“The Magic Wand of Immersion”

Last week in Chicago, a group of 1,400 international educators listened to the words of Dr. Lilli Engle on “What do we know now, and where do we go from here?” I’ll admit my mind wandered to the meetings I had coming up, the emails I had to get to. But several phrases and buzzwords stuck in my mind. One of these?

Sounds ominous, right? It is. This is not your fairy godmother sent from beyond the veil to turn your pumpkin into a coach. Neither is it the genie in a bottle, which you first rubbed in your office of study abroad, promising you untold fame, fortune and a spouse overseas.

The word immersion is a throw-away term used in brochures, next to skydiving photos and a white student hugging non-white local children. Is that immersion? Many schools and their students struggle to identify the proper definition, and continuing research is showing that some students never do. As educators, we cannot promise that your 6 weeks or 6 months in a foreign country will immerse you in a new culture. Immersion is not osmosis. You cannot achieve immersion by just being there.

In December 2012, at the culmination of a study conducted by myself and my American Institute of Foreign Study colleagues, we shared with a group in Dublin the following findings: Based on a survey with 170 respondents, 100 in Europe and 70 in the U.S., we found that access and use of technology remains almost entirely the same whether a student is at home, or abroad. That made me want to use my magic wand to bop them over the head and turn them into cobblestones. And so we continue to study both tools and roadblocks that assist and deter our students from this mythical immersion experience.

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How many times I have wished for a casual swish & flick to turn the tides of a travel experience, or that of my students. I am often found saying to my students, “study abroad is not a singular event.” Well here’s another gem for you: “study abroad is not a one-way street.” We drop that one in pre-departure orientation meetings, most often at the beginning of the session when my staff and I are talking about being an ambassador for the U.S., for our university, and for themselves. Here, I’ll set the stage:

Imagine yourself in a rural area. It’s hot, you’re tired, you’re probably lost and if you have to speak one more word of Spanish you’re going to freak. Then comes a barista, talkative, gracious. It takes a second or two in this god awful heat but you realize – he’s not pandering for tips or blowing you off as the dumb American. He has questions. Where are you from? How is your home? Do you like it here? Your one word answers blossom into longer explanations. He excuses himself to get your Fanta and ice, and upon return, peppers you with more questions: is your city very crowded? do you live with your parents? have you been to university? You’re charmed, even through your exhaustion. Several minutes later when you make your excuses to leave, he offers to take a photo of you in this place. You say, let’s take a photo of YOU in this place, so I can remember it. He is delighted and happy to oblige. When you tuck your chair back into the table and readjust your bag on your shoulder, he puts his hand on your arm and says, “do you know, I’ve never met an American before. I will tell my friends that they are wrong about you. Que dios te bendiga.”

The magic wand of immersion never could have touched that scene. The distance between two people changes in every foreign country, where the bubble of personal space expands and contracts. So what’s immersion? Reaching outside of that bubble and impacting another person. Sharing your culture. Sharing yourself. An active approach that calls on you, the traveler, to initiate the experience.

Our advice to our students, and my advice to you: Don’t sit back and wait for this to happen. Create these opportunities for yourself. It will make your experience far richer, and your purpose even clearer. Keep your magic wand for physics class, and use your own magic to find this elusive “immersion,” where others may never think to look.

Anything for scholarship

So, the day after this godforsaken election, I will head to one of the reddest states in the Union: TEXAS.

What for? Benjamin A. Gilman. Specifically, his scholarship. The Benjamin A. Gilman International scholarship program “provides awards for U.S. undergraduate students who are receiving Federal Pell Grant funding at a two-year or four-year college or university to participate in study abroad programs worldwide.”

So what does that mean? Pell Grants “provides need-based grants to low-income undergraduate and certain postbaccalaureate students to promote access to postsecondary education.” These are students who simply cannot afford an education, as determined by their financial aid status with the federal government. The Gilman is the government’s way of saying, let us help you go abroad.

