Category: Uncategorized

When I returned to Maximo Nivel this summer I was excited to learn that my morning private lessons would be with Alma, the same teacher I had when I was here in January. However, I also learned that I would have a new teacher: Arecely. I was excited to reunite with Alma and was curious to meet a new teacher.

I remember my first Spanish lesson with Arecely vividly because of how personal it was and how much she opened up to me right away. Shortly after basic introductions Arecely began sharing very intimate details about her life and family. I don’t recall if I asked a question that lead into this conversation or if she was the one who lead the conversation in that direction but I remember how stunned I was with how vulnerable she was being with me without knowing hardly anything about me. She shared everything from her experiences as a young girl getting pregnant and being pressured to get married and have more children, her divorce from her husband and experiences as a single mother, and her ex-husbands struggle with alcoholism until he passed away a year and half ago.

In the moment when Arecely was sharing these personal life details I was in a state of shock. I wanted to show my support and care for what she was sharing but I also didn’t want her to feel like she had to keep talking about these topics if they were emotionally distressing to her. I realized my limitations in the language in that I couldn’t express such complex reactions and emotions in support and care for her more than saying “lo siento” or “que triste/horible”. I began to question why she was sharing this information with me so quickly and what her motives were – did she want sympathy, to connect, to build trust, to explain herself? I wasn’t sure. My reaction revealed that I am a much more guarded person who shies away from being open and vulnerable with others from the onset and who needs more time and trust built to feel comfortable talking about my personal life and struggles.

In the moment I had difficulty processing all the information Arecely was giving me and I also felt very insecure with my ability to respond and react. I was overwhelmed by the information she shared. Looking back on the incident, I feel grateful that Arecely felt comfortable enough to share her story with me. Reflecting on it, I believe that being a young woman, just a few years older than her daughters, made Arecely feel like she could share with me the things that had impacted her life and made her the woman she is today with the beliefs she holds. Being women around mother-daughter age who spend 2 and 4 hours 1:1 together every day respectively, I definitely feel like my relationship with both Arecely and Alma is similar to mother-daughter relationship. Because we have private lessons we are able to speak more openly, share our real opinions, and go deeper with one another. I feel very lucky to have developed open and honest relationship with my teachers that are of course professional, but which maintain a more personal feel.

In looking back on the incident and describing it, I realize that Arecely was sharing who is, her story, and what is important to her (her family). For her, these things were simply facts and experiences she has had and I believe her intention was to tell me more about herself so I could get to know her better. While I generally find myself filtering quite a bit when I meet new people so as to control their perception of me, Arecely had no filter on her life and was being open and honest. Generally, I would say I have found this to be a common trend with the Guatemalan’s I have met, particularly when we are able to connect in Spanish. Alma has also opened up to me about the death of her father, her previous relationships, and her relationship with her family including a brother who she doesn’t speak to. She even often uses these personal experiences and stories as examples of different grammar rules in Spanish. Overall, I have found Guatemalans to be very open and willing/excited to share about their lives, family, culture, and beliefs.

Especially when traveling abroad and running into many small critical incidences a day, I think the DIVE exercise is a great one to use at the end of a long day or week to begin to reflect, unpack, and sort through those incidences to make better sense of them and increase our intercultural understanding.

As an Eastern European, a historian of Eastern Europe, and a speaker of three Eastern European languages, it is impossible not to think about and see Russia’s war on Ukraine in everything. As an immigrant it is also impossible not to think about the migration effects of this war every time I meet a new person.

Alyona, my Russian teacher and a doctor of Slavic linguistics in Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish, hails from Komsomolsk on the Amura, a city in the Russian Far East, a seven-day train ride from Moscow and 24 hours from Vladivostok. She’s a dedicated expert teacher of all three languages whose dream it was to live and work in Ukraine—her first love. In January 2022 she was getting ready to leave her job in St. Petersburg and move to Ukraine. She had spent the past few months working on her CV and applying for university positions across the border. Yet, on the morning of February 24th 2022, it was the Russian army crossing the border into Ukraine, aiming to destroy, rather than academics like Alyona, who were hoping to build. Instead of Ukraine, Alyona picked Armenia, where, apart from teaching in the Russian Language Summer School, she teaches Ukrainian to Russian immigrants who want to build bridges with Ukrainian victims of Russian aggression in their own language.

