Author: jcrowe01

by Stone, Tufts 1+4 Participant

I’ve had a surprisingly eventful first week and a half with my host family considering I haven’t really done much. My first night I went to the local pulperia, a small store at the end of the block, where it turns out you have to tell the person behind the counter what you want and they’ll get it for you. The next morning, a little while after waking up, I heard the roaring of a machine outside my window. Having grown up in suburbia I figured it was probably a lawn mower, and only later remembered that I hadn’t seen any lawns. A few minutes later the noise got louder and a white colored smoke began floating in through the windows. I opened the door, planning to escape into the main part of the house, but smoke started billowing in through it. I slammed it shut, dropped to the floor near my bed and started breathing in through a sheet. After a few minutes, both the noise and the smoke dissipated and I was able to continue getting ready for work. I didn’t know how to ask what the smoke was in Spanish, so I didn’t try to find out from my host dad when he walked me to Sawyer’s house at which I would catch a ride into work.  When I arrived at La Salle University, my host agency/workplace for the next nine months, I told the program coordinator and director what had happened and apparently the house was being fumigated but I hadn’t been warned. On the upside, as Sawyer’s host dad put it, I had my first funny story.
As it turned out, I have the worst Spanish of the Amigos de las Americas participants. My first morning at La Salle was really just an introduction, and thank goodness for that, because I could barely understand what anyone was saying. The main part that I was able to comprehend was when Professor Saborido, who I would be working with, showed us the solar panel system. I was pretty psyched about that, and the others were impressed as well. That afternoon I went home and spent hours studying Spanish.

The next day I felt much better prepared and understood a little more of what people were saying. When Professor Saborido arrived he introduced me to his assistant Daniel  who speaks English. I was so relieved about that. Daniel is going to be here for about another two months, long enough so that he can help me with communication while I transition, but not so that I can rely on his help for too long to properly learn Spanish. Daniel is from Austria and is trilingual, as he can speak German, Spanish, and English. I think that is amazing, and of course feel useless in comparison.

The professor then gave me a document outlining the renewable energy systems in La Salle, both solar and wind, which I was to translate to English so that I could understand it. While I took AP Environmental Science my junior year and know a fair amount about the theoretics of renewable energy, I have never taken a science class in which I learned about energy and the specifics of how it works. Understanding that document took more than a mere translation. I spent the weekend studying up on both Spanish and electrical engineering. Fun fact: current is essentially the flow of electrons. Did I know that before last week? No, but I probably should have. I put a lot of my own time into learning which was lots of fun as well as tiring, but it turned out I needn’t have done quite so much on my own, as when I got into work on Monday it turned out there was pretty much nothing else to do. At the very end of the day before the five day weekend due to Independence Day started, another professor showed me a document in Spanish detailing how to set up a solar panel system. We were going to start setting one up on Monday. I walked home planning for the busy weekend ahead.

The next day I went with my host mom, my host grandmother and her great granddaughter (sometimes there are four generations in the house and that is awesome) to the Independence Day parade. There were costumes, music and dancing all worn and performed by high school students, college students, and teachers. One of them was Sawyer. Before it started, my host mom offered me a square of flavored ice she had just bought, which I gladly accepted. I don’t know if that was the cause, but less than half way through the parade I had to walk home due to severe intestinal cramping. On the way it started to rain. I reached the house just as it really started to pour. I took a nap and woke up at eight PM, the pain having left me. I skipped dinner, went back to sleep, slept through an earthquake and for fourteen hours, which scared the heck out of my host family as I found out the next morning when my host grandma knocked on my door. I apologized for the worry and told them I felt much better, which I did.

That night I went with the other León participants, Sawyer, Mateo, and Isabelle, to an exercise/dance class which was like Zumba but weirder. We all had an amazingly fun time and it was nice to be able to talk to Isabelle and Mateo for the first time in a week. Unfortunately, I started to get a migraine, and I felt super nauseous during dinner. I woke up a little after twelve am and the migraine was gone, but I was sick to my stomach again. The next morning I ate food and started feeling better. Though I missed lunch and volcano boarding with my friends, I danced with my host family, and everyone was very encouraging (probably too encouraging considering my general lack of dancing skills) and I played with the three year old great granddaughter (my host niece?) for a while. Unfortunately, around three I started feeling sick again. My host mom came in with some Gatorade to re-hydrate me and told me that if I needed anything I should tell her and to feel free to knock on her door in the middle of the night because now, “Soy tú Mama.” ‘I am your mother.’