The Gilman is funded through the International Academic Opportunity Act of 2000 and is sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. So this is real. So real, in fact, that since 2001: 31,462 applications have been received and 9,796 scholarships have been awarded to students participating in study abroad programs around the world.*

I volunteered to be a “reader” or more formally “selection panelist.” I just read 68 applicants from all over the U.S. with students headed to destinations all over the world. I scored them based on a rating system, and will fly to Houston to meet with a co-panelist to deliberate over the group. Literally thousands of students apply in each term, so although my 68 took 2 solid days to read, it’s only a small batch!

So off to Houston, the International Institute for Education offices and the heat.

All in the name of scholarship.

 

* http://www.iie.org/en/Programs/Gilman-Scholarship-Program/About-the-Program

Under Lock & Key

My friend Alexis recently shared a link to “20 Entries that are clearly gateways to Narnia” – a true book nerd’s delight*. Doorways small and tall, under huge awnings of green, perched on a mountaintop, buried underground. It made me smile and think about my own photograph obsession: Doors.

Traveling companions will typically nudge me and say, “Kel, look at that door.” Meanwhile, I’ve already seen it and trained my lens on it. My obsession is well known, and well documented. What attracts me to them? The faded paint, the elegant scroll work, the patient graffiti, the beckoning door knocker, the idea of opportunity. As a credit to my literary roots, I see the possibilities in every door. Are they all leading to Narnia? Probably not. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth preserving in a photograph.

So here are some doors I’ve left unopened, and others I’ve known & loved.

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Photo credits:
Athens, Greece – Fit for a wise old fortune teller.
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania – Home sweet home: 1515 at the holidays.
Budapest, Hungary – Everyone needs a roaring lion on their building.**
Granada, Nicaragua – Brightly colored like everything in this town.
Granada, Spain – In the Alhambra fortress, topped with Arabic calligraphy.
Istanbul, Turkey – Hagia Sophia, a feast for the eyes and a meeting of 3 cultures.
Jerusalem, Israel – Gigantic door in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Lagos, Portugal – Tucked away on a quiet street in this surfer’s town.
Madrid, Spain – A stealthy photo in the Royal Palace.
New Orleans, Louisiana – The French Quarter is impenetrable at Christmas.
Prague, Czech Republic – A small synagogue in the Old Town.
Rome, Italy – Every stone and beam in Italy is older than my country.
Salzburg, Austria – Reminded me of the Moravian stars of home.
Vienna, Austria – Palatial, demanding and important.
Vigo, Galicia – I think it hides books & chocolate. Right, Nat?

* The original article: http://www.buzzfeed.com/donnad/entrances-that-are-clearly-gateways-to-narnia

** I cheated: it’s a window!

Volver: To Return, to Go Back

[Friday, June 15]: Catching up on posts from last week!
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Tienes hermanos, Kelly? Yo no. Soy la unica. Eres hija unica?!
Do you have brothers or sisters? Nope, I’m an only child. The only child??

Regardless of the language being spoken, after my admission of a solo childhood, there usually follows an expression of surprise. Some people ask if I enjoyed my only childhood, did I wish I had siblings. I usually tell the story that my parents told me: when I was 2 and people starting pestering me about my sibling status (“are you ready for a baby brother?”), I shook my head definitively and declared, “No, I’m quite enough.” Sometimes I crack a joke about not being able to blame the dog for any household wrongdoing, or refer to my common practice of borrowing other people’s siblings.

For those that know me, my parents and I are quite close. My friends also think of my parents as an extension of me; likewise, my parents adopt my friends. There are emails, letters, gifts, hospitality. What a compliment to have these two people that accept everyone I love, and automatically love them, too.

When I went abroad for the first time – age 20, hija unica – it was terrifying for my parents. They were pretty good about hiding it under a veil of excitement, only confessing to me upon my return that it was deeply and profoundly scary. Their only daughter spending six months overseas in a place they didn’t know, a language I kind of knew… I can understand the anxiety. But one small comfort, a silver lining – there would be a family.

