Author: Claire Aubin

Learning About Human Rights in Guatemala

Posted on by Claire Aubin

When I left to Guatemala I only had a small idea what to expect. I hadn’t met any of my classmates that were going and I only met one of the three professors that were going to be down there too. I never questioned going down to Guatemala and I’m really IMG_1031glad I selected this country and class. My goal was to go down there and practice my Spanish speaking abilities. I got so much more than just to practice my Spanish. I saw places that were unbelievable and I met people and locals down there that I now consider my friends. Besides that, the class itself was like nothing I’ve ever done and that made it an unforgettable experience.

The first day I was there they handled me a map and it told me how to get around town, how to get to class, and where to find everything I needed. Everything in Antigua is very close and walk able. The word ‘map’ is a bit of an understatement, it was a piece a paper that was printed and the street names were barely legible without a magnifying glass. This map also had my address on it and a highlighted route from my home to the classroom. I got to my home first and my host father, Mario, insisted that I go see the city and from there I knew him and me were going to get along great. I only had a few hours before dinner and I was just going to walk to class and walk right back, because the highlighted route seemed the easiest to follow. I got lost and I loved it. I wouldn’t use the word lost, because you really can’t get lost in Antigua, all the roads lead to a familiar landmark. By the time I knew it, I stopped using the map and started to use buildings to get me where I was going, I used the beautiful arch to let me know where I was, I used churches, restaurants, anything to remind me where I was and by the end of the first week I’ve seen all of Antigua and it was such a magnificent city.10622871_910897005632779_2842123109502099810_n

Class was twice a day everyday unless we left for the day for a fieldtrip. I’ve never been a class like this before. This class will be hard to forget. We would read an article or a chapter or two from a book then we would discuss it in class and there was only eight of us in the class the discussions were intense. We would talk about a certain place and by the end of the week we were out in Guatemala City or another city visiting the place we just talked about all week. Another amazing thing is that we would talk about a certain person and their role in the human rights in Guatemala and they would come in, that was wonderful and I met some people that I didn’t even know existed and heard their stories and what they fought for and the obstacles they went through, they were a great inspiration. I’m very thankful I was able to hear their story and able to meet them, which was absolutely my favorite part of the class.

IMG_1197       This was a first time experience for me and I will never forget it. I came home and told everyone about my trip, the class was a bit gloomy but it was a real topic that not many people, especially in the U.S., speak of and I’m glad I heard the story and can now share it with people in my life. I will never forget my host family because they were always so happy and they always wanted to talk to me and ask about my life in the U.S. It wasn’t a culture shock with my host family it was more of a culture fusion because they brought me in with excitement and open arms and were puzzled to know everything they could about me, it was the same for me with them. I would like to thank the UO Latin American Studies (LAS) Program and the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies (CLLAS) so much for aiding me on this study abroad class of a lifetime.

– Robert Julio, Human Rights in Guatemala

Lost in Translation

Posted on by Claire Aubin

It was still the first week in Italy and I did not speak nearly as well as I do now. I wanted to do the “When In Rome” thing and try all of the local customs, as one should when studying abroad. Right outside of the CIEE building where we had just finished our first day of orientation was an Italian bar.

It was early, I was tired, and we were in Italy. Obviously the bar was summoning me to its fine Italian brew. My new friends and I wandered over to the bar. I was the first to order. I am not a big coffee drinker: I know very little about American coffee, much less the seemingly endless varieties Italian bars have to offer. All I knew at the time was that if I was going to get into this coffee thing I was going to have to take baby steps. The first coffees needed to have copious amounts of milk. Earlier in the week I had tried a Latte Macchiato. It was a good mix of coffee and milk but I figured that I could use a bit more milk. So I found a friendly name on the menu and asked the barman, “Cos’è un Latte Bianco?” (What is a “latte bianco”?)

I knew I had nailed the question when he answered rapid-fire style,“Un latte bianco è una tazza di latte caldo. Ne vuoi uno?”

As I alluded to before, I spoke a little bit of Italian when I arrived in September but just was not able to completely comprehend his response. In fact, I did not really hear much of anything. I just smiled and nodded, then looked at the girl next to me. She was not really paying attention. Again, this was the first week and my new friend next to me was really cute, so I decided that I preferred to not embarrass myself by asking for clarification. Instead, I just nodded, “Si, lo prendo.”

I thought, what’s the worst that can happen? He gives me too strong of a coffee while I look awesome speaking Italian with the barman in front of this girl? Well worth the risk of getting even the worst coffee in my book.