Olena, a Ukrainian woman from Odesa, runs Dom Ukrainskyi/Ukrainian House—a charity focused on providing aid to war refugees from Ukraine. Unlike in many other places around Europe, the Armenian government provides no financial support for Ukrainian war refugees; the Ukrainian House is funded entirely by donations from the well-meaning public. In a past life, Olena was a professor of economics in Odesa, living Alyona’s dream life of working in higher education in Ukraine. When the Russian troops invaded Ukraine, she too picked Armenia as her home. Alyona and Olena met at the Ukrainian House, they’ve become close friends through their shared dedication to Ukraine and to peace, and they’re both building something powerful here in the basement of the Ukrainian House.

A Russian tourist in his fifties (we’ll call him Kolya) came to Armenia from Khabarovsk, only a few hours from Alyona’s hometown, and a place where she also lived for nine years. Armenia wasn’t Kolya’s first choice either. He initially wanted to travel to Southern Europe: Croatia, maybe Italy. But Russian tourists, those without much money that is, are not allowed in those places since the war began. So Kolya had to recalibrate, and eventually settled on Armenia. A school janitor from the Russian Far East, so far from the centre of Russian decision-making, he too feels the effects of the war. He has no internet or digital TV at home, only cable news: Russia One, RT, RIA Novisti, the greatest hits of Russian propaganda. But he’s very aware of it all, a curious, sensitive man—“teach me something Polish and something Ukrainian!” he asked me when we first met and I shared my vareniki and sour cream with him. He wrote everything I told him down in tiny cursive in a purple notebook. He asked me why I’m studying Russian and recommended me scores of Russian writers. Sergei Yesenin, he said, a great poet. “I’m no patriot,” he said when we were saying our goodbyes, gifting me a white, blue, and red ribbon.

***

During my first visit to the Ukrainian House I bought a necklace in the colors of the Ukrainian flag. During my last, I picked up three Russian books and carried them home in a blue and yellow knitted bag. The charity had to fight their building administration to keep the Ukrainian flag in their window, yet Russian flags are everywhere in the city, both on official and private buildings, just as Russian is heard on every street corner and in every shop—Ukrainian only a fragmentary distortion of the city’s aural scape. Most people here engage with Russian culture and history every day: free theatre performances of “Master and Margarita;” Russian expat performers playing in bars; Russian film screenings at the Armenian “Golden Apricot” Film Festival. Yet the majority don’t think about their love for all things Russian in any depth. The people who do are learning Ukrainian at the Ukrainian House.

***

“Moya liubimaya strana” or “my favorite country” is a new book by a daring and accomplished Russian journalist, formerly of Novaya Gazeta, Elena Kostiuchenko. The book has had difficulty finding a Russian publisher. “It’s too critical,” she said in a recent interview. The message of this book, too radical for regular Russian media, is that only love for your country can save it from fascist dictatorship. That loving your country means loud criticism—means fighting for it in the trenches, not with other peaceful nations but with those who want to shoot down all critical voices. That patriotism without loving criticism is fascism, and that Russia descended into it long ago. The way out, Kostiuchenko argues, is radical love. The premise reminds me of Svetlana Aleksievich’s “U voiny ne zhenskoe litso,” or “war has an unwomanly face” rendered in official English translation as “the unwomanly face of war” a translation which, in my opinion, lacks the power of the original grammatical construction. Aleksievich wrote about the suffering, dirt, death, and radical love that Soviet women gifted their country during World War II, when they worked as snipers, medics, drivers, radio liaisons. Ukraine has already gone through this radical love phase in 2014, during the Maidan Revolution of Dignity. Russia hasn’t. Not only that, but it is also punishing Ukraine for that radical love with war.

When Kolya said he’s no patriot he meant he does not support Russian aggression in Ukraine, and when he pressed the ribbon into my hand quoting Yesenin he meant he still loves Russia—just not yet radically.

Hello again!

I am officially entering my last two weeks in Madrid. It truly feels like I just started my first day of classes, while at the same time I feel like I’ve lived in Madrid for years. Since my last blogpost I’ve traveled to Alicante and Amsterdam, and started my July Spanish course on contemporary Spanish novels. I’m now halfway through this class which has been muchhhh harder than my June courses. Although I’m grateful for the challenge, the class has made me realize how far I am from mastering the language. The first day of the July course was a difficult one. I had taken Profesor Ramón’s class in June, and expected something of the same intermediate level. However, we all introduced ourselves on the firsts day and I was discouraged to find that almost every student in the class was fluent in Spanish and grew up speaking it with their parents.

When each student was presenting in front of the class, I noticed most of my classmates spoke with natural Spanish accents and were able to joke with Profe Ramón while presenting. Everyone shared their family backgrounds, which ranged from growing up in Miami with Mexican parents to being born and raised in Buenos Aires. For me, as someone with no Hispanic background and no experience speaking Spanish at home, this was incredibly intimidating. For my classmates, speaking Spanish seems to be something that comes naturally. The subtle jokes, fill in words, and mannerisms seemed at first to be second nature to everyone around me, while I was stuck typing the phrases I heard into Google translate.

