Year: 2018

by Gus, Tufts 1+4 Participant

As I have started to adapt to life in Ecuador, one of the biggest changes I have experienced thus far has been the food. While you might be saying “duh, Gus. What did you expect?” please allow me to elaborate on one of the deeper differences which accompanies the more obvious differences in flavor and strain of potatoes.

During our orientation one of the things we discussed was the differing definitions of success. For those in the United States, success is often defined by the final product. In contrast success is more about the journey in many Latin American countries. Though I would have never thought to apply this to the realm of food, I have realized, through my experiences cooking with my host family, that this difference does hold true.

To elaborate, cooking for me has never been a social activity, but more of a necessary step preceding consumption. Sure, I know how to scramble eggs and make a grilled cheese sandwich, but I’ve only ever used these skills to fulfill caloric needs. Certainly, I wouldn’t describe myself as someone who would regard four hours of meal preparation as a fun or fulfilling use of time. Nevertheless, this was exactly what I found myself doing this past Saturday, and I found it quite enjoyable in fact.

The process started around 10 a.m. when my host sister dispatched my brother and I to the market to gather the necessary ingredients for our upcoming lunch. The main course was to be sweet barbeque chicken wings prepared by my sister supplemented by tater tots (a Minnesotan delicacy) prepared by yours truly. Disclaimer: I’ve never actually made tater tots from scratch. However, as the famous Chef Gusteau from Ratatouille once said, “anyone can cook.”

Well, to put it bluntly, the first attempt was a disaster. The potato balls disintegrated and I was left with a soupy version of what might be considered hash browns if looked at with less than 20/20 vision and an optimistic perspective. Thankfully, I was not alone in the process. Much like Linguini, the son of Gusteau in Ratatouille, I needed a small amount of guidance in order to create an edible product. Thanks to the advice of my host siblings on a couple small changes, I was able to get a much closer approximation of tater tots the second time around.

Through this process, I not only learned to prepare tater tots from scratch, but also enriched my understanding of the culture surrounding food and cooking in Ecuador. In many ways, I think my prior conceptions about cooking were blinded by the fact that I could swing by the freezer aisle of the nearest supermarket any time I wanted tater tots. The traditional markets of Ecuador couldn’t be more different, nearly completely comprised of food straight from the Earth and without significant previous preparation. As a result, cooking is, almost by necessity, a much more significant part of everyday life. Furthermore, cooking is about more than meal preparation, it also includes the spirit of community which arises from creating something together.

Returning to the wisdom of Ratatouille, a similar lesson can be found in the relationship between Remy and Linguini. On his own, I would argue Linguini can’t cook (and neither can I), but this is irrelevant because the spirit of community formed through cooking is the more important part. What can be concluded from this is that though I have resigned myself to an observer status in many of the more complex cooking tasks, I can still be a part of the cooking. Undoubtedly, anyone can cook from this mindset so long as they partake in the communal spirit.

As I consider my expectations of meaningful cross-cultural experiences, shelling peas was nowhere near the top or even the bottom of the list. In spite of this, I often look forward to Saturday afternoons when I know another bag of the raw legumes will be waiting. Despite a complete lack of culinary ability, I will continue to appreciate these times for the community I have felt with my host family throughout.

by Laura, Tufts 1+4 Participant

Barely 24 hours in Brazil, the National Museum of Brazil burnt down. On Sunday evening, the day we completed our 30 hour journey to Florianopolis, it caught fire, and was destroyed by the time we woke up. In the run up to an election, discussion of political blame was immediate: austerity and a lack of investment in culture, reliability of emergency services and the excessive spending on the World Cup and Olympic Games. Although these conversations were inevitable and essential, my initial reaction was of sadness, and almost mourning. I had never heard of this museum beforehand, or known what it held but I deeply resonated with the photos I saw online of the residents of Rio crying in front of the carcass of the Portuguese Palace, because the value of holding objects in places and in ways accessible to educate all people is something I have experienced many times.

