A Stranger in Taiwan

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese

Traveling around Taiwan has given me a new perspective.  As I go from city to city, district to district, I learn new things about the country’s culture and about myself.  Living here has revealed to me new strengths and weaknesses that I never knew I had and wide gaps between cultures.

Through the Taiwanese way of life, which is very different from that of the American’s, I’ve learned so much.  There are some parts to this lifestyle that I really love, and others I don’t think are so great.  I think that if Cesare Pavese was here with me the first month, we would have been like two peas in a pod.  When I read his quote I completely understood how he felt traveling.  The first two weeks I felt so lost, lonely, and out of place. Everything is a little fast paced here.  Scooters driving on the sidewalk and people screaming in Mandarin make Taipei completely foreign to me, because I was born and raised on the south side suburbs of Chicago.  Even my home university is in a suburban-like town.  So when facing down a pushy cab driver or getting swindled by a swift-talking street vendor I can get a little intimidated.  Of course I had more basics than Pavese may have had.  I had a bed in a nice dorm, a cellphone, and most important money to feed myself.  Locals tried their best to make me feel as welcome as possible, but it doesn’t change the fact that I am also living in a city abroad and not in the same type of community in which I am most comfortable.  To feed the fire, I’m one of the only 6’’, blond haired, blue eyed men walking the streets and some children are not afraid to point and scream foreigner in Mandarin.  It’s the first time in my entire life that I felt like a total outsider.  So at times I didn’t know what to do, where to go, or with whom to talk about the way I was feeling.

Fortunately I slowly, but surely made new friends and started to learn more about the city around me.  My Taiwanese buddies took me to the local street markets, where you can really learn a lot about Taiwanese social structure, language, food, and lifestyle in general.  I found that there are warm-hearted, helpful people everywhere.  All I have to do is try my best to communicate and they will do what they can for me.

My mom always told me not to talk to strangers as a kid, but now I rambunctiously try to introduce myself more often.  That way I meet not only new Taiwanese, but a lot of other foreigners like myself from all over the world.  Together with my new friends, I’ve explored the Taiwanese culture.  I think most people would be shocked by the differences I’ve found between Taiwan and the United States, many of which are rooted in the continental culture of Asia.  I guess here in Taiwan and other parts of Asia they even count on their fingers differently.  A skill we learn before kindergarten in the United States.  It blew my mind when my friend ordered three small bags of some fried sweet potatoes at a night market for himself, our friend, and me. He showed the three fingers to show how many bags he wanted. What he didn’t know is that if one holds his thumb, index, and middle finger up to symbolize three it actually means eight here in Taiwan!  It took me a month just to get used to using their specific way of counting on fingers!  Situations like that are confusing, but so far they have really aided me in growing as a person.

I know now Pavese is right, traveling can be lonely. But when you make friends and start to understand the culture, you start to make a new home.  I hope that the more time I spend here the more I learn and get cozier with the idea of stepping out of my comfort zone.  As the Taiwan slogan goes, Taiwan will touch your heart, and it seriously has.  I can’t wait to travel around the country some more and really become acquainted with Taiwan.

Define Homesick

A couple days ago we were talking about the impending end of our program and one of the other girls asked me if I was homesick.  I think I surprised both of us with my answer because I said no.  I said that since I go to college on the other side of the country from my family, I already don’t see them during a semester so I’m not seeing any less of them.  And with Facebook and Skype I’m in contact with them just as much if not more so while I’m here than when I’m in Boston.  The only difference is that in Boston I can pick up a phone at any time during the day and make a call to hear my mom and dad’s voices.  I can’t do that here in part due to the six hour time difference and in part due to the expense of international calling.  Instead I use chat and video chat and they follow this blog to hear about the day to day and special experiences that are just too long and involved to share during a quick conversation between classes.

That’s not to say I don’t miss home.  I do.  I miss being able to cook whatever and whenever I want.  I miss the ability to walk out into the streets and be able to communicate fluently with every person I see.

