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Summer 2023 was the busiest period I’ve had post 2020 pandemic. I jumped into my SLA grant just a few short days after wrapping up two months of fieldwork in Nigeria for my Masters of Global Affairs i-Lab project. While the summer was hectic, I am so glad I worked diligently to make sure I had time for language learning. My month in Guatemala was a wonderful experience and I am so lucky I was able to return to Antigua to continue studying Spanish.

While mentally taxing some days, I’m glad I pushed myself to take six hours of private lessons a day and live with a host family. This commitment allowed me the structure and immersion I needed to push my Spanish skills forward. One of the biggest things I noticed was how much my confidence grew since I was in Guate in January (I will credit Intermediate Spanish II at Notre Dame for that) and how it grew over the course of the month. By the end of the trip I was confident ordering food in restaurants, negotiating with shop owners, asking for help or directions while traveling, and striking up conversations with new people. This gained confidence was a huge win for me because my own fear of failure has been the primary factor holding me back from further learning.

The SLA grant has pushed me to seek future immersive, language learning opportunities. I am in the process of applying for a Fulbright Research Grant to return to Guatemala next year as well as a Boren Graduate Fellowship. Both would allow me to conduct research on the intersection of environmental and development issues while continuing to improve my language skills. I am also excited to continue weekly Spanish tutoring with a CSLC tutor and practice conversation with my three housemates who are all fluent/native speakers. The SLA grant reminded me that opportunities to learn Spanish are out there if I am bold and committed enough to apply for and take advantage of them.

Studying Spanish in Guatemala this summer may not have changed my life per say, but it has certainly pushed me further out of my comfort zone into a level of language learning I have never achieved until this point in my life. I also was lucky to have developed some wonderful relationships with my host family and teachers who will always hold a special place in my heart. For that, I am incredibly grateful to the SLA program and CSLC for the opportunity to learn new skills, even later in life as a 25-year-old graduate student.

It has been more than a week since I have returned home to the United States. Although my previous plan was to come home right after my course finished, my family surprised me with a trip through eastern Europe. As such, I was able to experience France, Spain, and Great Britain in addition to the countries I visited over the summer. In total, I saw Germany, Austria, Czechia, Denmark, France, Spain, and the UK.

Before my trip, I expected Europe to be very well put together, not as crazy as the United States can be, and a very easy switch from life in the US. However, after about a week of living there, none of my expectations held up. Due to the war, COVID, local political disagreements, etc., Germany seemed like another country with imperfections (shocker, right?). Although they might not have been as disorganized and divided as the US, many people in Germany shared their opinions and disagreed with one another on every topic.

But looking back, I’m happy there is conflict, disagreements, and imperfections. After all, what would the world be like if it was perfect. In my eyes, boring. The exciting thing about life is our differences as people and finding commonalities despite them. My experience in Germany gave me numerous opportunities to find commonalities and share in them, but also to recognize differences and celebrate them. Not every cultural difference was a positive one (like the fact German stores are only open to 8!), but they put a spin on life.

Before signing off, I’d like to say thank you to everyone who helped me discern and complete my journey. Thank you to Mrs. Eva Hoeckner for telling me about SLA. Thank you to Professor Robert Norton for inspiring me to see places outside of Leipzig and inspiring me to develop me German further than I normally would at Notre Dame. Thank you to Professor Denise DellaRossa for assisting me in my search for housing, the right program, and everything else related to Germany. Thank you to Mrs. Mary Davis for helping me look deeper into my experience and see the lessons within my experience. And finally, thank you to all of the sponsors from the CSLC and Max Kade Foundation who assisted my journey financially and made this dream become reality. I cannot thank everyone at Notre Dame enough.

With that, I’m signing off.

Sincerely, John Hammerschmitt

It has been about a week since I finished classes in Salamanca. Right now I am in Toledo about to start my semester abroad! With this said, I feel so much more prepared for classes in Toledo than I did six weeks ago.

The last six weeks have done a lot to build up my confidence in my ability to interact with people in Spanish. My experience with Spanish in Mexico during the Center for Social Concerns Fellowship was much more stressful than Salamanca partly because I was very fearful and self-conscious of the mistakes I made while speaking. Since Mexico had been somewhat difficult to adjust to, I expected that Spain would be just as hard to acclimate to as well. Surprisingly, it was much easier for me to adjust than I had initially thought. This may be because Spain, while different, still reminds me of the U.S. in a lot of ways. Furthermore, in Mexico, I had already experienced the initial shock of being placed in an environment where I could not rely on English, so this was less nerve-racking when it happened in Spain.

