These White Shoes

My name is Sean Del Pullan. I am a 27 year-old student living for 30 days in Windhoek, Namibia. This is my story, and the story of… These White Shoes. 

On July 5^th I purchased one pair of white canvas Vans from a local Zumiez. I have wrapped These White Shoes within 3 plastic shopping bags, and will not remove them until I land in Namibia. Once in Namibia I am going to unwrap These White Shoes and wear them as often as possible. My hope is that by the end of the month These White Shoes will have the story of my African summer painted upon their canvas surface.

I am traveling to Namibia as part of a nine-man group from Utah Valley University. This is the last year of a five-year contract between U.V.U. and the Polytechnic University of Namibia. Every summer for the past five years a small group from U.V.U. has spent 30 days in Windhoek helping teach the locals in different aspects of digital media. Like I said, this is the last year of the contract, and so very important that we finalize things properly before leaving.

Audio restoration, digitalizing glass plate images, and tutorials for digital workflow are among the areas we are helping the Namibians with. Probably the most important project within this contract is helping the Namibians find a way to digitize their archives.

So for the next 30 days I will try and get something up here as often as possible. I am incredibly excited about this opportunity! Hopefully I am prepared. I have never traveled out of the States. (Technically I've been to Mexico and Canada, but they hardly count.) I have lived my entire life in Utah. I'm not the typical Utahn, but I am surely not as educated in the world as I would like to be.