To know exactly what is expected and what is appropriate and what is not is something that we learn during childhood.  In this full immersion study abroad I have become a child all over again relearning how to interact with my surroundings.

Unlike most children however, I have even less of a vocabulary than a four year old learning right from wrong in preschool.  I also have my own preconceived notions that I need to overcome and evaluate.  Notions such as the appropriate reaction to a guy who cat calls me when I’m walking down the street being to laugh it off, make eye contact, and keep walking.   In Morocco you are supposed to stay quiet, eye contact is seen as an invitation, and you definitely keep walking and don’t react.

Everyone misses something or someone at some point in their lives.  For me, homesickness has always been a specter of overwhelming anxiety and a desperate urge just to return to what is familiar and known and therefore safe.  I have felt this before on other international experiences.  I felt this on my first day of college orientation when I was on my own in a crowd of four hundred other students on the other side of the country from my family and everything seemed to be happening at warp speed and I had no clue how to respond to any of the people around me, where to go, what to say, or who anybody was.  I broke down in tears and was on the verge of returning to my dorm room to hide and curl up with a book and my phone when one of the older students saw me and came over to give me a hug and guide me through the process making sure to give me her phone number and introducing me to other students who were in a similar situation.

I had a professor once who told us to try to see the world through a child’s eyes.  She said that children see everything around them as bright and new.  Even their own hands and feet are a surprise to them.  I have been forced to do that this semester.  Living in a home without western plumbing and needing to go to the public baths once a week in order to thoroughly wash reacquainted me with my body in unexpected ways.  Being unable to communicate with words and facing the difficulty of pronouncing those words that I should remember forces me to relearn the non-verbal communication that we all take for granted and may not even notice as adults.  In a culture that was more similar or in more similar surroundings, this challenge of communication might have been seen as frustrating or embarrassing as I can’t even talk about basic needs.  However, here where everything is so different, it seems new even as I walk through doors that have been standing for almost 1,000 years.  There is no ability to compare the situations I find myself in here with the situations I face at home and so when I don’t know how to react, there is no anxiety.  There is no safety net to fall back into, nowhere to escape to and most importantly when I fall I have to get up and keep going.  People here are understanding and hospitable.  If I fail, they will point out how and why but they won’t judge me as bad or wrong, simply different.

The last item on the packing list that SIT sent to us before our departure for Morocco was a sense of humor.  This is the lightest item in your suitcase and the most important one.  The larger your sense of humor, the better.  After all, it needs to be big enough to cover you and all your situations, not just the external situations of others.  So long as I can laugh at myself, laugh with others, then I know I’ll be just fine!

*Note: this graph on Culture-Shock shows the stages that many of our study abroad participants experience.  It seems like Danielle has embraced the cultural differences (stage 5), so it may be hard for her to leave Morocco when the program finally ends.  

Lay of the Land in Trinidad & Tobago

While some countries are known for their grand architecture and visitors traverse the pathways of the city to photograph the statuettes perched on every corner, Trinidad and Tobago is not one of these countries. Yes, these islands have a few beautiful architectural pieces, especially in Port of Spain, but the main attraction is the lush greenery. The surrounding nature invites you in and drives you into the realization that the untouched world around us is the greatest miracle we could ask for.

Over the last few months, I have been grateful to receive this knowledge straight from the source, the forests. Trinidad and Tobago offers an endless variety of trails ending in bubbling rivers bursting with life, rainforests teeming with a rainbow of birds, and waterfalls you have to crane your neck to catch sight of! In Tobago, especially, the beaches are awe-inspiring, with light sand and clear water, sparkling an aquamarine in the sunlight.

However, despite all this beauty, Trinidad and Tobago has certainly not reached a country-wide environmental consciousness. Specific parts of the country— such as the highly tourist-populated beaches of Tobago, the nesting sites of the leatherback turtles in Trinidad, and the popular hiking trails — have come ahead of the rest in encouraging recycling and environmental safety. Nevertheless, the majority of the country does not seem particularly discouraged by the thought of tainting the beautiful landscape with crumpled cans, used bottles, and non-biodegradable items.