I have just started my apprenticeship working at Comcap – the waste disposal department of the city council in Florianopolis. Only a couple of days in, I have been struck by the sheer volume of waste a relatively small city can produce. The school children on tours are reminded that the first two “r’s” (reduce and reuse) are just as important as recycling. Being presented with the reality of consumerist society, my brain began running in circles; how do we stop producing so much stuff? And how, as a species that differentiate ourselves from all others by our ability to make tools, do we attempt to use them more frugally? In a book I was presented with, there was one phrase: “O  lixo e o sobra entre o desejo e a necessidade do ser humano” (roughly translates to “Rubbish and leftovers are a  necessary part of being human” ), which encapsulated the precarious position that human material culture holds in our world, and its importance. Remembering a time that the value of material culture far outweighed its problems in my judgement, I wanted to share one of my experiences working at the Blackden Heritage Site in Goostrey, Cheshire:

I had arrived early one day to Blackden, and was waiting in the visitor’s seating area for Tim, the resident archaeologist, to arrive and continue sorting the pottery we had begun the day before. Alan wandered in and spotted me waiting, and walked over with a medium sized plastic box in his hands. He presented me with a stone and asked me what I thought. I was slightly taken a back, having never had any experience with artifacts older than the 1200s, but decided to give it a go. It seemed to fit snugly in my hand in one particular orientation, with a rounded edge in my palm and a dent for my thumb, leaving a blunted blade at the top. No doubt it was a heavy duty tool, impossible for use in projectile hunting, so I came to the conclusion that it may have been a construction tool, most likely from the upper European Stone Age. Incorrect, I was informed. “Try again,” he said. I was struggling by this point, and started hypothesizing the ritual use of the tool – in my small hands it really seemed impossible for the blade to have had a mobile use. What I had failed to consider, as Alan then told me, was that not all human had hands as small as ours, as not all humans were homo sapiens. Now realizing the age and importance of the tool I had in my hands, I put it carefully back in the box as Alan explained that this tool was actually made by homo heidelbergensis in excess of 200,000 years ago.

Objects tell stories. By holding objects in our hands, we can cross cultures, millennia, and even species.

In the “Museu do Lixo”, some of the most interesting rubbish thrown away in the city is stored – it is both shocking in wastefulness and presents a fascinating material cultural history simultaneously. To work there I have already realized will be a great privilege, and maybe and I will begin to reach more clarity in my own mind on the place of human material culture in a world with a degrading environment. Every day at my apprenticeship I help to decide what is kept, what is thrown and what is burnt. When is the story an object holds invaluable and when is it a pollutant; when is something a physical form of education and when it is excess, and when is the world is a poorer place if an object is lost to a fire?

I plan to visit Rio this year. There, I won’t get to greet Luzia, the oldest human skull found in southern America. And I won’t get to see or handle the invaluable indigenous collection that her people left behind in the National Museum. But I endeavor to learn as much as I can about Brazil now; by holding the stuff of such a diverse and complex country in my own, homo sapien’s hands.

by David, Tufts 1+4 Participant

Sunday, September 2, 2018. For me, the date will always be remembered as a happy one: the start to an exciting eight month bridge-year odyssey. Yet, in the meantime, to the hundreds of millions of Brazilians around the world, September 2 will forever be a day marked by unfathomable tragedy.

This tragedy’s true impact transcends far beyond its country of origin. What happened that day marks an event when the whole of humanity forever lost a part of its story. Although the horrific events occured in a city that I have yet to visit within a country I have only just begun to understand, my heart goes out to all that are suffering.

In the evening of that fateful day, an immense fire broke out in the National Museum of Brazil (Museu Nacional), located in Rio de Janeiro. The ferocious blaze spread to all three levels of the museum, consuming nearly everything in its path. Although firefighters arrived quickly to the scene, the two closest fire hydrants were dry, forcing them to fetch water from a lake. By the time they controlled the inferno, it was already too late. The museum was the home to over 20 million artifacts of incalculable historical and scientific value. Now, almost all are destroyed.

Housing one of the most important collections in the Western hemisphere, this museum was a testament of over two centuries of Brazilian heritage and exploration. Its collection included the country’s largest dinosaur fossil, a 12,000 year old prehistoric human skeleton, as well one of the greatest compilations of Pre-Columbian artifacts. Its historic specialty extended far across the world, featuring priceless relics from the Ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman civilizations. These were the things that were razed. Eradicated. Lost.

At first glance, being a foreigner who arrived here a week ago, the event seemed like nothing “out-of-the-ordinary”. At first, to me, this museum fire represented only just another depressing story, swirling in the cloud of calamities of our grim world (as news media would have us believe). Yet, my view quickly changed once we all took a moment of silence for it at a morning orientation meetings. It was then that I dove a little deeper and realized the event’s true magnitude.

