Category: 2017-2018 Tufts 1+4 Fellows

By Jason, Tufts 1+4 Participant

Saudades. This was one of the first words that I ever learned in Portuguese. The best way that I can describe this word are the little feelings you get once you deeply begin to miss something or someone. Now more than ever, I have many of them.

It has been roughly a month since I left Brazil, and for most of that time I have been at home reflecting on my past seven months. Thinking about all the ways in which that bridge year has influenced me and the way I think at home has been something that seemingly has become part of my daily routine. Those seven months had gone so right in so many ways that it’s hard not to miss it. From my wonderful host family, to my apprenticeship, and all the things in between that made my host community what it was, it is impossible for me to have wished for anything better. Although this is the case, there is one factor that acted as a parasite which wove itself into my mindset and grew into a problem which I did not address until it was too late.

I think that it’s safe to say once you have become comfortable within your host community, you can give yourself a pat on the back because that means you’ve reached a point that many people struggle with when it comes to living somewhere drastically different from where they are originally from. Unfortunately, with this feeling of being comfortable, comes the danger of becoming too content in your community.

For me, the consequences of this contentment did not come until the final week of my bridge-year. I had been living most of these past seven months with the idea that there would always be time to do the things that I wanted to do, and although this was true during the former months, it quickly spiraled into something that lasted with me even in the final weeks.

The unfortunate consequences of this tendency to push things off to a later time did not truly hit me until my final weekend in the country when I realized that I was rushing to do everything that I ever wanted to do in that country in those final few days. Even then, there was nowhere near the amount of time that I needed to fully see all my plans through.

Granted, the time that I am writing this is spring of 2020 when the world is going through a rapidly growing pandemic. Even though this did cut my time in the country short by three weeks, it’s still something that I must acknowledge when reflecting on my time in Brazil. The more I think back on it, the more times I realized that I had this tendency to give the “I have plenty of time for that” excuse, which obviously was not true in the long run. During my last weekend in Brazil I was rushing to do all the fun things that I ever wanted to do in those last two days, which made that weekend some of my best moments in the entirety of my seven months there. Finally visiting the Sand Dunes of Lagoa, hiking up various trails, trying some food that I’ve always wanted to taste such as natural açaí and pasteis. I absolutely loved my bridge year in Brazil, but to think how much better it could’ve been if I had been doing all the things I wanted to do makes me wonder.

Because of all this, there are still a ton of things on my list which I never got to do in Brazil. So if there is anything that I would say to anyone who is going or about to go on a similar journey, it would be to please live everyday in-country as if it could be your last. Even if it’s your first week and you’re 100% sure that you have plenty of time, do your future self a favor and start checking off things on your list now instead of tomorrow

By Abigail, Tufts 1+4 Participant

My hands struggle to remain steady as they carefully transcribe each character into my notebook. My feet, propped up on the metal rail in front of me, try to keep balance as the bus races down the hill, turning sharply and stopping every few seconds to open the door and let more people in. In both ears sings the soft and silky voice of Yoon Mirae — Korean R&B — in an only somewhat successful attempt to block out all the noise around me — the constant swishing of the folding doors, open, shut; the subdued hum of men and women coming back home from work or shopping; the excited shouts of grinning schoolchildren just getting out of school.

My eyes lose their light-source temporarily, a shadow hovering over my paper. One of those students has sat next to me, and is leaning over to see what it is that I am doing. “¿Eso es inglés?” — is that English? — she asks curiously, staring at the Chinese characters on the page.“No,” I begin to explain in Spanish, removing my headphones and placing them in my pocket. “This is Mandarin Chinese. It’s a language that uses characters rather than an alphabet.” She looks up at me, fascinated and perhaps a bit confused. As we continue conversing, I explain to her that I take Mandarin classes in the city center, where I’m heading now, and she tells me about herself — her age, grade level, and school she goes to. She still looks interested in the strokes I’ve written, so I ask her if she’d like to learn a bit of something. “Yes!” she exclaims excitedly. So I turn the pages until I get to where I wrote down the numbers and begin teaching. “Uno” is “yī”, “dos” is “èr”, and so on. She repeats after me, seeming to soak it in. Then her stop comes up and her siblings, who were standing nearby, call her to get off. She bids me farewell Ecuadorian-style — never “goodbye” but rather “see you later” — as she demounts the bus.