Often, I find myself carrying a trash bag or an empty soda cup for blocks without seeing a single garbage bin. Even around my dorms and on our campus, it is difficult to find recycling bins and trash cans on every corner as I am accustomed to at home. I realize that in America I feel that I am a particularly environmentally aware person with a strong sense of friendliness for our plant friends. It seems that I may not be as aware as I believed myself to be. In America we barely need to raise a finger to find a recycling bin ready for our plastics, or a trash can ready for our Styrofoam  In Trinidad and Tobago, the processes have not yet taken place to set up a country-wide recycling system to spread awareness about conservation.

Although people are educated about the necessity of recycling and the consequences of littering, I notice that without the proper availability of resources to aid in this (such as recycling bins every block or trash cans on each street corner), it is impossible to expect people to walk miles with their trash in their hand, simply to lay it alongside the sidewalk when it becomes too much of a burden!

On the other hand, students at UWI take great pride in stepping out and helping with environmental cleanups when asked. This leads me to believe that most people are searching for a way to be more conscious (in all truth, no one enjoys kicking trash out of the sidewalk during an afternoon stroll), but struggling to find it! When the Matura Bay Cleanup fliers went out, advertising a volunteer opportunity at 6 AM on a Saturday, an unbelievable amount of people went! At my university, with a slightly larger population than UWI, we could not have even a third of the participation that I found here. Students worked in the early hours of the morning, picking trash off the bay that leatherback turtles most often nest on in Trinidad.

I know the importance of being environmentally aware. This week, I was lucky enough to experience a rare event— the nesting of the endangered leatherback turtles. Around midnight on Friday, from our campfire on the beach, we watched as a turtle slid onto shore and made its way slowly up to the softer parts of the sand on Paria Bay. This 2,000 ton creature found an easier path up the sand to dig a nest in which to lay over 120 eggs. Why? Because this beach was clean of trash! However, a local relayed to me the problems of littering on the beach. The baby turtles, already unprotected and highly vulnerable, hatch and must find their way to the water. With so much garbage and litter clouding the beach several more turtles die than they should, as their path is obstructed.

While Trinidad and Tobago could certainly improve in regards to cleaning up litter and increasing the availability of recycling and trash bins, one thing I would definitely bring back home with me is the health conscious behavior. Yes, this climate offers an advantage to those seeking year-round hiking adventures. The United States has a decent climate for the pursuit of outdoors adventure for at least 7-8 months of the year, and yet the majority of social activities take place inside! I enjoy how Trinidad and Tobago pays great attention to the natural beauty of the world around us and encourages a healthy set of physical activities involving the fresh air and lush foliage.

Into the Moroccan Countryside

Our third and final excursion was to a small village near Beni Mallal in a region of Morocco known for high immigration rates to Europe.  Even though it was a village with all that that entails: dirt streets, cows, and other livestock; it was still bigger than my hometown of 2,000 people by more than double. Another important fact to note for us was that nearly every family has at least one relative who is in Europe. My host mother there had three relatives abroad. More immediate to my experience though were the relatives left behind. My host mom, Khadija, lives with her husband’s family as is traditional. Her mother-in-law, sister, brother and cousins are in the home. She also has two adorable little girls, the elder is three and the younger is almost two years old.

Going to the village was a wonderful break for me. Despite going to college in Boston, I’m still not used to living in the city. It takes me a couple weeks to be able to sleep through the sirens and people and traffic at night and I escape to parks and open green areas where I can see the sky on a regular basis. Parks exist in Rabat – but most of them are full of trees and none of them are an easy walk from the old medina where I’m living. While there are not sirens in the medina, which is the oldest part of the city, there are still people at all times of the night and day. In the village I could count the stars and once the sun went down and dinner was served the sidewalks and dirt roads were empty and silent. I was also able to communicate much more easily. The most common language was still Darija and I did not suddenly wake up fluent (unfortunately) but many people also spoke Spanish. Spanish is a language I can communicate in efficiently though with little elegance! Once it was discovered that some among us could speak Spanish, those who spoke Spanish in the village sought us out to practice with and talk about their experiences in Spain.