Besides language acquisition, the other goal I mentioned in my first blog post was improving my ability to work through situations using a different cultural mindset. Since there were people from all over the world studying at Colegio Delibes, I was fortunate enough to become acquainted with many interesting individuals who had different perspectives from mine. While I definitely think I am more cognizant of what people outside the U.S. think about Americans and why they may think differently about certain things, I don’t think I am at the point where I can unconsciously “change” my cultural mindset. I think when I wrote this goal I inherently assumed I would be completely changed by my time in Spain. While I definitely have had a formative experience, my initial impression of new places and situations is primarily influenced by the culture I grew up in and my identity as an American. With this said, my ability to reflect on past experiences from new perspectives and understand others from different cultures has grown. 

During my time in Toledo, I hope to learn even more about the language, culture, and history of Spain. Muchísimas gracias por el apoyo del CSC! The world truly is our classroom!

From Warsaw Chopin Airport my time in Armenia already seems like a distant dream. Or maybe that’s because my first flight back to the US was delayed over 27 hours, and I haven’t slept more than 12 hours within the last 60. In other words, perhaps the summer feels like a distant past because I’ve been trapped in an airport nightmare for far too long; like I’ve been subjected to some sort of back-to-reality prank. Or because having left Armenia, Russian is no longer the default language.

As I reflect on my time in Armenia in this half-asleep state, I feel really proud of how much I’ve learned. I am proud of the confidence I gained speaking Russian; of the fact that in my last days I had been consistently mistaken for a native speaker (don’t be fooled I’ve just learned to mask my issues with Russian phonetics), and the fact I was able to offer my fellow travelers simultaneous Russian-Polish-English translation in a time of crisis, even after being awake for 24 hours. The airport staff made quiet, almost secret, announcements about the long delay exclusively in Armenian, and I had to pry the information out of them in Russian to pass it along in other languages—like a game of испорченный телефон, or broken telephone, only I got it right. It was a true test of my skills, and I am proud to say I passed!

In some ways, Russian comes more easily to me now than Polish, and I’ve noticed that under pressure I’ve started using Russian conjugation patterns for Polish verbs. Is this because I know more Russian than Polish? No, of course not! Polish is my native language, my first language. Rather, it is the result of a language immersion program, in a city where the language is spoken everywhere, where you can hear it everywhere you go—and I am so grateful I got to experience that.

But, will every immersive language program yield this kind of result? The short answer is, это зависит от ситуации—it depends on the situation. Most importantly, it depends on you, the learner. I left my husband, dogs, and cat this summer with a mission: to get as close to fluency in Russian as humanely possible in two months. I thought eight weeks away from my family needs to bring me to a comfortable level of speaking and reading Russian, if it’s going to be worth it. So I spent almost every waking minute working on my Russian: small talk with staff in the local cafe where I ate every day; more small talk with the staff and other guests at my hostel; watching interviews with Russian journalists and politicians; reading and listening to (audio)books; carefully doing my homework every day; engaging in long and serious debates on various issues in class; joking with Alyona, our teacher, about Eastern Europe; going to every event I had the energy for. It was draining, truly exhausting. But I will miss it. I will miss speaking this language every day. I will miss the friends I’ve made in this language. And I will miss thinking in this language, as I transition out of Slavic syntax and back into English.

***
On my last evening in Yerevan, I went to the Ukrainian charity with Alyona to eat proper homemade borscht, to donate money to the shelter for war refugees, and to hang out with her one last time. As we sat in the garden, sweating from the hot soup in almost 40 degree heat (that’s Celsius, google it), we talked about what we dream of. We talked about the uncertainty of planning for the future in this day and age, and how you can do everything right and still not get to where you want to be—and sometimes that’s just how it is. For both of us, the dream is to live and work in Ukraine at some point in the near future. This wasn’t the first time we talked about it, but it was the saddest, as we tried to figure out when and how we can meet again. If Ukraine were possible, we’d both be friends there; and when it becomes possible again, I’m sure we will be.

And as we said our goodbyes and hugged by the gates of the shelter, we both cried. We cried for having met in the circumstances we did, and how they brought us to this inevitable goodbye. Alyona is truly one of the kindest and most generous people I have met in recent times. I cannot be more grateful for having spent the summer learning from her, and getting to know her on a more personal level. I will miss her.

But we’ll keep in touch in the language she taught me this summer, and I’m sure we’ll meet again, in Armenia or perhaps in Ukraine.