Category: 2017-2018 Tufts 1+4 Fellows

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Musicians of Cuenca

by Jennifer, Tufts 1+4 Participant

I’m amazed by how friendly and helpful the music community is in Cuenca. The musicians I’ve met accept me and are genuinely interested in connecting with me. When I walk down the street carrying my cello I’m constantly stopped by strangers, inquisitive and gregarious. I feel like I’ve found another family, people who understand me and who I understand in return. People who have helped me pursue my passion thousands of miles from home. Here are my impressions of the musicians of Cuenca. 
Raquel is intense and direct, with perpetual red lipstick, and seems taller than she really is through sheer force of personality. I was brave enough to approach her after a symphony concert, nervously rehearsing lines in my head. I hesitantly asked where I could find a cello to rent. With her support and advocacy, I found a cello and joined the local university orchestra. I have the opportunity to take lessons, teach cello to youth symphony students, and even perform a concerto.
Dixon has a rowdy voice and goofy smile, and he plays cello the way he talks, bold and resonant. Raquel and Dixon play in the symphony together, and Raquel introduced us. Dixon entrusted me with his extra cello. The poor thing is chipped and scratched with a rusty end pin, the bow has about half its original hair, and I extracted several strange objects – chunks of wood, clumps of hair and dust, and a foam cylinder – from inside it, but I’m happily renting it.
David is constantly sweeping his messy hair out of his eyes, adjusting his glasses, and contemplatively rubbing his beard, unconscious ticks that show his interest. We met at the university while sharing a practice room, then peeked in a window to watch the university orchestra rehearse. David plays guitar, piano, and violin, sings, and teaches at the university, but was still curious about my cello. He wants to get together and jam. 
William commands respect and attention with a scowl and a rigid baton when conducting, but as soon as he lowers his arms he becomes a sweetheart. William invited me to join the university orchestra in an email he signed “abrazos”. He gave me a real hug when we met in person. William gave me copies of the music, seated me third chair, and accommodated my flexible schedule, anxious to make me comfortable. We share smiles during rehearsals. 
Medardo is balding on top and wears button down shirts under sweaters. We became friends as the two odd ones out of the university orchestra, the foreigner and the middle aged man. He always greets me when I get to rehearsal and gives me rides home. Medardo is eager to hear about my life back home and what I think of his country. In return he tells me stories of his travels to Spain and Italy, and always knows the best concerts in the city. 
Abran is a cab driver and a songwriter. He dreams about sharing his music with the world. We met when I hailed his cab downtown and stuffed my cello in. He was excited to chat with a “real musician” and, while we drove to my rehearsal, he played a few of his own songs for my criticism. After listening to a song he wrote for his son for father’s day I told Abran I was missing my parents. He gave me his number and told me to call him the next day; he wanted to give me a CD of his songs to share with my parents. I took the risk and called.
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My 1+4 Story: Evan

by Evan, Tufts 1+4 Participant

The beginning of college can be a stressful time for many people. After months of anticipation, you are abruptly thrown into a new environment and expected to make friends, some of whom will supposedly last you your whole life. This period of stress can last a week for some, and months for others. In my high school grade, there was one other girl going to Tufts, which was a social luxury that not all Tufts students have, however, I did not know her very well and figured that I would be mostly on my own making new friends. This was before I was accepted into the 1+4 program.

One of the largely unpraised beauties of 1+4 is the social network that you have when you return to campus. In addition to the four fellows in country with me, I had eight others who shared the experience with me virtually from their respective locations, as well as 13 more from the year before me who would be sophomores when I arrived on campus. While many of my peers scrambled around to find social groups in the first weeks, I knew that I would always have my friends from 1+4 to fall back on if I had any problems. They had all gone through the same crazy experiences that I had and would be more than happy to take time out of their days to spend with me. While many students enter college knowing people on their sports teams or through various mutual friends, I had four intimate friends who had lived and worked with me for nine months, who knew me better than many friends from home did.

This is not to say that I avoided making new friends because I already had a small network at my fingertips. Instead, I felt more confident taking my time finding new friends, thus I was not pressured to latch onto the first group of people that I met. Tufts has so many different kinds of people, and it takes time to find people that you can feel completely comfortable around. Being a 1+4 alumnus allowed me to take the first few weeks as a time of exploration and wait until I found the right group, knowing that I already had a tight group in which to confide when I needed it.

