munOur journey began pretty early on Friday the 6th of March 2015. Nine very tired but motivated students, an equally determined teacher and one goal: Leiden, Netherlands, DaViMun to be precise.

Set on resolving the world’s most pressing issues, we hopped on from one train to another until we reached our destination around 2 in the afternoon. However we still weren’t ready to debate and argue yet. There was still a city to be explored! And so we followed the footsteps of the most renowned painter, Rembrandt in his hometown to discover what a truly wonderful city Leiden was (and to buy some souvenirs of course).

After our interesting and informative city tour, which was led by the great staff of DaViMun, we were picked up by our host families and went to our respective host homes in order to recharge for the debates next morning.
Saturday proved to be a very interesting and tiring day for us delegates. After the registration and the opening ceremonies, we soon started debating in our committees. The Security Council was concerned about the question of Kashmir, whereas the UN-Water committee busied itself in finding a sustainable solution for the threatening water shortage. With China in the Security Council threatening to start a war (which was thankfully thwarted) and the ever present fear to ruin a debate, we had our work cut out!
Thankfully we were able to master all the challenges that came up on our way and successful solutions in form of Resolutions were passed. This of course, was an occasion for a small celebration and in true MUN style we rewarded ourselves with a well-deserved dinner together. The following day proved to be very hard for us, as we had to bid farewell to the Netherlands and our new found friends. Unbeknownst to us we would embark on a tumultuous journey back home very different from our journey on Friday.
It all started pretty smoothly and would have ended that way as well, if it weren’t for a bus. A short stretch of a bus ride made us miss our connecting train, hence ruining our whole itinerary plan! What followed was a hopping on and off from one train to another. Finally around 10PM we all arrived in Heidelberg, with frayed nerves and dreary eyes and one conclusion: Though we might have solved the world’s problems, the life of a delegate is in no way easy!

Aparna Nagar