Not so street wise?

“Studying abroad will make you more worldly, more street wise” they said. “It will open your eyes to things you may or may not have brushed over previously”.

When I first heard this, I thought; “yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve been told all this before”. Whilst I’ll be the first to admit I’ve had a rather sheltered upbringing when it comes to violence, gun crime and gangs. I never would imagine that I could feel so out of place in stereotypically safe areas. Living on a University campus is ‘meant’ to be safe, with its own personal police system in force and emergency buttons sporadically placed all over. But with the UC Santa Barbara shootings just two weeks ago it made me reflect on my own safety, not just as a student but as a female.

After constantly travelling for the last month I have managed to see the highs and lows of many cities. But, exploring a new city with neither map nor internet usually ends in taking one wrong turn and getting lost. Just walking two blocks away from the financial district in LA made me feel vulnerable and exposed as I noticeably stood out with my blonde hair and fair skin. Furthermore, I do not advise anyone to walk around West Oakland in the dark after 10pm where abductions and kidnapping appear frequently on the news. That’s not so much fun! So Columbia, you would assume, is just as safe (or dangerous) as anywhere else. But, in actual fact, South Carolina has the nation’s fifth-highest violent crime rate, with an evident relationship between lower income and less education and higher crime rates.

Whilst waiting for a Megabus at Columbia Transit station to take me to Washington DC at 12.30am a couple of weeks ago I appeared to undergo a bit of an eye opener. It’s possibly one of the more sketchy places in town, situated next to the homeless shelter. So whilst I sat with my gigantic suitcase on a bench outside the bus station in the early hours of the morning I saw the most strange, weird and wonderful characters. Racheal and I were dropped at the station at 12.30am, with our bus due to depart at 12.45am. We had received an email stating that our bus was up to 45-60mins delayed but with no number to call we had no way to check and no other option but to wait it out. It didn’t arrive until 1.45am… so in that hour we sat and chatted in the 21 degree humidity of the night. Guys asked us for cigarettes, whether we had internet they could ‘borrow’, what we were doing and where we were going. Boys with trousers dropped half way down their bums with baggy t-shirts, boys with bikes, boys clutching plastic bags with little else. I did not feel safe. I did not feel comfortable. But, thank god Racheal was there with me. We laughed most of it off, making eye contact when they appeared in packs and keeping our personal belongings close by. Delirious and sleep deprived we longed for the safety of the bus and when it came we thanked our lucky stars for making it through the hour alive. My imagination raced as we intricately discussed what we would do if one of them had a gun, or threatened us, or tried to steal something. What if, what if, what if.

Perhaps this blog shows my naivety. Or some might call it stupidity. When I told a friend I’d got lost in West Oakland her reply was along the lines of, “Oh my god, are you serious?! I never go there; it’s filled with gangs and violence”. Whoops. Sorry mum! Of course, I’ve always kept a straight head on me, abiding by my parents cautionary warnings; “Keep an eye on your handbag,” and “Text me before I go to bed so I know what time you’ll be coming home.” So although the situations I’ve managed to get myself into this year haven’t been incredibly frightening or dangerous, they could have turned into something a whole lot worse.

I guess it’s just a matter of perspective. Or right timing, right circumstance. The students at UC Santa Barbara weren’t so fortunate. Six innocent students were killed by a 22 year old, son of assistant director of ‘The Hunger Games’, who went on a rampage of ‘revenge’ in Isla Vista after being continually rejected by girls. He created a manifesto and posted an online video stating what he intended to do; "On the day of retribution, I am going to enter the hottest sorority house at UCSB and I will slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up, blonde slut I see inside there. All those girls I've desired so much. They have all rejected me and looked down on me as an inferior man if I ever made a sexual advance toward them, while they throw themselves at these obnoxious brutes".

I stayed on the very same street of the shootings two nights after the event, and I couldn’t help but think that if I had started my road trip down the West coast a few days earlier that I would have been there on the night of the shootings. This event came as a severe reality check. Life can be taken away from you at any given minute, and after having the best year studying abroad, it made me even more thankful for the opportunities I’ve been given and the places I’ve been able to travel to, safely.  My heart goes out to the families and friends affected by the shooting, parents who sent their children to college expecting they would return home in one piece. Gun violence has no place anywhere, least of all at schools and college campuses. I just hope America’s government will open their eyes a little to see that new laws are needed, not only to insure that these dangerous weapons are kept out of the wrong hands, but also, that an increased access to mental health services are desperately needed.