Selection Camp count down!

Blog written by Nadja Vukasinovic, of Kraljevo, Serbia:

It seems so unreal! This weekend, 16 Young Explorers from all over the world will finally meet Mike Horn’s team in Switzerland! The preparations for this venture and the camp invitation itself represent an amazing experience which I intend to make the most of. Anyone who applied to the PANGAEA Program can tell you how much work and effort you need to put into your application. The worst part of applying was waiting for the results. The time between sending in my application, until the moment reading the word 'Congratulations!' seemed like the longest month of all-time. But as soon as you read that life-changing E mail, time starts flying!

The past month has filled completely with activities. Managing school assignments, the national physics competition, physical fitness preparations, and South Africa research hasn’t been easy, but I enjoyed every moment of it. My physical preparations consisted of jogging, cycling, going to the gym, and speleology [cave] practices. Other then that, I did a lot of researching about Africa. Did you know that one in three Africans lives without any kind of toilet facility? Additionally, half the population relies on only the most basic latrines that provide very minimal sanitary protection. The things that I found out are really disturbing and hopefully I will manage to help inhabitants of Africa in some way, whether I am chosen to go with Mike on the expedition in July, or not.

My friends like to tease me how I became a TV celebrity. I gave a couple of interviews for our national and local TV channels. These interviews really gave me an opportunity to promote PANGAEA and it’s message and I look forward to doing a couple more of them after selection camp.

Looking forward to meeting to on Sunday! Greetings from Serbia.

– Nadja 🙂