West Texas A&M

After what, due to engine failure and other inexplicable delays in Dallas, turned out to be a 10 hour journey, we arrived in Amarillo, in the 'panhandle' of Texas. We were picked up my faculty member coordinating our trip and were taken to the house of one of the University Professors. It was a nice chance to relax with some of the students on the speech and debate team. We then drove back to Canyon, the small town outside of Amarillo in which the University is situated. The drive was punctuated by great excitement for me when we passed signs to Hereford, the Texan version of my hometown.

The next morning we headed to some classes with Katie, one of the debate students. The discussions we have with students in classes like these are always interesting, but particularly now we're in what is quite a different part of the country. This part of Texas is known often as the 'buckle of the Bible belt', and is one of the most Republican and conservative parts of the country (Canyon was until very recently a 'dry' town, and even now only one place that serves alcohol, by pretending its a private members club..). The paradigm from which we were coming in from in discussions was quite different to what we're used to in the UK; the students were open about their backgrounds and and we had a some great discussions.

After classes, we headed with Micah, another of the debate team students, to see some of the local sights. Our first stop was 'Cadillac Ranch', a public art installation off an interstate. It consists of ten old Cadillac cars, half buried in the ground, covered in graffiti and constantly being added to by people stopping off and visiting and taking part in the art piece. Micah had brought some spray paint, and we made our mark (including, since we are such excellent ambassadors, writing 'ESU' and 'UK' on the cars). We then headed to Palo Duro Canyon, the second largest Canyon in the America. There was a superb view of the Canyon, and we also checked out the very impressive outside Amphitheatre where they hold plays during the summer months. It was yet another demonstration of the incredible geographical variation of this country. We finally headed to a museum on Campus that had lots of stuff on the history of the area (from dinosaurs found in the local area to a room full of guns), and then to another class where we talked about how cool our accent is and how Hereford is pronounced wrong in Texas. Good times.

That evening saw our 20th debate of the tour, a milestone clearly recognised by the students of West Texas, who turned out in such large numbers that the originally location was so overwhelmed with people that we had to move to another venue to fit everyone in. The debate was “This House would allow prayer in schools” and the large audience were wonderfully vocal and engaged. Unusually, we were split up and each paired with a West Texas speech team student, where I proposed and Lewis opposed. The result was decided at the end by 'division of the house', Oxford and Cambridge Union style, with the audience exiting the door of the side they most agreed with. The count was close, with Lewis's team victorious (making the count between us 2-1 to Lewis..). We headed out into Amarillo for dinner with the speech team, and had a great final night in the Texas panhandle.