran kind of a green campaign. We did not put up a lot of posters or pieces of paper. We tried to send an email to each person in the class individually. We got almost everyone-it took a while.”

What do you like most about Colby so far?

Justin: “I like how friendly it is. I mean for the most part everyone is really so nice to each other. … When you see someone, you say hi. And no one ever keeps to themselves. There are always smiles.”

Joseph: “I have to say the same thing. … It's not the smallest campus in the world. …. It's big enough where you see new faces every day.”

What do you look forward to most about being class presidents?

Justin: “Having the ability to work with other members of our class through the class council and being able to plan events and hopefully bring together our class and develop some sort of identity. Because we're really the facilitators in creating that identity.”

Joseph: “I would feel kind of bad if we got halfway through the year, maybe even a little more than that, and everything was the same. I really want to be able to use the position to serve our class.”

What's the best part about being co-presidents?

Justin: “It's reassuring to know that there is someone who can help you out if you are swamped with work and stuff-there is someone there that you can rely on to help you and vice versa. You've got that other person. Especially when you live together, it makes it a lot easier. We are in constant contact.”

Living and working together. Are you guys going to get sick of each other?

Joseph: “Not yet. … I can kick him out of the room. Just kidding!”
   

Leaning forward on a bench in Central Park, Reader described the goal of FringeNYC: to bring quality indie theater to the city, at a reasonable price (tickets range from $15 to $18), for two and half weeks in August every year. “You're not going to see just another production of The Sound of Music,” said Reader, who was one of 10 interns helping the festival run smoothly this past summer. “We're looking for original art work that doesn't normally get to be seen and making it accessible to huge amounts of people.” She approximates the festival draws 75,000 audience members every summer. “In seventeen days we get so much of New York to see theater that they would never get to see otherwise.”

Audiences aren't the only ones seeing something new and different: interning with FringeNYC provided real experience in the theater world for Reader, who, as a liberal arts student, is taking a somewhat nontraditional approach to studying the performing arts. “If you were to go to a conservatory-which is what I'd wanted to do before I realized liberal arts is more for me-you come out and you are an actor,” said Reader. “The jobs that I've had, the classes I've taken-I can do a lot of different things,” such as publicity, box office management, or production. “The liberal arts education has given me the ability to look at the job listings in the theater world and know that I can do anything. I haven't been pigeonholed.” The world is Reader's stage, so to speak, whether she is on it or behind it.

She's on stage a lot at Colby. The summer internship gave her the behind-the-scenes experience-and a chance to witness a theater phenomenon. Through a competitive application process, about 200 live performances from all over the world are selected for the festival. The theater companies provide everything related to production (writers, directors, actors, and publicists), while FringeNYC provides the venues (there are 20 strewn across downtown Manhattan) and schedules showtimes (nearly 1,200). The festival also gives the writers, actors, and directors, who are often relatively new to theater production, a chance to break into the New York theater scene. Participants in past years have gained enough critical acclaim to go on to other better-known festivals and even to Broadway. “These performances are very much a stepping stone,” said Reader.

Because three or four performances are scheduled in each theater daily, a crew has only about 15 minutes to assemble the set before the audience files in, and another 15 minutes to get everything out after the performance before the next company goes through the same process. “We want it to be really scrappy, really fringe-y,” said Reader, echoing the sentiment of the festival's director, Elena Holy. Scrappy is nearly guaranteed, when each company only has one chance to rehearse before go time. “There's a lot of improvisation and a large chance things won't go according to plan, and that's part of it,” said Reader. “In the Lower East Village we regularly have pipes burst and then suddenly everything's wet and all of your programs are gone. Like, what do you do?”

Sweet Smell of Spring

After the snow and rain of winter and early spring, practically everyone on campus rushes to the quad on the first warm, dry day of the year. Whether they are studying, playing Frisbee, or taking a nap, everyone is just happy to be outside. This is a day that I look forward to all winter, because when I see all the students sprawled out on the grass it makes me smile and reminds me that Colby is more than just a school-it is a place we all have a little ownership in and can call home for four years.

-Kendyl Sullivan '11

1. Viva Italia
From flatbread to whole-wheat-crust and traditional fresh-crust, the pizza in Dana is renowned. Around the corner to the left: pasta bar.

2. Greens Galore
In autumn months the salad bar uses vegetables harvested from Colby's student-run organic garden. Opposite wall:
dessert bar.

3. Global Grub
The international station includes Mexican (like spicy beef olé burrito) and Asian (like red curry pork stir-fry). Veggie options, too.

4. You Build It
Like Subway, only better. The deli has tons of sandwich
options with whatever veggies, meats, and cheeses you like. 

5. Drink Up
The drink station features fill-your-own soda, juice, milk, and water. Coffee and tea? Behind the pillar on the right.

6. Home Cookin'
Who doesn't love comfort food, like creamy mac 'n' cheese? Burgers and fries around the corner.

7. Cereal for Dinner?
It does happen, so it's available all the time-plus bagels and toast and other good stuff.