One night at dinner, we had a guest who had recently returned from Spain after living there for over 20 years! As soon as I walked into the room, my host family motioned me over to him where he proceeded to tell me about his journey and is views on Morocco as a country. When my roommate came, he was more than happy to include her in the conversation as well. After a while, he noticed that I wasn’t talking. And he asked why since I had said I spoke Spanish. I told him I understood Spanish and knew what he was saying but had difficulty speaking. And of course, I said so using expansive gestures as befits my Italian heritage thereby causing everyone to laugh over how excitable I was. I did make more of an effort to formulate responses though instead of being an unobtrusive listener to his and Karolina’s conversation.

One thing that did surprise me however was how the return immigrants were viewed in the village. In a meeting with the village women, one of the other girls in the group asked the women what they thought of the returners. The women told us that no one who had made it to Europe would ever want to come back to the village. Therefore, all of the men who were there, who had returned, must be criminals who had done something bad enough to warrant deportation.  Yet when we spoke to the men who had returned they told us that several of them had planned to return all along in order to retire in Morocco and the economic crises just forced them to return sooner than planned.

Despite the complex intricacies of communicating and learning from the adults in the village, the children were similar to children around the world. By the end of the first day, we had a big enough entourage to start a game of soccer with them and that attracted even more children! With the magnetic attraction my head has with all flying objects in sports, I wound up in the most useful position of: you guessed it, goalie. And no sooner did I get placed as goalie, when three more girls from the village joined me! There were four of us strung out across the goal and we made an excellent team. After the game, they tracked me down every day at some point just to say hello. No matter where we went in the village we had a group of curious children following us. We taught them games and songs such as “London Bridge” and “head, shoulders, knees and toes” and in return they showed us photos and laughed and tried to teach us new words in Darija. When I gave them presents of bubbles that I had brought from the U.S. they were excited and wanted to give me gifts as well. On the final day as we were getting on the bus, I saw them all right outside heads bobbing as they searched for someone and as I jumped off, they surrounded me for a final round of hugs and kisses farewell. I could likely write an entire series of blogs just about these girls and my host siblings, but it’s dinner time here in Rabat! Until next time (and I’ll try not to leave you hanging as much! ^_^ )

Carnaval – Part 1

The time was coming to start thinking about what I was going to do for Carnaval, the great holiday at the beginning of spring when all of Brazil stops the routine to enjoy the party for 4 days.  All the other Americans were eager to go to Rio de Janeiro, where they have a legendary Carnaval, very similar to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, with little clothing and much alcohol.  I wasn’t too keen on this idea, mainly because I didn’t want to show up in Rio with twenty other Americans, running around like an obnoxious tourist in a mob of Americans, wind up speaking English with them the whole time, and on top, to have all the Brazilians that I meet living six hours away in Rio.

My roommate, a Brazilian named Fazzi, had told me about another option… a few hours outside of town there was going to be a little music festival, with only two or three hundred people, where they’d play reggae, rock, and traditional Brazilian folk music… and everybody who was going there was from São Paulo.  It wasn’t really “Carnaval” as people think of when they hear the word, with the schools of samba parading down the street, but I didn’t mind at all.  Is there some sort of nonsensical rule that says “when one goes to Brazil in the spring, during Carnaval, one must watch the schools of samba as they parade down the street with their scantily clad beauties playing the drums and dancing to the rhythm”?  Maybe there is such a rule, but I’d rather not be “one” anyway.  So I decided to go out to the woods with two or three hundred Brazilians and hear what sort of noise they make.

