People, not places

Ava Soleimany has an old geography tome at home that’s full of dusty, wrinkled maps and faded facts on oversized pages.

She’s 13 now, but seven or eight years ago that book was new and its glossy pages sparked her imagination. She wanted to learn as much as she could about faraway places.

“I just wanted to know where everything was,” Ava said. “Knowing made me more knowledgeable as a person and more informed about the world.”

Ava is well-traveled. She has visited Costa Rica, Italy, France and England, among other places. But her imagination is her ticket to even more distant lands.

Ava’s curiosity-inspired journey has led the Harbor Day eighth-grader to compete this week for a state championship at the National Geographic Society’s California Geography Bee semifinals in Sacramento.

But she’s learned more on this intellectual odyssey over the years than just memorizing state capitals.

“The world isn’t just what we see every day,” Ava said.

“Although everyone around the world is different, we have the same basic wants and needs, and you can find we are all connected through those simple things. The way we do it depends on our surroundings, environment, where we live — this is what geography is all about.”

Ava will put her know-how to the test at the Consumnes River College, where the Geography Bee round starts at 8:30 a.m. Friday. She hopes to make it to the top 10 after the preliminary rounds to compete for a chance to go to the national competition in Washington D.C. in May. The winner out of the final 10 will go to D.C. and has a chance at a $25,000 scholarship.

“There is no way you can prepare to know everything,” Ava said, but she still practices every night.

Her parents, Shideh and Ali Soleimany, help her practice. She credits them with her initial interest in geography.

This will be Ava’s second trip to the semifinals, and she is more confident this time. She views her first visit as a trial run, and now with her experience she can better handle the pressure.

But despite the outcome, Ava is walking away with something she believes other people would do well to have.

“If everyone studied geography they would have a better perspective on how people lived,” she said.

GEOGRAPHY POP QUIZ

Questions are from the National Geographic Society website:

1. The city of Reykjavik originated on the site of the first Viking farmsteads on what island country?

2. A Huto majority and a Tutsi minority make up most of the population of what country north of Burundi.

3. Lake Havasu, on the Arizona-California border, was created when a dam was built across what river?

4. Name the sea that has a warming effect on the climate along Germany’s northwestern coast.

5. Mother Teresa’s work among the poor was centered in one of India’s most populous cities. Name this city in eastern India.

Answers: 1. Iceland; 2. Rwanda; 3. Colorado River; 4. North Sea; 5. Kolkata

DANIEL TEDFORD may be reached at (714) 966-4632 or at daniel.tedford@latimes.com.