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Six months later, I would be sobbing hysterically in my Spanish apartment, clinging to my señora, torn between going home and leaving a place that had also become home. The cab driver telling me I would come back, “they always come back.”

Juan, Josefina, Kelly, Esther, Juani: 2010

Six years later, I prove him right, returning to the same apartment, visiting during my year teaching English abroad. As if no time had passed at all, the family sits down for lunch together and the sound of Castellano bounces around the room, bouyant, full of the joy of return. With every mouthful of paella, I am grinning, telling stories and recounting the last few years.

Eight years later, I will direct my taxi driver to the same apartment. I recall a train ride in from Sevilla two years earlier. Americans, gathering like they do, exchanging plans and stories. A girl several years younger than I, referring to her semester in Granada a few years back. I ask immediately about her living situation, and she mentions that she stayed with a host family. I ask where she lived, and she shakes her head – she can’t remember – and she returns the question. Startled, I repeat my host family’s address and explain the general direction. She shrugs and nods. This is my first true recognition that not all host family experiences are created equal.

Josefina & Esther: 2004

For me, a señora who loved to cook. Who always had “her face” on, who made me special meals when I was sick. She let me cook in her kitchen, and she comforted me when my grandmother died. Host to more than two decades of American girls, a most generous soul. A father, who worked hard on the family property and loved jokes and sweets. Extraordinarily shorter than his American daughter, and equally proud to escort me to the plaza on my first day in town. Two siblings already moving on with their lives: a handsome older son working in Madrid, a kind woman with a five year old princess who let me plan an Easter egg hunt for her.

Most notably, a sister. Gorgeous, model thin, incredibly Spanish. She quizzed me about my days at university, shuffled around in silly slippers, taught me Sevillanas (kind of) in the marble hallway. Inquired about boys, America and my future plans. Entertained my friends, praised the cultivation of an Andaluza accent and baked a birthday cake for my roommate. Quick to laugh, an expert at an American-Spanish accent and so animated, so Granadina.

And so tomorrow, a wedding. Her wedding. Tradition, fun, finery and .. family. A triumphant return to a beautiful city that I think about all the time. A seat at the table with a family not my own, a series of American sisters celebrating a sister not mine, or theirs. Olé.

[guest blog] From North to South

This guest blog is brought to you by Natalie of crumbcastle. We met via CouchSurfing in 2010 and became fast friends over food, art and language. As the old ladies of the auxiliares hoard (then 27), we spent a lot of time in observation of our compatriots and our adopted country. Natalie’s first assignment was in Northern Spain: Vigo, Galicia. Her second assignment led her to my own backyard: Andalucía (Aracena, Huelva). Below she shares her thoughts, and original artwork.

Yes, last year was a bit of a disaster. I wouldn’t trade it out for the world, but … it was A BIT of a disaster.

My first year abroad as an auxiliar de conversación had high hopes I would be living in a corner of Spain unknown to most travelers, a place with a rich culinary tradition; I would be learning Spanish, exchanging cultures, gaining a new skill set as an English teacher; I could buy manchego and chorizo in an old supermarket.

cheese with your English?

Galicia did live up to most of these things, but two factors effected them tremendously.

1: my job. Crippling disorganization, miscommunication ran rampant; I anticipated cultural exchange, they preferred to keep things strictly British.

I was once told to talk about Pancake Day… “What is that?”
I asked to show the kids Schoolhouse Rock. “What is that??” (request denied).

Of a staff of about 10, I still think some of them had no idea that my home was an ocean and a continent away. When a girl moves abroad for the first time, a surrogate sense of family really does wonders for her transition. Bless ‘em, I was the first auxiliar they’d ever had; I couldn’t be mad at them, but I could be bummed.