The morning we were to leave I woke up early, and Ciro, the neighbor, who was going on the trip with us, knocked on the door a few minutes after I’d had my breakfast and coffee and shower, asking where Fazzi was.  “He’s still sleeping man… go ahead and wake him up.”  Ciro shook his head, explaining that Fazzi had told him to be ready by 9 and now it was 9:30, and now he was sleeping the day away.  After twenty minutes or so, we finally managed to get him out of his bed, and they shot out of the house to buy some things for the trip.  Fazzi asked me to stay at the house because the others who were coming on the trip were on the way, and somebody had to let them in, and they both had to buy stuff.  “Oh no!” I’m thinking to myself, “I need to buy food before we go.”  I can’t eat gluten, so I always have to plan in advance when I’m going someplace for an extended period.  But I didn’t say anything, and they headed out.  The others arrived, and then Fazzi and Ciro, and I was thinking of going to the grocery store around the corner, but instead I waited, and waited.  They took another hour getting ready to leave, and I thought to myself that I could’ve gone to the store and returned 5 times by now.  But now it was too late, and we headed off—they said they’d stop at a grocery store so I could buy some things, but we only stopped at a gas station to save time—they didn’t understand the urgency of my situation—and I bought a bunch of peanuts, and three packs of cigarettes so that I’d have plenty to share with others.  “Oh well!”  I’m thinking to myself, “they’ll have a kitchen there, and I’ll be able to buy things without gluten.”

It took us two hours to get out of São Paulo, because of the traffic, and then another two to get to the festival… as the road left the city we climbed up into the heights of the deep green mountains, with rich forests in the spaces that hadn’t been cleared away for agriculture, and a wavy patchwork of crops covering the rest of the terrain… and the clouds crept low in the sky caressing the tops of the mountains, mixing with the steam rising from the earth to create a smooth silky curtain across the scene.  It was beautiful!  It reminded me of one morning driving across the U.S. when I’d been pushing through the Smokey Mountains of North Carolina, on my way to California, and the fog had reached up into the atmosphere in the same way, under different skies, before different people, but the event was really the same thing… so many people on this planet, all living their own lives.

We got off the highway and onto the final road to the festival, descending out of the mountains and into the foothills… but these were pretty big foothills, and perhaps could even be considered mountains, with their steep slopes and dramatic streams flowing down their crevices.  We saw an occasional horse-rider trotting along on the side of the road… many more farms now, the patchwork thickened… we passed by a tractor, slowly chugging along with a crew of 5 workers piled up on every spare space, some of them looking at us as we passed, others sitting with their heads hung under their sombreros, giving their eyes a rest from the sun that had cleared away the clouds over the past 30 minutes, leaving just the sticky steam from the wet earth and the heat from the gleaming sun.  We finally arrived in Munhoz, the little town that the festival took its name from—Munhozstock—and it was a lovely little town with cobblestone streets, plenty of old volkswagons, a couple donkeys strapped to carts, every house painted a different brilliant color making a beautiful pallet of the street, and a small church as the focal point of the town, a locale that gathers the community into itself, allowing the unfolding of a common life.  I saw an old man leaning against a wall watching a donkey and cart pass by… his head was tilted down, and his face was halfway hidden by his hat, which was a big “cowboy hat” as you think of with the old American West… I wondered what his life was like in this little town in the interior of Brazil—maybe it was similar to life in my hometown back in the hills and farms of upstate NY… but we rolled gently over the cobblestones and headed down the dirt road leading up the hill towards the music festival, nestled among the forest and the farmland, on the top of a hill, overlooking the great green expanse.