As the barman reaches under the counter to grab an empty glass, the girl asks me what I had ordered. I come clean: “I’m not really sure, I asked him what a Latte Bianco was and he said something about milk. I think it’s got a lot of milk and a little bit of coffee.”A lot of milk indeed.

Before Krista can respond we both watch the barman take the empty glass, fill it completely with warm milk, and put it on the counter in front of us. “€1.20,” he says with a smile. Krista starts laughing and I grin sheepishly while I pull my wallet out. So that’s how I paid $1.50 for a warm glass of milk at 9am on my third day abroad.

To me, this story sums up my time abroad. Not in the sense that the majority was lost in translation but rather that I was prepared for struggles and failure yet would be willing to shake it off in an effort to improve my Italian and experience everything this country offers. I knew it would not be easy living in a foreign country where my mother tongue is not universal; in fact, that was one of the main reasons I was attracted to this opportunity in the first place.

Studying abroad is about losing things in translation, not understanding cultural differences, and flat out looking foolish at times. That is just the way it is. The best way to handle that is to just relax, laugh off the awkwardness, and get back on the horse for another ride. I knew that before I committed to studying abroad and my thoughts on the matter have not wavered in the year since. This experience at the bar early in my year abroad just worked to reinforce that idea in my head and set the tone for an incredibly rewarding time in Italy. After all, studying abroad is about appreciating one moment outside of your comfort zone after another. That, and enjoying a warm glass of milk once in a while.

– Beau Battista, Italy

Culture and Changes in St. Petersburg

Posted on by Claire Aubin

Moving to St. Petersburg, Russia for four months lovingly ripped me away from all I had been surrounded by while growing up in Oregon. A person’s beliefs are greatly shaped by their family, location, and culture, and I was raised with very similar beliefs to nearly everyone with whom I interacted. Many people who are born, raised, and stay within the same region for a long period of time may never truly be exposed to differing beliefs from their own. Once a person travels or moves to a different region and is exposed to people of different cultures, there can be real culture shock upon realizing how and why beliefs can differ. This was the case for me when I began traveling around the world, meeting people from different cultures and opening my eyes to new beliefs and values.

It was not that I didn’t know that these different values existed, but staying within your own community truly can convince you that the beliefs that you were raised on are the “correct” ones; being surrounded by those with the same beliefs as you for a long time can instill a disrespect, or even hatred, for the “incorrect” views of others. Although meeting different people and being exposed to new ideas and beliefs does not necessarily have to make you question or change your own beliefs, having a different perspective can help you develop empathy to see differing beliefs as two sides of a story rather than “correct” or “incorrect.”

Learning all this out in the real world rather than in a classroom has made all the difference in opening up my perspectives – no matter how often we learn about different cultures and worldviews in class, there’s no experience like actually meeting people who are completely different from you and learning about their lives and beliefs. As I prepare to graduate from college and move on into the real world, I realize that having a global perspective is one of the most useful tools is pursuing any career, especially my future profession in international politics. I believe that this is absolutely the most significant learning experience from my time abroad and that these newfound ideas will follow and shape me for the rest of my life.

Nadine Astrakhan, St. Petersburg, Russia

Meeting Idols, Getting Involved

Posted on by Claire Aubin

I loved everyone in our group of nine, but Adrienne has to be my favorite. Everyone was there in London to learn more about theater costuming and historical clothing, but Adrienne and I were passionate about the subject in serious way. At least once we both threw ourselves on a museum floor to look at the insides of an eighteenth century gown. We got in numerous animated discussions standing in front of paintings, conjecturing at the structure of clothes.

One day she told me “I e-mailed Cathy Hay. She’d love some help.” I think I made some kind of high pitched noise. Cathy Hay is famous in costuming circles for running a subscriber website that is a compendium of historical sewing knowledge, as well as for her ambitious projects. Her latest effort is a reproduction of a 1902 Worth dress that is encrusted in silver and goldwork embroidery. It had started as an inventive for a fundraiser to help victims of the Haiti Earthquake, but Cathy quickly realized that it would be impossible to finish the dress in any reasonable amount of time by herself, and at that point in time, she had blown out her wrists embroidering.

Adrienne and I picked a day to go and booked train tickets to Nottingham. We were both nervous and excited to not only meet an idol of ours, but to help on this project we had watched come together through Cathy’s blog. An hour’s travel through London, three hours on the train, and an additional hour on public transportation through to the suburbs of Nottingham and we arrived at a parking lot where Cathy picked us up. She greeted us warmly and thrust bottles of water at us, which I thought was very thoughtful.