If anything could turn hurling three times in an hour into a slightly good thing, it was that.

by Olive, Tufts 1+4 Participant

“Hi Gongga! This is … from the Tufts elections commission. I just wanted to say CONGRATULATIONS! You have a seat on the Senate class of 2020.” I was sitting at Tisch, just got kicked out from the reading room and getting ready to enter again when I saw this message. I could not believe what I just read it, because this seemed so surreal that I just won the election. It was a mixture of feelings that suddenly overwhelmed me. I wanted to tell all my friends who supported me through this race that I’m thankful for their support. I also just wanted to run around and express my joy.

I have always wanted to run for the student government since I arrived in the U.S. because that was something I always had done in China. I stopped doing it here, because I suddenly felt insecure about my skills and unconfident about myself in social places due to my “limited English.”  I was always scared of speaking out for what I wanted because I didn’t want my poor accent to betray my “Asian American Identity.” It was easier to stay silent than to speak somehow. I know now that this way of life is not what I’m looking for.

It became better for me when my English improved closer to my peers’ level,  enabling me to speak my opinions or ask the questions that I have in my mind. I became more open toward running for student government. However, my introverted personality was a really big barrier because high school elections were more like popularity contests. I hated talking to people about myself, because I was afraid I was not good enough. I never had the courage to tell my high school classmates that I wanted to run for student government.

Participating in Tufts 1+4 opened myself onto a new level – I started to challenge myself, from little things to bigger projects. I enjoyed traveling alone even when it meant getting lost 10 times a day, and asking an average 20 people for help. There were ups and downs when I traveled alone. I remember how I was alone on New Year’s Eve and walked hours and hours when nothing was open, in the popular city Seville that was famous for its warm attitude toward people; I remember how I ran 17 miles straight along beaches in Malaga on my birthday; I remember how I missed my plane to Berlin and had to take a 13 hour bus from Brussels to Berlin on Christmas’ Eve; I remember hiking the tallest mountain El Teide in Spain.

The idea of running for Tufts student government grew in my head over my gap year, because I started to realize how short and fast time goes. I wanted to take advantage of my time at Tufts, and to challenge myself. I started to tell my close friends that I made in 1+4, and my BLAST friends that I met at Tufts during the summer, that I’m going to run for the senate. I was scared, nervous and super shy about running, and I was not sure how to open the topic to my friends. I worried that they would laugh at me, because of how inexperienced I am. Their reactions were super supportive and gave me the courage to try.

Creating the poster for my campaign was also like creating a new identity for me, because I used “Olive” instead of “Gongga”. Many people often question me why I named myself as “Olive.” Sometimes I would just joke “because I loved to eat olives when I was in Spain.” This was partially true, but I also wanted to give myself a new identity before coming to Tufts. I wanted Olive to be the person that I became in Spain – a brave girl who was willing to try anything, who had a spontaneous personality and was willing to live life in the moment, an open minded girl who was outgoing and made friends all over the world. I let the old serious Gongga go, and I decided to let the internal Olive shine.

I remembered the day when I almost decided to give up on running because I saw how serious and prepared people were about their campaigns on Facebook. All those professional pages with hundreds of likes and details about their campaign ideas made me just want to quit ASAP. However, I still decided to make a page and even a campaign video. The video was a success, everyone laughed at how “funny”, and “genuine” it was. I think the video showed people that I really want to share my love and passion toward the senate.

Two days before election day, and I had to attend the candidate campaign forum. I was so nervous about the forum, I did not know how to present my platforms and introduce myself to all the students. However, finishing up the forum, when students walked up to me telling me how funny and cute I was, it made me feel relaxed. It also encouraged me that maybe I do have a shot, maybe college is different from high school, and I should bring the Olive attitude to college. I should give myself a new chance and try with enthusiasm.

One day before election day, I started to tell more friends, random people who were freshman, people I met in the gym and cafeteria about me running for the senate. I started to act more naturally, and felt more confident about my race. I even showed my campaign video in my English class.

This is the end of the third week of college. I’m still confused and occasionally feel unmotivated. However, now I have an obligation at Tufts – I have to work hard so the students who voted will not have a reason to regret their decision. Winning this election is not like a happy ending for my time at Tufts; it is more like a tough beginning. I believe that I am and will be ready. I will make Tufts my home and begin a new future here.

by Eugene, Tufts 1+4 Participant

On the Global Citizen Year packing list under “other recommended items” is “small musical instrument (if you play one, can carry it, and can tolerate possible damage — music is a great way to connect cross-culturally!)”.  I realized that a grand piano was out of the question.