On the top was a flat area for tents, with a trampoline that the children jumped on all weekend, but there was no room for our tent there and we headed down the hill to find a place to set up… as we walked down we could look across to the next hill where there were cows slowly making their way across the crest, and a farmer was relaxing on the front porch of his little red house, enjoying a cold beer on a hot summer day, looking over his crops, his cattle, and the maniacs on the hill next to him, setting up a little make-shift community for a few days of a different reality.  We saw a couple terraced spaces for tents, but all of the flat areas were taken, so we found a nice grassy spot in between the two terraces, on a slight slope, and set up our tents there… I figured it’s just as well… if it rains the water won’t pool here, and it won’t be muddy like on the terraces, and it’ll be nice to be sleeping on my back on a slight slant, and when I wake up in the morning I can look straight out the door, across the little valley, and see the cattle grazing in the sun on the opposite hill.

After we got our tents set up and we were situated, we started to mingle with the other people around us… I went for a walk down the hill and when I came back the others were all looking in disbelief at the guy who was staying in the tent right next to ours… he was showing them something in his hands, and Fazzi was all agitated, saying to this guy “não cara, não.” [no man, no]  He was performing little magic tricks, switching a blue die for a red one when we were looking at the smooth movement of his other hand.  Fazzi couldn’t believe his eyes, so he kept saying “não cara…” in an exhausted tone, as though this whole process was too stressful on his psyche…. This guy’s name was Filipe, and he was a real character—always with funny little remarks to push the conversation along in the direction of its previous momentum, not trying to take it over and lead it, but being led by the conversation itself… he had dreadlocks, like many people at any festival with reggae music, and he always carried around a little hip pack with a triangle clipped to it—you know, the percussion instrument.  Whenever people started jamming, he was always ready with a subtle little rhythm on his triangle—I always got a kick out of it too—more or less, he always played the same rhythm, but I think it takes a certain type of musician to rock the triangle in such a way—the triangle is just so lacking in pretensions—it doesn’t seek attention, and doesn’t get much, but it does add much to the rhythm.

We headed off to the bar to have a glass of wine before the nights performances.  They had built a bunch of buildings in the area with the trees from the land.  As you walked down towards the creek and its waterfall you passed a little area where all the trees had been cleared, and all the structures, and stairs down the steep muddy slopes, had been built with those trees, by the hands of the people who lived here.  They’d built a bar, a kitchen and dining area, dormitories for a good number of people, and all the buildings with a nice spacious porch where you could look out into nature… into the unfolding of life… at the people milling around… playing music in little corners, in the little spaces between the tents, under the roof with the woodstove beneath… laughing and talking and sharing meals together… and the hum of the insects and the song of the birds mixed with the laughter of the humans, the sound of their music, and the occasional rumbling of a car passing by on the red dirt road, the earth rich with iron like the wilderness of northern Arizona.

Several Shades of Gray

Perhaps everything in ones life can be measured with something as simple as the sixth-grade mathematics.  We learned of an object known as an open line segment.  This theory may sound too simple to be accurate, but upon closer inspection, one may find clarity in his/her circumstance. Too often do individuals obtain ideas throughout their lives, and place them on either Point A or Point B.  This black and white mechanism disregards the difference and the beauty that can be found in each moment because on an open-ended segment, the answer cannot be found on the two opposing points, but rather in the space between.

On this segment, people will never fully have one trait or another, but rather some degree of that characteristic.   The gray area that exists between the opposite ends of the segment is where one’s reality lies, for the perfection of an ideal composes the opposing points.  When one polarizes the complex nature of social situations, he/she creates a stereotype that places an idea of a person or thing into the box of an ideal.  It is necessary to examine that which cannot be defined because if we do not, then we gain a satisfied yet inaccurate judgment of others rather than a well-rounded understanding.

On this studious adventure of mine in Costa Rica, I have discovered that when my reality changes – all that I am left with are my philosophies – the ideas that compose the nature of my existence.  What I know about the world becomes somewhat invalid because I cannot view this new place through the same social lens, so my ideas have been whittled down to the original figures of love, persistence, positivity, and other things that are inherently human. When one says that they want to study abroad because they would like to find out more about themselves, I believe that is essentially what they are describing.  Because when one’s surroundings change, it is true character that will stay the same.

