Termite TV - Life Stories

Hi, my name is Karim B. This is the story of my life all in 5 minutes. I was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, where my dad worked at a dairy farm and my mom was a kindergarten teacher. I grew up in an African American neighborhood. I sort of grown up, sort of as an outsider for most of my life, as you will see. I then spent my childhood in a garden school bus in Tuskegee. And around when I was 6 my family moved to Ecuador in South America. There, I spent about 6 years. I learned Spanish after a year or so. I was in the regular schools there and developed some close friendships there. When I was 12 I had some nice friends and we had to go. So we come back to the states and we move to … Ithaca, New York, which is where my family lives. Now, in between Alabama and Ecuador there was a stint in Richmond, Virginia for maybe a year and a little bit in Syracuse, New York, which is where my dad is from. But in Ithaca I had a really great opportunity to a small public alternative school called “The Alternative Community School” in Ithaca New York. And it really helped me find some interests in my life; I really developed an interest in education and in moral education and in a search for justice and in a search for truth. So, um, after having gone through a pretty hard time in Ecuador with the family, we refer to that time sometimes as “the great depression”, our years there. We, I uh, was really searching for something in my teenage years. After I graduated, no let me stop- Before I graduated high school, I spent some time not speaking. I spent some time, a month, biking down from Ithaca to Georgia and camping out along the way. I visited different alternative schools along the way. I was trying to figure out how education could help youth and students flower, how help them develop their sense on justice, how they can help them develop their sense of compassion and respect for others. So, I visited different schools along the way. I went to the Martin Luther King Monument in Atlanta. I went up to the highlander folk school in Tennessee, which is where my dad came to pick me up. I’m really blessed with a wonderful family and my father and I had a really wonderful ride home. We’re increasing to show more love. We’re increasing to showing more love towards one another. So after my sojourn there I applied to go to Hampshire College. I got accepted, just as I did to my other schools. I deferred for a year and I chose to work. So, I worked, I traveled to Costa Rica to visit a Quaker friend who was there. Together we took a bus up to Nicaragua and then to Honduras and the bus seats were from my back to about have way to my knee. So, I was crammed the whole way, but it was worth it because we ended up going on this very long journey, including a 12 hour walk down the beach to get to this remote Hospital in the Gracias Adios province in Honduras. And this hospital was this baha'i hospital. And there I met some wonderful baha'i youth who were doing service. And talking with them and spending time with them I really fell in love with the baha'i faith and its teachings of unity. It sent me off on a path of service then. So… then I went to Ecuador for a year serving at a baha'i school there. And then I went to Israel for a year working in the gardens of the Baha'i World Center. And then I came back. I started my studies at Cornell University; they have a state school mind you, so it’s cheaper for me. And I graduated there last year. I studied education and social studies. I’m now currently teaching at a public school here in Philadelphia, but my plan was to go to Equatorial, Guinea and start a development project focused on education. There.