December 2012 – Page 3 – GW Blogs from Abroad

Finding Refuge in La Fugitiva

AdminDecember 9, 2012December 14, 2018

There’s a precious little bookstore/café in Madrid called “La Fugitiva,” or the fugitive. It’s up the street from the famous Reina Sofia museum on Calle Santa Ysabel (yes, Isabel with a “y”). The wooden floors squeak as you walk in. The door needs an extra push to close completely. Antique wooden toys decorate the store windows along with a collection of works on philosophy and a seasonal selection of Christmas books. The little tables and chairs around the shop don’t match and no customer gets the same coffee mug. The guys who work there are friendly and seem to be able to offer recommendations to even the most obscure reading questions. The walls are filled with posters for art shows coming and past, lectures, and offers of dance and language classes. There are some corners where little flakes of paint fall in your lap if your chair happens to scratch the wall. If you come into chat with a friend, it’s quiet and easy to sip coffee and share a muffin in peace. If you’re there to study, there are enough people searching through books, working or chatting so that it’s not too silent, but people keep voices low so that it’s conducive to writing borderline major papers. This quiet and lovely little shop I discovered a month ago upon recommendation of my host mom is my favorite place to study outside my home and I only have eight days left to enjoy it. The woes of the sun setting on my semester here in Madrid. ...continue reading "Finding Refuge in La Fugitiva"

Departure

AdminDecember 9, 2012December 14, 2018

By jfbarszcz

Today is Sunday, December 9th, at about 2:30 PM CET. Exactly six days from now, I will be boarding a plane and leaving the city I've called home for the last three months, with no idea when I'll return. I definitely have mixed feelings about having to come back to the States. On the one hand, I'm very excited to be able to see my family and friends again, and there are many comforts at home that I simply do not have here. On the other hand... I desperately want to spend another semester here. I feel like the amount of time I've spent here hasn't been enough to really, fully explore and experience everything I've wanted to just in Prague, to say nothing of the Czech Republic and Europe as a whole. While I spent my first couple of weeks here practically overdosing on new experiences, as classes started, the weather got colder, and the days got shorter I inevitably had to slow down. If I could do another semester in Prague, I absolutely would without question. Unfortunately, my academic obligations make this impossible. But I'm not sweating it, since in all likelihood this won't be my last time in Europe. ...continue reading "Departure"

y todos deben cuidarlo!

AdminDecember 8, 2012December 14, 2018

By bbuck92

This week my volunteer work with the Valpo Surf Project came to an end. One of my last acts was leading a found object activity with the students. In our lunchtime discussion, after surfing in the morning, we presented our objects and our stories about the environment. Some objects included a mint leaf from the garden, trash we had picked up from the beach, and a pot of natural Chilean honey. Using these various objects as a springboard for conversation we talked about what we felt defined the environment and the role of the VSP in respect to that environment. Overall, our conclusion was that the VSP is a vehicle to organize to protect the environment, an environment that not only included the beach where we surf but also the neighborhoods where we work in Valparaiso.

This conclusion had much to do with my research for the semester. I was able to incorporate these definitions into my investigation of environmental citizenship, and explored in which ways the VSP promoted stewardship though molding young active environmental citizens. While I suggested that the VSP has room to grow by explicitly incorporating a program of environmental citizenship rather than implicitly supporting it, I also recognized the successes of the VSP in instilling the values of responsibility and obligation in its students through activities such as trash collection each surf session. I hope to continue to study the ways of promoting active and responsible individuals committed to sustainability be it in a citizenship setting or otherwise. George Washington University offers a unique opportunity to present these ideals to a new group of “citizens” within a different community. ...continue reading "y todos deben cuidarlo!"

Padre Obermaier: Spacialized Conflicts of Power in El Alto

AdminDecember 6, 2012

An example of Obermaier's colorful churches, with the Wiphala, the Aymara flag, and the Bolivian flag out front.

Right now, I am sitting in a sustainable ecolodge that runs completely off of sunlight and local donkey power, on the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world and largest in Latin America. As I look out my window, my gaze travels across fields and hills that have held the same terraced stone walls since the Incan Empire, then across miles of the perfectly blue water of the lake, to the far golden and indigo rolling shores of the Altiplano, and finally stops at the incredible snow capped peaks of the Cordillera, one arm of the Andes Mountains. The Island of the Sun is simultaneously claimed by Aymara, Quechua, and Incan myths, as well as local Catholic mixtures of those, as the birthplace of gods and humanity. Sitting here, I can understand why; we are so high up and the distances so great around us that the massive dark cloud formations jump across the lake like a stop motion video, creating a constantly changing pattern of rain and shadows and brilliant sunlight on the water-scape.