The past month has filled me with insights that have begun to expose the shades of gray surrounding many of the prevalent social issues, such as social health care, education, and gay rights.  Continuing to discover the specifics of these things has been a motivating factor for me recently.

Social Health Care

In brief, this country is run on a social health care system in that everyone – including those that work here from Nicaragua have access to it.  During my first weekend here in Costa Rica, my group and I went on a tour of a coffee plantation, and explored the park of a legendary waterfall.  Our tour guide, Gustavo, shared his thoughts about this feature of Costa Rican politics.  He used to be opposed to the system, but his sister was then diagnosed with a terminal case of thyroid cancer.  Not many survive from this ailment, and because of the health care system – she was not only able to receive a treatment that cured her, but also was able to receive substantial financial aid.   Something that she would have spent the entirety of her life without paying off was reduced to something that the government took as their expense.

My home-stay mother can offer another perspective on this topic.  Her view is more negative due to the fact that many qualify for the same degree of assistance that there is not enough present to adequately handle problems that arise.  As she sees it, if she were to get sick, it may take three years to receive satisfactory attention.  The complicated nature of this issue is apparent – and as controversial as it may be – there is no black or white answer.

Education

Costa Rica is known for their phenomenal education system, but every system has its flaws.  Upon arrival, I believed that the system must be very respectable because the government of this country does not have an army – it chooses instead to finance its educational institutions.  As a result, the literacy rate is much higher than that of other countries, such as the United States, and it places a great deal of pride on these facilities.

Today in class, we discussed the experiences of several education students that have been working in the school systems now for about a month.  Notably, they have been working at selected private and public institutions in a small radius within San Jose.  They offered several takeaways:

1)   Without going into excruciating detail – the standard of literacy is sufficiently lower here than it is in the United States.

2)   English classes are highly valued – especially in private schools.

3)   Religion is present in the classroom in that occasionally – one must be Catholic to teach, and the teacher leads “prayer time” at one or multiple points throughout the day.

Another interesting point that can give a powerful look into the occupational nature of this country is an exit exam that students take after their high school experience.  The idea is somewhat like the SAT in that it includes questions that are non-major related, and is indeed a standardized test.  However, the outcome of this evaluation does not just give one a number to submit on a college application.  It actually limits one’s future occupation.  For example, if one does not achieve the score necessary to study communications, then that option is not a possibility.  One can take additional classes to become more proficient on the exam, and then take it again.  This, however, assumes that one will have the necessary resources.  Every society has constructs that control the success of individuals within its population.  I view this exam as a factor that sustains a socioeconomic cycle.  If one grows up in an underprivileged neighborhood, then there is an excellent chance that the educational capacities of that area will not be equal to that of privileged areas.  Immediately following high school, young adults take this exit exam, and have their possibilities minimized to some degree.  The underprivileged population may never gain the ability to study for a higher paying profession.  Comparably, in the United States, if one receives a bad score on the SAT, community college can be an alternative.  From there, one can enter into a more highly ranked institution.  Opportunities to step beyond the constraints of social class are more easily accessible in this regard.

Gay Rights

Before I begin – I should discuss my misguided initial impressions of this country. I had not yet experienced the social environment, therefore, my views were uneducated and ensnared by a stereotype.  Homosexuality was a word that I thought would never be mentioned in my household.  The opposite has proven true.  I have found that not only is it acknowledged, it is supported.   I am aware that my household may be an exception to the majority, but I never thought I would be living with a house of avid advocates.  Many individuals in my Costa Rican home are actively aware of the present social movements, and this has been a great resource to jump-start my regional education.

Weeks ago, I traversed to the Congress building where I received a tour.  Laura Chinchilla is the current President, and is the first woman to hold the position.  She appointed her version of “the cabinet” to establish the priorities of her presidency.  Those topics are discussed over the course of several months, and I came at the right time to hear about a few of them.  Gay rights, however, did not make it to her list.

