Summer might boast the strongest of seasonal associations. Heat. Humidity. Beachtime. Relaxation. But it is not, for some, a time of pure idling. Look no further than Merriam-Webster’s fourth definition for the noun summer: “a period of maturing powers.” That is the ethos adopted this past summer by Durham Academy students, many of whom used their time away from school to do something extraordinary.
They showed initiative and confronted a robust challenge. They traveled, or learned, or explored. And they found time for the “Moral, Happy, Productive” life amid their well-deserved rest. They built apps, worked farms, taught sailing, practiced woodworking, scaled competitive rock-climbing walls and — with no shortage of irony — attended classes in Peru and Quebec.
This is the opening installment of a series that will highlight the mission-driven summer life. We hope you’ll enjoy this first glimpse into DA’s period of maturing powers.
Diego Dhungana ’26 and Sol Dhungana ’25
Sol Dhungana was aghast. Her mother, Liliana Simón, had the most daunting of ultimatums for Dhungana and her brother, Diego: attend a Catholic school in Peru for a semester, or attend for a summer.
Niño Jesus de Praga, located in the Peruvian capital, held a distinct family history. Simón, an Upper School Spanish teacher, attended the school for a year, and the Dhunganas’ aunt and uncle graduated from the school. It was important to Simón, who was born and raised in Peru, that Diego and Sol understand the significance of Peru, and the school, to their family.
“Since Sol and I weren’t very enthusiastic to do it,” Diego said, “we chose the summer.”
“At first, I did not want to go there,” Sol said. “I put up a fight in the airport. I did not want to go. Like, I don’t want to spend my whole summer in a school. I just got out of school.”
By the time their two months came to an end, Sol and Diego wanted to extend their stay. They grew to love the community, the personable teachers and the utter fascination of their peers with two foreign exchange students from Durham Academy.
“They swarmed us during the entirety of the trip,” Sol said. “They were really curious.”
Diego, a 10th-grader and soccer player at DA, became ensconced at once in the fast-paced pickup games that played out daily on campus. Sol learned from classmates that her Spanish accent was thicker than she realized. Students complained incessantly about homework, so much so that teachers would often relent amid the protests.
The Dhunganas also internalized local slang. An exaggerated and elongated ¿Quéééééééé? was the standard reaction to shocking gossip, which students and faculty alike delighted in dispensing. Common fruits became verbal jabs. Palta, the Spanish word for avocado, became ¡Qué palta¡ for “how embarrassing,” and piña — or pineapple — tripled in purpose as “shut up,” “that’s it” and “oh, well.” And kids, playful in any hemisphere and on any continent, would emit loud ambulance sounds whenever they saw an adult escorting another student down the hall.
“It was a really tight-knit community,” said Sol, now an 11th-grader at DA. “It was really nice to be a part of it.”
Sol and Diego completed 20 courses in their two months. They followed a schedule in which each weekday offered four unique classes. Sol loved her biology class most; Diego preferred the structure and strictness of his verbal reasoning teacher. Teachers and students shared meaningful relationships, and, Sol said, the dynamic within the student body was noticeably less gendered than in American schools.
The breakneck academic pace tested, and strengthened, Sol and Diego’s Spanish. Both have attended DA since Preschool. As a result, Diego said, their English progressed much faster than their Spanish. At home, when they would ask Simón a question in English, their mom would immediately say: No hablo inglés, and await a corresponding response in Spanish.
“When we were studying in Peru, I have never felt more grateful to be able to speak Spanish,” Sol said. “It just unlocked a whole different thing.”
Their stay also might have created a lasting partnership between Lima and Durham. Sol and Diego volunteered at a local animal shelter that housed about 60 dogs. They would deliver food and donations, and they would play with the dogs as they ran along a riverbed on the outskirts of Lima. Much like the seed of a palta or piña, it planted an idea: Sol and Diego have designs on starting a DA-based charity that would raise money for the shelter and its beloved perros.
Margaret Jester ’24
As she’s done for each of the past 11 summers, Margaret Jester spent eight weeks at Camp Seafarer, a sailing camp in Arapahoe, North Carolina. Two years ago, she won the highest award that any camper can receive for her excellence and leadership. But this summer was different: It was Jester’s first as a counselor.
Every day, Jester would wake up at 7 a.m. and leave the cabin where she oversaw a group of 7- and 8-year-olds. She would help them brush their teeth when they awakened a half-hour later, served them breakfast and then prepared for a full day of sailing instruction. On her own time, Jester, a senior, sails on Jordan Lake in a 420 boat, a two-person dinghy that stretches 420 centimeters. She taught a pair of two-week racing courses to 13- and 14-year-olds at Camp Seafarer.
“I learned a lot personally, too, from teaching that,” said Jester, who said she wants to continue sailing competitively in college. “If you can teach something, it will also help you learn. It was awesome.”
Adriana Yockelson ’28
In 2021, Adriana Yockelson was a sixth-grader, and she was, oddly, late to the climbing scene. Most competitive climbers start well before sixth grade. But that year would see two noteworthy debuts in the sport: The first Olympic events in climbing were contested in Tokyo, and Yockelson qualified for the youth national championships in her first competitive season.
“It was kind of a setback I had,” said Yockelson, now an eighth-grader. “Most people knew more about competing and knew more about what was going on and how to approach anything.”
Yockelson made her return to nationals this summer, which served as the culmination of a grueling qualification circuit. She made the cut at a local competition, a regional competition and two phases of a divisional competition to reach July’s nationals in Salt Lake City, where Yockelson competed in the lead climbing and top rope event within her age group.
In a lead climbing event, competitors have six minutes to climb as high as they can on a wall that stretches at least 49 feet high. They’re equipped with safety ropes during the climb, but they’re only allowed one attempt. The urgency would seem to benefit anyone who can use their upper body to clamber furiously. Yockelson, however, says it’s the opposite.
“People think that it’s mostly arm strength,” said Yockelson, who didn’t advance beyond the qualifying round in Salt Lake City. “It’s more actually leg strength. All of the really good climbers in the sport mostly use their legs.”
She had the chance to see the world’s best in action: In August, Yockelson and her family traveled to Bern, Switzerland, for the sport climbing world championships, one of the most important qualifying events for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Yockelson had the chance to meet both the winner and runner-up in the men’s bouldering competition.
And she’s gaining on her competitors who had a head start. Yockelson has been selected for a club team based in Alexandria, Virginia, where she will train — and attend virtual classes — once per week in between her courses at the DA Middle School. It’s a steep departure from just two years ago, when everything felt new and the competition seemed insurmountable.
“A lot of people had more experience than I did,” Yockelson said. “But it’s going pretty well now.”