Of course, these are all assumptions I jumped to on the first day of class. Two weeks later, I’ve found my footing a bit more and realized my classmates aren’t as intimidating as I once thought. Last week I took a wine tasting class with other Nebrija students and was sat next to Kylie, a girl in my class. I told her how afraid I am to speak in class for fear of messing up in a room of fluent students. To my surprise, Kylie shared my exact fears. She told me that although her parents are Hispanic, she’s also only learned Spanish in school. We bonded over the fear of making mistakes in front of our fluent classmates, and agreed to both speak in class the next day. Since learning that other students in the class also feel intimidated and aren’t as fluent in Spanish as I had assumed, the class has gotten easier. I’ve gained the confidence to speak in class and ask questions that may seem elementary or embarrassing. I’ve also learned that most of the students in my class who grew up speaking Spanish at home have little background in reading and writing Spanish, putting me at a similar level to them. Overall, speaking with my classmates and expressing my doubts has helped me realize that I do deserve to be in this class, despite my feelings of imposter syndrome in the beginning.

Outside of class, first two weeks of July have been incredible. Last weekend my friend Chelsea and I took a weekend trip to Alicante. We took a tram up to a small beach town called Villajoyosa with coves and hidden playitas like Playa Bol Nou and had a fantastic beach day. I loved seeing this coastal and less touristy part of Spain, and it was especially great getting to escape the horrible Madrid heat. This weekend I flew up to Amsterdam to visit my cousin Ocean who I haven’t seen since we were 11. This was a bucketlist item for my summer in Madrid, because we’ve talked every day for the last 9 years!! Although Amsterdam was absolutely incredible, I found myself missing speaking and listening to Spanish everywhere. After 3 days I was ready to go back to Madrid and continue immersing myself in Spanish. I can’t believe I only have 2 weeks left in this beautiful city. Every day I feel more at home in Madrid, and I am so grateful to have this opportunity to live and study here.

Until next time!

Eva Marie

Playa Bol Nou, Costa Blanca, Spain

Some delicious Colombian food for lunch with friends after class!!

Dinner with Ocean in Amsterdam

A book a picked up to read on the metro. Too advanced for me right now but one day 🙂

After returning from Italy in mid July, I had a few weeks to get my bearings before traveling to Ireland with my family. While my mom’s family is from Ireland and has spent considerable time there throughout my life, we haven’t been in fifteen years. All I remember from visiting when I was five is snippets of a windy beach, driving past sheep, and playing in my grandparents’ house. These small moments were what I based my expectations from for this trip, little did I know how different and more impactful this time would be. 

Obviously, Ireland and Italy are quite different. And staying on an island full of my mom’s cousins is not as shocking culturally for me as living in Siena. However, the lessons I learned through my SLA followed me through every day I spent in Achill. The rural town of Poll Raithní (Polranny) where my grandparents’ house is is a different world from my home in Cleveland. Situated on a bog before a mountain and the Achill Sound, a long dirt road away from all but the house my great grandparents built next door and the ruins of the one my great great grandparents built next to that. This adjustment period (US to Achill) was oddly more difficult for me than the adjustment to Italy because of how similar I expected this place to be to home and how wrong I was.

One night, one of my mom’s cousins dropped by with her family for tea and stories. Bridget was born in Cleveland, went to St Mary’s then Harvard for medical school, then moved to Ireland and settled down. Her daughter, Sorcha, who is my age, speaks Irish fluently and told me about the importance of preserving the language. After everything I learned through SLA and the modules, this conversation resonated deeper with me than I knew it would have three months ago. 

After their visit, I took extra care over the following days to look for the Irish being spoken and written around me. I know that my grandpa predominately spoke it here before immigrating to the US, and it seemed like many others of his generation are still speaking it around the island. There is also a large modern movement towards reinvigorating the language, every road sign is written in Irish (though often with the English translation underneath for tourists like me) and children are taught Irish in schools. Sorcha also told me about an Irish language summer camp she works at where children spend hours in the classroom learning and speaking Irish. It sounded very similar to my program in Italy, except at Sorcha’s you get sent home if you are caught speaking English 3 or more times. 

There is much more I could say about my time in Ireland and how it compares to my time in Italy. But overall the theme of language preservation and the culture stored within a language is the SLA lesson that stuck with me the most. I am looking forward to continuing with Italian this semester, but now I think I’ll start Irish too!