The state of the human services agency that is run through the government may function gloriously, but my experience indicates that the leadership is somewhat unpopular at the moment.  This organization exists to protect people against the social inadequacies or injustices that government produces.  Currently, the man who is in the director’s chair believes that there is a cure to being gay.  He has proposed this cure, and has received government funding for its implementation.  The LGBTQIA group, or “Los Invisibles,” which is an easy translation, feels that their rights have been infringed upon.

In response, the LGBTQIA community organized a rally in the middle of San Jose that several members of my household and I attended.  It was made public via the news, etc.  Upon arrival, I expected there to be protest against the rally.  I expected this event to be dangerous to attend.  There was no noticeable protest – and in this place where I thought anger would be present – all that was visible was a peace-seeking community that had gathered to celebrate their difference.   We, as a single unit, marched to the Ministry of Human Rights.  Chants that were first sung into a microphone were then echoed by the moving mass.  As we proceeded, I witnessed the looks of hope and happiness displayed across the faces of the crowd.  My family and I stood next to a motorcycle that honked the rhythm of our Spanish chant.  The character of this populace possesses an indomitable spirit that seeks to enlighten a people, and revolutionize a legal system.

For if one chooses to see in black and white, he/she will gain a perception that will satisfy, but not exemplify existing complexities.  If one could merely see in these two colors, his/her image would lack the depth that shades of gray provide.  This country is struggling with the concepts related to health care, education, and gay rights, and much of this can be observably attributed to people living inside of a social box.  If one matures without the ability to question, he/she will inevitably become a product of the surrounding environment.  It is by starting the difficult conversations with people that one will find new and exciting perspectives that may challenge what he/she believes.  I advocate for these conversations – because even if offered a perspective that contradicts one’s own – it produces a more open mind, or a deeper understanding of a previous belief.  Hiding from difference will only continue ignorance, while embracing it promotes a future that can speak and operate across it.

London, above ground

While in London, I take classes at the CAPA International Institute two days a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My favorite part about my classes is that they require a lot of time be spent exploring the city, so we take a lot of field trips. This week one of my classes made a visit to the British Museum, one of the many great, free places to visit in the city. Then, every evening from Mon-Thurs, the other Rice students and I take a class with Rice professors that have been flown over to aid in our research project. And in between all of that, I work half days at my internship from Tuesday through Thursday. So that leaves me with an almost four day weekend, open for traveling and entertainment aplenty.

Today, I spent the day at Southbank, visiting some of the most iconic London landmarks. Though I’ve been in London for sometime now, as of now, I can only visualize the city through a map of the tube. This is apparently the case for most Londoners. You travel through the city all day, getting from place to place, but it’s only after emerging from the underground that you realize where you are. I can remember stops on trains that I take daily, and know what comes after what, but trying to understand the city above ground has proven difficult. This weekend, the train we usually take to get out of Camden Town, the neighborhood I live in, was undergoing repairs, so we were forced to get on one of those red, double-decker busses and see London. Sounds terrible, right?

It took longer than I am use to get from point A to B, but it was great. I finally saw the streets I travel past each day, and got a sense of what the city looks like in sunlight…because the sun was out! I was freaking out for the better part of the day, because it felt sort of warm. That all changed after some time though and it felt frigid again for most of the day, but there were moments I found myself squinting! I know this sounds crazy, but I haven’t seen the sun in most of my days here. I really enjoy the general gloom this city has though, and I realized that I’ve been wearing a lot of black as a result.

…am I a real Londoner yet?

So through our walk, we saw Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, The London Eye and much, much more. Southbank is absolutely stunning and might just be one of my favorite parts of the city.

All in all, my favorite part of the day was traveling above ground and seeing how the city connects. Moving from borough to borough, and seeing how different parts of the city meet not only helped me get a better sense of direction, but also helped me feel more a part of the city than I have before.

Then we ended the day in Trafalgar Square, watching the many street performers that take over the area.