What about the Henninger-Voss family upright? 0/3 was not a passing grade, so that didn’t fly.   The old keyboard that no one really touched since we got the upright 14 years ago? It passed all of Global Citizen Year’s requirements, but unfortunately it didn’t fit in a suitcase and I didn’t have room for such an enormous extra carry on.   But man, I couldn’t bare the thought of not playing for a year.

After much deliberation, a few visits to local music stores, a little premature heartbreak, I remembered a midi-keyboard that hadn’t seen sunlight since we moved 7 years ago.  Again, it seemed too big, but the genius I call my mother found that if you took our largest suitcase, stood the keyboard on its side, stretched the suitcase as far as it could go, pulled back the cloth a bit, then stretched it a bit more, you could wedge the keyboard in diagonally from corner to corner as securely as a brace.  Bingo.

Now for those of you who are unsure of what a midi-keyboard is, it is a keyboard with no speakers that is incapable of producing sound, only a certain type of electronic signal that when interpreted through a software like “garage band” can be made into noise.

Maybe not an elegant solution, but I could play a piano wherever I went.

And I’ve played a piano everywhere I’ve gone.

It wasn’t just that keyboard that I’ve played, but pianos everywhere.  Being a pianist is great, because whenever someone else has a piano a) you find out pretty quickly and b) in my experience they always let you use it.  Pianos are also almost the lingua franca of music: almost every musician, and many other people too, can play at least a little piano. So they show up all over the place.   When they do show up it is magic.  The piano allows me, far from home in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar faces and incomprehensible languages, to connect both with myself and those around me.

Whatever I am feeling when I sit down at the piano, once I start playing, everything becomes tranquil. It’s hard to explain what it feels like to play.  Maybe “get in the zone.”  I loose myself in the music and that grounds me.  Wherever I go, playing the piano is the same.  I just need to sit down and tinkle those ivories and I am home, I am where I belong.  I always get up feeling more relaxed and confident than when I sat down.  Wherever I can find a piano, I know I can find myself.

It may be trite, cliché, and overused (and as someone who has spent a lot of time with high-school music programs, I can tell you it is definitely overused), but music is an international language.  It doesn’t matter who I’m with, if I can communicate “Eu toco piano” and they let me play, then I can share with them a part of myself, I can give them something.  Almost literally, where words fail (such as, per say, when English words cease to convey meaning when directed at a Portuguese speaker), music speaks.  When I first got to Brazil, all I could do was introduce myself and listen, but if I played the piano then suddenly I could speak for 20, 30, 50 minutes and everybody would listen.

More than being able to play music, being a musician has helped break down the barriers between myself and the people I meet.  Solely because I am a musician I have made friends, had long conversations, and gotten numbers from other musicians.  From pre-departure training, where during introductions I mentioned I played piano and a minute later a kid I had never met before said that he played the saxophone and that I was in his band, to just yesterday when I talked to my capoeira teacher after class, and on finding out that I too was a musician he handed me one of his band’s CDs, simply being a musician has handed me opportunities I would not have had otherwise.

Just look at the keyboard.  Just like my musicianship, after a lot of hard work I was able to bring it with me.  Remember that band I was drafted into? If I hadn’t been able to jerry-rig a portal keyboard both my band and another act would have been out of luck when the talent show was held at the ball-field, no where close to the baby-grand we all had practiced on.   At my apprenticeship at O Sitio when my mentor/boss found out I was a musician and had my instrument with me he thought that it would be in everybody’s best interest if I played and gave the house some music for two hours every day.  So now for my job I get to do what I want to do on weekends and weeknights anyways.  That keyboard has allowed me to do things I could not have otherwise.

For me, all of this leads to two main takeaways. First, it further cements in my mind that music is more than just an activity, and is not in the same league as other hobbies but is so much more.  Music has done something for me that I do not think model airplanes, sports, or even debate and theater could.  Nothing else I have ever heard of centers you, opens doors for you, and speaks for you as easily, quickly and accessibly as music.  Secondly, go after what you want to do.  I bent over backwards and bent my suitcase wider to get that keyboard to the other side of the equator, and I have been more rewarded for that bit of preparation than I have been for almost any other single action.  It seems like we should not just be ready to seize opportunity, but actively put ourselves in a position to seize the opportunities we most desire.  I wanted to play the piano, and I put myself in a position to, and as a result I have played, and will play, the piano again and again.  Next time you are packing for a trip, maybe an eight month trip to a different country, I recommend you bring whatever you are passionate about.  It doesn’t matter how small it is if it is big enough to you.

Except maybe a grand piano.

by Isabel, Tufts 1+4 Participant