For the non-Brazilians out there, think about it like this. Imagine if we lost Smithsonian Museums or National Archives overnight. Or for those in the United Kingdom, the British Museum destroyed without notice. For the French, the Louvre gone in mere hours. So on. Then think about the priceless items held within their walls: artifacts that educate us of our past, in all of its triumphs and failures. The destruction that took place on that day in Rio is all that for Brazilians.

Despite being an institution of national importance, museum officials struggled to meet the minimum R$520,000 (~$126,000) annual budget, which took a toll on the crumbling building (evidenced by the “peeling wall material and exposed electrical wiring”). The struggle was due in part because of the dwindling sense of responsibility and care for museums in general, with most Brazilians either taking them for granted or treating them with apathy. For example, what was supposed to be a major 200th anniversary celebration for the National Museum (which took place this past June), resulted in a poor, near-empty turnout. These factors, in combination with irresponsible government spending and corruption, sealed the fate of Brazil’s oldest and arguably most prominent museum.

Museums, from the distinguished to the local, are the guardians of our history. They remind us of our roots, helping us hold onto the heritage that bonds us together, as well as providing us guidance in improving our future. As citizens, we all have a renewed responsibility in defending their survival. No matter what your beliefs, political ideology, and interests are, as humans, we all have an obligation to protect the truth of our story. We must safeguard it from those who maliciously attempt to compromise its integrity, especially in our current climate, for selfish political or monetary gain. This is the obligation we are tasked. This is why we have to care about our museums: to preserve ourselves.

So, take whatever empowers you, whether it be your voice, volunteer hours, or vote, to perform this obligation as a proud citizen of your country, and a human in the world. We can all take a lesson from Brazil.

Sources:

Phillips, Dom. “Brazil Museum Fire: ‘Incalculable’ Loss as 200-Year-Old Rio Institution Gutted.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 3 Sept. 2018, www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/03/fire-engulfs-brazil-national-museum-rio.

Andreoni, Manuela, et al. “Brazil Museum Fire Leaves Ashes, Recrimination and Little Else.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 3 Sept. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/09/03/world/americas/brazil-museum-fire.html.

Museu Nacional Teve Proposta De US$ 80 Milhões Do Banco Mundial.” O Globo, O Globo, 4 Sept. 2018, oglobo.globo.com/rio/museu-nacional-teve-proposta-de-us-80-milhoes-do-banco-mundial-23036407.

“Brazil’s National Museum Hit by Huge Fire – BBC News.” BBC, BBC, 3 Sept. 2018, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-45392668.

Photo Credit:

Fire Image: “’Incalculable Loss’ as Fire Destroys Brazil’s National Museum.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, www.nbcnews.com/news/latin-america/firefighters-battle-massive-blaze-esteemed-rio-museum-n905901.

Fossil Image: “Museu Nacional (Rio De Janeiro) – 2018 O Que Saber Antes De Ir – Sobre o Que as Pessoas Estão Falando.” TripAdvisor, www.tripadvisor.com.br/Attraction_Review-g303506-d311267-Reviews-National_Museum-Rio_de_Janeiro_State_of_Rio_de_Janeiro.html#photos;aggregationId=&albumid=101&filter=7&ff=51851372.

Museu Nacional Image: Bessa, Simone. “Museu Nacional – UFRJ (National Museum – UFRJ ).” MUSEUS DO RIO.COM.BR, www.museusdorio.com.br/joomla/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=99%3Amuseu-nacional-ufrj-national-museum-ufrj.

by Ashley, Tufts 1+4 Participant

I find myself repeating the phrase of an optimistic yellow sponge from my youth. Well, “youth” may be a bit of a stretch since the silly show can still be found playing on my screens. Nevertheless, “I’m Ready” has been the statement on my mind since mid-May.

The more I mentally and physically say this phrase the more I began to truly admire and reflect on the character behind the phrase. The show consists of the daily shenanigans of Spongebob and how he is able to experience his life with little to no unhappiness, even when life got a little rocky. In no way, shape, or form was he ready for anything! Yet, he continued to proclaim his readiness and took life head on. I realize that as a child I didn’t give this show enough credit and now, as this bridge year is about to begin, I find myself hoping that I can amount to this yellow sponge.