That singular, brief interaction was one of the most memorable experiences of my bridge year. At that moment, just as the little girl got off, I realized what a modern interaction that was — me, a native English speaker, listening to Korean music, speaking in Spanish to an Ecuadorian schoolgirl about the Mandarin Chinese language. This is one of the best examples of cultural globalization that I have personally been a part of. 500 hundred years ago, or even 100 years ago, such an interaction simply would not have been possible. Technology has made it possible to listen to music in practically any language, schools and exchange programs make it possible for foreigners like me to spend some time in Cuenca not just as a tourist, and people’s increasing curiosity of cultures and countries far from their own make it possible to study a wide variety of languages. To be a part of such a complex intercultural exchange, even when it seems to be something as simple as teaching an Ecuadorian schoolgirl  some Mandarin numbers, filled me with a sense of thankfulness for the beautiful, diverse, and ever increasingly connected world we live in today.

By Alex, Tufts 1+4 Participant

If you watch a home video of me up until the age of five, you’ll notice my parents disagreeing with one another, specifically about language. Everything I say in English, my mom asks me to repeat in Greek. Right after she does that, my dad whispers from behind the camera, “Now is not the time, Sofia.” My father, who grew up in a British-American household, did not understand my mother’s will to engrain the Greek language in my brother and me. For her, however, language correlated with successfully raising us to understand and appreciate our roots.

As a result, despite my dad’s grumbling, my mom continued to force me to spit out as much Greek as I could as a child, whether it was for asking for a cookie or telling her about my day. I grew up confused as to which language I should talk in, because between the Greek my mom was insisting upon, the English my dad was speaking to me, and the Spanish my nanny sang to me, I could hardly distinguish the three. I knew not to speak Greek to my father but often ended up singing Spanish nursery rhymes to my mother because they sounded similar to Greek ones.

Language gradually became less of a burden and more of a skill. In given moments, I could use bits and pieces of each one to help me form connections with different people I met, from the Greek passport control agent to the Mexican waiter at my favorite diner who would sneak me pieces of chocolate after I spoke my broken Spanish. Language was my superpower: a few words opened a doorway of friends, and most importantly, free food. I excelled in languages in school because I put my heart into them and always saw them as an opportunity to make the world a little bit smaller.

The first day my family members visited me in India, I suddenly felt like a stranger to a country I have been living in for the past four months. Upon arriving at our hotel, a person greeted us with hot chocolate. My family members happily accepted the drink. I was shocked. I had never seen hot chocolate served in India and blurted out, “Bhaiya, chai kaha hai?” I wasn’t thinking, but rather responding naturally. I saw the way my family looked at me after hearing this foreign language come from my mouth and in that moment, I became a stranger to my family. Rohan, the boy who had offered us the hot chocolate, smiled widely as I continued, “Mira nam Alex hai” and “Main Pune me reheti hu” (My name is Alex and I live in Pune). In the first few days while I struggled to connect to my family, I used my Hindi to open up relationships with people I felt would understand my new tastes better.

My interaction with Rohan was only the beginning. At every meal, I became friendly with the waiters, asking them for their recommendations and telling them my Maharashtrian favorites. To my family’s delight, this often led to free desserts, and what touched me the most was when my new friends would bring me ginger lemon tea after they heard my horrible cough, telling me they had prepared it themselves using their mother’s recipe.Speaking just a few sentences of Hindi broke down the formality between me and the hotel staff, allowing me to meet people from different parts of the country. When they heard me speak the little Hindi I knew, I could see their faces instantly relax.