The program ends the day after tomorrow, after which I will spend ten days travelling around as much of this country as I can, and then I will go home. Since this will be the last post I write about research in Bolivia, I decided to start it the same way as I started my first: full of the descriptors of a travel blog. We are in the evaluation week for the program, and as such our Director, Carmen, decided to send us to el lago for a nice send off. We have all now finished our Independent Study Projects, our papers, and our final presentations in front of the SIT community in La Paz. Last week I accomplished one of the most important and hardest things I have ever done: I wrote 42 pages in a academic Spanish, a language I could barely speak 4 months ago. ...continue reading "Padre Obermaier: Spacialized Conflicts of Power in El Alto"

A Russian Thanksgiving

AdminDecember 5, 2012December 14, 2018

By squeakyrobot

Thanksgiving was an unconventional affair, but it was close enough to tradition that I consider it one of the best Turkey Days of my lifetime. Although I was in a foreign place, that fact didn’t really make itself known at any point during the festivities.

It’s all in the company.

My program organized an extravagant feast for us. They ordered twelve turkeys, thirty pounds of mashed potatoes, and enough green beans to match. They also ordered enough meat and fruit pies to feed half of Petersburg. ...continue reading "A Russian Thanksgiving"

Study Abroad and Diplomacy

AdminDecember 5, 2012December 14, 2018

By tokyostyle101

Event planning in Japan is certainly not the same as it is in the United States. Posting bills with event details cannot take place without the approval of three offices, an electronic method of information dissemination does not exist and I had to use a fax for the first time since I was eight.

This technologically advanced country has some very interesting bureaucratic processes that perhaps Americans would see as unnecessary and inefficient but is seen in the Japanese eye as a way to ensure quality effort and care is put into everything. Thus far, this has been one of the biggest challenges I have faced with planning events for my work with TOMODACHI. ...continue reading "Study Abroad and Diplomacy"

2 weeks left!

AdminDecember 5, 2012December 14, 2018

By ecirrincione

I am now coming into my last two weeks volunteering with the Mubarrat Um El Hossain. This week in class we are busy doing class presentations and we will have our final exams next week. I am excited for it, but I hope that they will prepare! It is hard because we do not have that much time together.

Teaching English was the volunteer opportunity that I was hoping to get; I have such a passion for language and I know that English is in high demand. When I arrived in Jordan, I noticed how eager people were to practice their English with me. The amount of students that tried to get into the class also confirmed my belief that it is important to teach English. ...continue reading "2 weeks left!"

Culture Shock

AdminDecember 4, 2012December 14, 2018

By oncptime

The brochures warned me that something like this might happen.

These people, they’re…different than I am. Their music is foreign to my ears. They use phrases that I’m not entirely familiar with. I can’t make sense of their senses of style and I struggle to understand their jokes. Lost in translation does not describe.

I’ve expressed this to death to anyone willing to listen from back home and to the few Florentines I’ve met around town.

“I know.” My friend Stefano states flatly in exasperated English. “That’s why we’re going out tonight. Now no more Italian please, you need to practice more.”

You see it’s not the Italians I’m having difficulty with. They’re fine. They like olive oil, I like olive oil—it’s all very simpatico. It’s my American roommates that I’m finding myself at odds with.

...continue reading "Culture Shock"

Every Little Bit

AdminDecember 4, 2012December 14, 2018

By hfirlein

A few weekends ago, my housemates and I went back to the township of Strandfontein to visit the informal settlement that we had made food for previously. This time, instead of making the curry, we delivered and served it to the residents of Klapteinsklip. We stopped at Auntie C’s to pick up curry and fat cook, and then drove about ten minutes away to a small, one-room community hall. Children had gathered outside, and while a few people went inside to set up the food and chairs, my housemates and I sang a few American summer camp songs with the kids. They were pretty shy at first, and we looked a little crazy, jumping around and singing, but eventually they warmed up to us and joined in. The Macarena was especially popular! ...continue reading "Every Little Bit"

Defining “Environment” in the Valpo Surf Project

AdminDecember 3, 2012December 14, 2018

By bbuck92

A Challenge in my project, which talks extensively about stewardship and caring for the environment, has been the simple act of defining the "environment" or "nature" that the Valpo Surf Project seeks to protect. In the search for such a definition I turned to an activity I read about during my research for the project.

In the introduction to “In Search of Nature” writer William Cronon describes an activity which helped him and his co-writers to work toward an an understanding of nature in its many forms. This “Found Object” activity, in which every participant brought an object or memory to the discussion which to them best represented “Nature,” gave Cronon and his roundtable points of reference to the various understandings and preconceptions of nature that the group held. ...continue reading "Defining “Environment” in the Valpo Surf Project"