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A Week Out of Home-Sweet-Home

By Rujen, Tufts 1+4 Participant
After spending two and a half months in Florianopolis, I finally got the opportunity to leave my state, Santa Catarina. Our next training seminar was scheduled in Morretes, a historic city in the state of Parana. This was the first time I got the chance to spend some time out of my host family’s house. I was really excited for it, partly due to the fact that I could meet all my friends and mostly because I was leaving everything behind for a week. 
 
We left Florianopolis at around 8am that day. After a long six-hour bus ride, we arrived at Curitiba, the capital of Parana. At Curitiba, we explored the famous Jardim Botânico and played some fun games inside its premises. We spent the night there in Curitiba and were ready for our visit to Morretes. Even though the bus ride to Morretes from Curitiba was only an hour, we took a four-hour train to enjoy the amazing landscapes, rich animal and vegetation biodiversity, canyons, gorges and waterfalls of the Serra do Mar. I felt that I was in the ‘real’ Brazil then. 

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Ducha Gratis

By Henry, Tufts 1+4 Participant

Every day at 1, we go home for a 2 hour lunch break. Yesterday was my laundry day and as I walked the block back from the lavandería with my bag of clean clothes I noticed it was sprinkling. I wasn’t too worried. They don’t have real rain here, I thought to myself. All of the rain I’d experienced in Cuenca had amounted to no more than a drizzle. My host mom had even told me that it rained durísimo during the parade, which I had comfortably endured without a rain jacket. I wasn’t worried.

When I got back to the house I threw my bag of clothes on the floor and decided I had time to watch one YouTube video before leaving for work. About halfway through the video, however, Neil deGrasse Tyson was interrupted by a deafening crack of thunder. I pulled my earbuds out of my ears and immediately noticed that the drizzle from earlier was now roaring against the sides of our house. That’s odd, I thought as I popped my earbuds back in and finished the video. Then I threw on my rain jacket, switched my suede for my tennis shoes and made my way to the front door.

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Volcanoes

by Sophie, Tufts 1+4 Participant

     When I saw the sweat drop off my face and streak my mud caked ankles I really thought I am never doing this again. Never again am I going to let someone convince me that hiking 5 hours up a mountain will be fun. I get winded carrying my school books to a third floor math class, so why did I think I would be capable of hauling a 50 pound backpack to the top of a volcano. 
        By the time we reached the top and fell onto our bags, I hardly cared about the volcano sitting behind me. All I could think about was how, on top of everything, there was no shower, and no bed. The only things waiting for me were a too–small tent and a very early hike back down. All I could think was that I never wanted to do this again.
        But then we started walking up the final slope to the rim of the volcano. All at once, the forest was gone and my entire view was consumed by reddish rocks. I was in a movie or on Mars or in a dream, and my brain was so preoccupied with consuming it that, for a moment, the aches were forgotten.
        The rim sloped like a tilted soup bowl, that is, if soup bowls dropped off in a way that instinctively made you crouch and grab the ground with your hands even though you’re still several feet from the edge. Between puffs of sulfur, glowing lava lit the bottom. Through a camera lens it looked like nothing more than a few orange specs, but in person it was one of the most amazing things I’d ever seen. We watched the sunset paint orange across the tops of the volcanoes that lined the distance. 
       That night, the tent fit about from my head to my knees, making it an incredibly unsatisfying sleep for my gelatinized muscles. But we laughed at the craziness, the drunken silliness of sober people who have had a hell of a day. 
     In the morning, we scrambled half-asleep to the top of another ridge where we were met with rooster cries echoing from all directions. The sun rose and left a clean, clean blue. Mist snaked below us in between the ridges, a river of breath flowing through the treetops. I wasn’t bitter that it was 4 am and I was awake. Actually, I was wondering how I missed this every single day. 


Now that I’m back in the comforts of my home, and all I can think about is how to get to the tops of other volcanoes. Yet again, never again has become what’s next.

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My 1+4 Story: Henry Baer-Benson

By Henry, Tufts 1+4 Participant

“I love the weather Cuenca. It’s sunny in the morning, rainy in the afternoon and cloudy in the evening. My only qualm, as a Minnesotan, is that it seldom dips below 55 degrees. Winter is my favorite season and the thought of going an entire year without touching snow is not a happy one. However, several weeks ago, I was in Quito with Stephanie and Maxito and we decided to climb one of the surrounding mountains. As we neared the summit, we came across a bluff that cast a small patch of shadow on the ground below and at its base was the largest snow bank I’ve seen all year.”