David "Kit" Martin '08

David “Kit” Martin is a recipient of a 2008-09 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. He grew up in Kenya, and his Senior Project in history focused on colonialism and the role of women in the Middle East and Africa. But his Watson fellowship will take him from Mexico to Tanzania to study and photograph four species of ants, in an attempt to redefine how “two of the most successful species on the planet” interact. (The Watson prize subsidizes study outside the United States.)

Though Nashville is his nominal home, Martin says his large family (he is one of eight children) was his traveling home while growing up. “I moved 20 times—40,000 miles or so, across the United States and Africa—before I was 16,” says Martin, whose parents are linguists in Sudanese languages and culture. Martin, as well as most of his siblings, was home schooled. “My first class at Bard was my first classroom experience,” he recalls. “It was an Arabic class, and it was bizarre to have to sit and wait my turn to ask a question and not be the only student in the room.”

His extracurricular activities included working with a cultural group in northern Kenya, the Jolwolieech (sometimes called the Lost Boys of Sudan by western media), which helps preserve Sudanese songs. The group lives in a refugee camp, where Martin recorded 500 songs that the group had composed and memorized. “South Sudan was unified through the use of song during the civil war,” says Martin, referring to the second civil war in Sudan, which raged from approximately 1983 to 2005. “They used a lot of Christian influences and Ugandan military songs. They come together in a very disciplined marching beat. It’s cool music.”