A dorm room's story is often told on its walls but in the case of Kevin Estrada '11, it's in his boxes. And there are tons of them under his bed, piled up against his window, in the shadows of his soccer jerseys in the closet. On first glance, I'm a little worried.
When I say boxes, I don't mean music boxes, or hand-painted heirlooms, or even beechwood wine carts engraved with historical logos. They're plain, cardboard and falling apart. "Well, you have a great view," I say, looking up from a heap of Xbox controllers, with the lens cap still firmly on my camera. We laugh.
But after 20 minutes digging through the hidden relics of 101 Channing Cox, I'm starting to see the picture. And I like it. Kevin is a history major and a great storyteller, the first member of his family born in the states and like his mother a hoarder.
In the first box, we find an unopened rainbow clown wig still in the net, about $5 worth of Turkish lira and a machete in a beautiful leather case that he bought in rural Honduras this past spring while teaching a cadre of teens how to become regional leaders.
Cross-legged on the floor, we unearth the good and the bad stuffed animals from ex-girlfriends, Rousseau on the social contract, the brand new Jenga set he bought for his freshman dorm and tons of photos I'm vocally aghast to find hidden under bedsprings. "When I went to Berlin during sophomore Spring, I brought back all these postcards and stuff so I'd remember," he said, showing me a chunk of the Berlin Wall that had been under his bed ever since. "I guess I don't think to put this stuff up in my dorm, but maybe now I will."
Kevin's favorite item in the room? His pillows. "My grandma stuffed them for me when I was really young and I've taken them with me everywhere," he said, smiling as I notice the Nicaraguan flag underneath his alarm clock. "My whole family lives over there except for us in California, so we visit for a lot of our vacations."
Above his bed there's a huge map of the world, on which Kevin points out that China indeed looks like a turkey. "I'm kind of a history geek," he says, telling me about the first time he ever saw a mosque while in Istanbul. "Maybe that's why I keep so much stuff."
All in all, Kevin's dorm surprised me there may be a can of Minute Maid apple juice from his flight back from Honduras on his bookshelf, but hey, there's also a pastel rhinoceros hanging right next to it.