2: the weather. Sorry. I’m a sundress and sandals girl. Winter is “sweater weather”; rain coats, fashionably ironic; sunglasses, a mandatory part of my waitress uniform. I had never gone weeks or months without seeing a bright blue sky and Galicia soon taught me just how much that sky can effect my countenance. I was pretty grey and bleak until the sun finally came out .. two weeks before I left.

If rose-colored glasses make people think everything around them is fabulous, my pair of steely blue ones – no matter how I tried to tear them off – were casting serious shadows over my idea of cultural exchange in Spain.

not so rose-colored glasses

Luckily, in an attempt to turn grey-blue into rose-violet, I enrolled in a Spanish class at the Official Language School in Vigo. These schools are throughout Spain for inspired adults to learn a language.

We were inspired; our teacher, an inspiration. She vetoed the usual plague of flash cards and drills. Instead, she carefully directed what felt like a hilarious, addictive forum for us foreigners to go stumble around Spanish. Somewhere amid the laughter and after-school beers, I learned Spanish and found Spain.

caña? so que es?

… All well and good until the grim morning reminder of my day job. The reason I was in Spain. To renew my job for a second year would mean subjecting myself to another year of students who had no desire to learn any English beyond “toilet please.”

Yes, the possibility was powerful repulsive. At least it was only a POSSIBILITY – I could technically get placed anywhere…

Out of pure, morbid curiosity, I reapplied.

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You know how sometimes your brain files a memory of a conversation under “Kind of Interesting, Soon to Forget” only later to realize it should have been filed under “Totally Creepy and Foreboding”?

One regular escape from Vigo, I happened to be on the same bus to Porto as my Spanish teacher; we got to talking about my “future plans.” This particular topic has the curious effect of turning my brain into a buoyant cloud, no matter how much I’m sure I could use the advice.

A month later, I had in my hands a teaching placement in an official language school in Andalucía. My teacher’s brief, freakishly relevant advice came crashing back: If you get placed in a language school, don’t even hesitate, just go.

The thing is, it’s really hard to ignore advice once it takes on that creepy forebodingness.

I finished off the year, spent the summer in California .. in search of a job .. in denial .. The hideous .. heart. beat.

By September, the morbid curiosity and creepy foreboding had me boarding a plane back to the scene of the crime.

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It’s now April. I feel very confident I have stumbled upon a new scientific proof: If plain old curiosity kills, then morbid curiosity must create a nullifying double jeopardy where everyone walks away intact – life, cat and all.

curiosidad del gato

Truth be told, I blame it all on that most Spanish of mystery spirits: duende. I wouldn’t have been lured back at all if I hadn’t caught a glimpse in Galicia of the duende that attracted me to Spain in the first place. That spry little gnome-spirit led me on her chorizo-laden trail, then slacked off .. just so slightly out of reach …

But it’s not every day a duende clues you in like that – Who would I be to give up looking after only eight measly months? I wouldn’t be Uncle Jesse, that’s who.

Turns out I just had to look to the South to find mine – to Andalucía. To Aracena.

Here, I work with people who invite my weird California slang and pumpkin pie recipes. My students, too, are just as eager to learn and share, and I’m fortunate to call them my friends. Best of all, I get to pass on the wisdom of my Spanish teacher: it’s now my turn to lead the random forum of language-learners, to show the fun in speaking and stumbling around English together.

Call me drunk on ham and Andalu hospitality, but I actually love my job.

As for the rain? Well, I can count on two hands the number of days it’s rained in Aracena. This unusual dry spell is the talk of the pueblo. I would celebrate my great weather karma, except that this rural agriculture community I adore needs the rain for ham .. business.

Today, it finally came. I’m looking out onto a grey, dank sky, remembering my time in rainy Vigo – how different it was, how different I am. I put on the boots I bought there last year and head out, glad – READY – for the splash underfoot. Bring on the rain, Spain! This year, I came armed with wool socks. And I learned where my duende lives.