In the beginning of this year, I dreaded Hindi class. I did not see the point in learning a language in a city where most people spoke to me in Marathi, the local language. Traveling around India with my family earned Hindi its spot in the superpower category, rekindling my deep love for the transformative power of languages. I came back to Pune more motivated to speak a few more lines of Hindi and Marathi in an effort to see what they could unleash. The results were often large smiles, exclamations of surprise, and questions that led to conversation. As a foreigner, I now know that putting in a little effort to speak Hindi or the local language allows me to experience India more deeply by making it possible for me to communicate with people and show my respect for their home.

by Luke, Tufts 1+4 Participant

The moment had finally arrived. Abuelita Carmen, Julian, Emilio, and I looked out onto the single, empty landing strip—waiting, waiting, waiting. After four months I was about to see my family from the States face-to-face again. Would they recognize me? Would they notice how I had changed? How had they changed? We had spent this time away pursuing our individual adventures, crafting our own narratives. What would it mean to be reunited again?

I was ripped out of my thoughts by the sudden appearance of a plane (THEIR PLANE!) landing. Emotions overwhelmed me—a sudden wave that tightened my chest and brought tears to my eyes. The plane came to a stop after taxiing off the runway, and a stairway was placed to connect the door of the plane to the tarmac. Suitcases were being unloaded—waiting, waiting, waiting. Finally, passengers started to disembark. Not them. . .not them. . .and suddenly I spotted my younger brother and then my mom and dad and older brother. Four human beings who to anyone else were just strangers going down the stairs to the tarmac but to me were the four people who had raised me, challenged me, encouraged me, made me laugh and cry and scream and dream.

The first few days with my family were overwhelming. There were moments where I felt as if nothing had changed and then moments where I felt like a complete stranger. For me, it seemed like there was this collision between the person that I had become and the person that my family knew me as.

I tried to give my family a taste of what life was like for me in Cuenca. This is my host family, the people who show me so much love and patience every day. This is my room, where I have solo dance parties, moonwalking (unsuccessfully!) across the floor, music blasting through my headphones after a long day. This is where I buy the BEST CHOCOLATE CROISSANTS I HAVE EVER TASTED. This is where I hang my clothes to dry. This is where I catch the bus in the morning. This is the market where I discover delicious new fruit. This is Fundación Crea Tu Espacio where I work. On and on and on.

But my description of these places and people does not tell the full story nor does it embody all of the emotions and mistakes and memories that complete the picture. There is an impossible gap to fill, nuances that can not be explained that will forever be known only by me.

On New Years Eve, we celebrated with both of my families. My host family prepared nothing short of a feast, putting hours into making the ham and aji and llapingachos. The food was delicious, and we all went for seconds and thirds under the approving eye of Abuelita. After dinner, we welcomed the new year with a muñeca burning to ash in the street and fireworks exploding in the sky. I remember the feeling of gratitude—for my families, for the ability to live in this beautiful moment, and for having this experience of a bridge year.

I would love to say that my time with my family was filled with only positive moments. But that is not the case. I would be sharing an incomplete story, one that does not accurately portray the complexity of our time spent together.

There were moments that were frustrating and awkward. We went to a fancy restaurant with Abuelita Carmen, sharing a lavish meal together. My host family and I never went to restaurants. When I glanced at Abuelita and saw the look of hesitation and unease etched into her face, discomfort bloomed in my chest. I had been oblivious as to how this experience would make Abuelita feel. I realized how often I had been to restaurants in my life, not even thinking twice about how lucky we were to have that ability. I found myself ruminating on this thought so much that it prevented me from being fully present during the meal.

Confronted with a situation like this, I realized how in the past I never really checked my privilege; I was so comfortable in the environment I had been raised that I neglected to think critically about what that meant. I felt embarrassed and ashamed and confused. It was difficult for me to accept how blind I had been to the differences between my families. Remaining ignorant about these differences did not make them nonexistent. Going to this dinner demonstrated to me a powerful lesson about life, a lesson that I am still learning and will forever be learning.

In the past, it has been hard for me to be honest when dealing with difficult emotions and to ask questions that elicit these difficult emotions. This bridge year has taught me that an abbreviated version of a story that only highlights the happy moments is a disservice that impedes true, deep learning. If anything, I hope to move more mindfully through this world, remembering to check my privilege often and keeping in mind how this privilege has facilitated my life journey.