On the car ride to her house, we managed to not make fools of ourselves. She introduced us to her cats, and her partner Demi and then showed up pictures of the original dress and we discussed how it might be constructed. Then she took us into her workroom and showed us her project. I had seem bit she had finished online, but it looked much smaller in person. And so much shinier. It was then I realized how much of an undertaking this project really was. I may or may not have squealed “Oh my gosh it’s real! Can I touch it? I’m gonna touch it.” Cathy probably thought I was insane.

Then she gave us a demonstration the embroidery process. It was much simpler than I had feared. (This is the point where I admit that I have no patience for embroidery, but I really wanted to get up close to this dress.) Adrienne and I set to work for a couple hours. Cathy made us take breaks, as well as feeding us dinner. She told us about how weird it was to be famous in certain contexts, when she herself felt incredibly ordinary and like she was just doing the things that excited her. I think it was then that I realized how accessible the famous and extraordinary can be. They’re just people, pursuing their passions.

Cathy and Demi took us back to the train station, hugged us goodbye and promised to keep in touch. Adrienne and I arrive back in London close to Midnight on that Sunday, completely excited and satisfied.

Two or three weeks ago, Cathy formally announced plans to send parts of the dress worldwide, so that it could be completed that much faster. I’m absolutely going to help.

Elina Levkovskaya, London, United Kingdom

Making New Friends and Family in Buenos Aires

Posted on by Claire Aubin

Life is full of contradictions. I knew that my experience in Buenos Aires would push me to be more independent, but I never guessed that I would gain a new family and a network of relationships that would teach me about the importance of trusting and depending on those around me. My first days living in the city were exhilarating; taking the bus by myself for the first time without my host sister, ordering food at restaurants, and buying photocopies of course readings were really—as opposed to challenging my language skills—all mini-tests of my confidence. In an unfamiliar environment, I chose to throw myself into these situations and had to allow myself the possibility of failure. On more than one occasion I stared awkwardly out of the bus windows trying to determine where my stop was (or couldn’t even find the bus stop to get on the “colectivo” (bus) in the first place) but I was so proud when I finally reached my destination without any help. Once I was more comfortable getting around the city, I chose to participate in a tour of the Boca Juniors (one of the most popular futbol/soccer teams in the city) training center and take a clinic with one of their junior coaches, went to Yom Kippur services at a local Jewish congregation, started taking an improvisation-acting workshops, and began to attend weekly tango classes. In order to take advantage of these opportunities, I had to take the initiative to show up alone, practically without knowing anyone beforehand. Sometimes being independent wasn’t easy, though, and I slowly began to realize how much I had taken my University community for granted. The last time I truly was forced out of my comfort zone was freshman year, but even then, I was only one state away from my native California, and we lived within the protective bubble of our dorm building and the greater UO campus. So, amidst my early adventures in Buenos Aires, I had a wonderful host sister, made a few friends and met some really great people, but I still felt like I was missing my community.

Ironically, it was my independence that eventually led me to find my two new families in  Argentina: Matemurga and a group of international friends. As a theatre major, I knew that I wanted to see different performances in the city and participate in a form of theatre that is distinct from the forms and styles with which we typically produce theatre in the United States. Instead of choosing an internship position coordinated by my host organization, I sought out an independent internship with Matemurga, a community theatre group, or teatro comunitario, based in the Villa Crespo neighborhood. The first day I arrived to watch a rehearsal, I found many people coming up to introduce themselves, and by the next week they were greeting me as if I was a long-lost friend. Through this experience, I not only collaborated on their new performance Herido Barrio and learned about the successes and struggles of producing theatre, but I learned about myself and about being a part of a multi-generational supportive organization whose focus is theatre “by the community, for the community”. Coincidentally, I first experienced teatro comunitario with another student, Fanny, from the University of Buenos Aires who ended up becoming part of my group of international friends. In the coming weeks, I met her other roommates and one of their cousins, and we bonded over a love of music and sense of humor. One of the most special experiences with them, though, was being able to share dinners with each other where we would cook foods from our native countries: the United States, Peru, France, and the island Reunion. If I hadn’t been confident enough to make conversation with Fanny that first day in class, I might have never had the opportunity to share my adventures with these amazing and inspiring people.

Unfortunately, joining these communities made leaving Buenos Aires bittersweet, and I left knowing that, even with Facebook and Skype, it can be difficult to stay in touch. Studying abroad gave me a new sense of independence and confidence in myself, but also an awareness of diverse cultures, histories, and the importance of teamwork and community. I hope that my new friends and family know that they are always welcome if they come to the United States, and I am filled with gratitude at their generosity and love and for welcoming me into their lives.

Ariella Wolfe, Buenos Aires, Argentina