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Halfway done…

Hello!

I’ve officially lived in Madrid for over a month and what an incredible month its been! This 3rd blog post is coming to you all a bit late, but I’m excited to reflect on my first month in Madrid and some great conversations I’ve had with my host family about cultural differences between Spain and the US. Since we last spoke, I’ve said goodbye to my June courses, started my July course, gone on weekend trips to Valencia, Alicante, and Marrakech, and continued to grow closer with my host family and friends! 

My host brothers Alvaro and Nacho live in the UK and Canary Islands respectively, but they came to Madrid for a weekend in June and it was great getting to know them. Nacho is 17 and goes to an American school in the Canary islands, so he was very curious about my life in the US. His older brother Alvaro, who is the same age as me, just finished university in the UK and was curious about the differences in college experiences in the US vs the UK. Alvaro, Nacho and I talked all afternoon about our cultural differences, as well as comparing my life in the US to the assumptions they have from social media and tv shows. Nacho and Alvaro told me they grew up watching Disney and asked if I live in a cookie-cutter suburb like they saw on TV growing up. I showed them a picture of my house and it was hilarious to see how excited they were to see that my neighborhood is exactly like the ones they’ve seen on TV. We also talked about their perception of the US from what they see on the news and social media, and they asked if its true that students have active shooter drills at school. I’ve always assumed shooter drills were normal and universal, but to my surprise Nacho and Alvaro were shocked to hear that I’ve actually done a school shooter drill. When they think of the US, they think of school shootings, great TV, New York, and suburbia. Not too far off, I guess. 

In terms of my college experience, the main difference between universities in the states and in Europe is the culture and community that an American college campus provides. For Alvaro, as well as for my cousin Ocean who is studying at the University of Amsterdam, university is more a step towards a degree and less an important transitional period that comes from living in community. Both Alvaro and Ocean were fascinated by dorm culture and Notre Dame traditions, as these concepts were very foreign to them. My interpretation of their college experiences is that they seem to have already entered the young-adult-living-in-a-city life that I anticipate experiencing after graduating. When talking to Alvaro and Ocean, I had to keep reminding myself that we are the same age, because they seem years older than me since they’re already in the young adult chapter of their lives. 

It was eye-opening to talk to Alvaro and Nacho about their perceptions of the US, because I learned about what stands out about the US in positive and negative ways, and what seems normal to them as Spaniards. When they were visiting Madrid, Alvaro came out with my friends and me to a bar near Nebrija’s campus. We spent the entire night talking about our perceptions of the US and Spain, as well as his experience growing up in the Canary Islands. Alvaro told us that it is incredibly taboo to wave the Spanish flag in the Canary Islands, because since the Franco dictatorship the flag has become a symbol of Spanish nationalism and right-wing politics. I related to this, because I often make assumptions of Americans that I see proudly waving the American flag. I often associate pride in the flag with republican ideals, but some other friends who were conversing with Alvaro defended the flag as something that should be flown proudly. It was interesting to learn that controversy over the flag is common in other countries that have a history of being the oppressor, especially because my Colombian and Argentinian friends pointed out that they fly their flags proudly. 

Overall, my time in Madrid so far has been the best experience of my life. As I get closer to the end of my 8 weeks, I can’t imagine how difficult it will be to leave my host family, the friends I’ve made, and my daily routine of exploring cafes and museums around the city. As I write this, my friend Brian and I are sitting in a local cafe listening to the cafe’s frequentors share all the neighborhood drama. This little daily ritual will definitely be something I look back at fondly just months from now. 

Until next time! 

Eva Marie

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Post #2: Tags

The flight that I took to India landed in Delhi at around 8am, and for some unthought reason I had booked a connecting flight to Lucknow at 7pm. There would seem to be only a few situations where an eleven-hour layover is advisable, mine that day not being among them. When I stepped off a moving walkway near a decisive turn in the long unembellished arrival hallway, I was stopped by a man with a badge who asked for my passport and ticket. He thumbed from one to the other before handing both to someone standing behind a desk near the wall. This was a random COVID screening: I got in line. The passengers ahead of me one by one told their unwritten details to a man copying it down in black ink, organized rows filling up one below another in a register book. Immediately I felt the weight of this book’s thin ruled paper and the faint font of its headings. A smattering of the register books I had seen my name appear in the last time I was in India appeared in my mind: these had been authored and kept by security guards and hotel receptionists and schoolteachers. 

They told me I would get the result of my PCR test in five hours. Briefly carried by the momentum of getting through the final steps of arrival, I passed immigration and found my checked bag at the carousel, making my way through customs before realizing that I didn’t have a downloaded or printed copy of my booking confirmation for the second flight. I stood in what felt like a very narrow hallway between the secure area of the airport and the exit doors. My phone was still on airplane mode and I didn’t see any free Wi-Fi networks. I sat for almost an hour with a group of passengers who had missed their connecting flight: a woman with a loudspeaker was calling their names one by one. I eventually decided to make my way into the city by metro and go to the hotel I had stayed in the last time I was in Delhi: I could use their Wi-Fi and maybe reserve a room for a few hours to nap and shower. Following signs to the metro, I descended into the station and waited in line for a ticket. Once I found my way onto an inbound train, I stood near a door and held on to a support bar. Someone approached me and smiled cautiously as she peeled a cloth headrest cover off the back of my sweater: I saw the name of the airline on it and I realized I must have had this thing hanging off my back for the past two or three hours. Cringing, I thanked her and shook my head, feeling stupid. I eventually connected to a network at one of the metro stations and, after downloading my booking confirmation, changed my mind about the hotel and went back to the airport to wait there.

At the moment that this stranger peeled the headrest cover off my sweater I felt particularly lost and unprepared. I think it struck me then in some incipient way, and even more so now when I reflect on it, that solo travel is always some kind of a fiction, that you are of course always traveling with other people, even if you don’t know them. That maybe my feeling of being lost had more to do with a misperception that I needed to get through this long travel day on my own. This fiction of being required (or even able) to do things “on your own” of course being something that is culturally informed. The whole experience feels in retrospect like a useful metaphor in some way, that we carry around these markers without knowing they’re attached to us, that it takes someone else to let us know what we’re tagged with. Our attention is necessarily drawn to the explicit registrations of our most recognizable markers, our names in books and on tickets and in passports, but there is a whole simultaneous realm of these markers that we might not even notice unless someone lets us know.

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Viva Oaxaca!

Hey everyone! Simona here, writing my first blog post or my Summer Language Abroad Trip. I’m going from ethnographic fieldwork with midwives in California to Oaxaca, a colorful city tucked into the mountains of southern Mexico. During my time I’ll be improving my Spanish skills.

I’m so excited to be returning to Oaxaca, where I spent one month last summer during my first pilot study as a graduate student in anthropology. However, this trip will be different; while I look forward to catching up with the wonderful people I met last year, the focus of this trip will be language acquisition, rather than completing rigorous research goals. In light of this shift, I I’m keeping my expectations for this trip flexible. I plan to dedicate most of my time to Spanish classes, but I also aim to remain open to experiencing life as a local, since I will be staying with a host family for many weeks. This might include learning local songs, dances, cooking, and even herbal medicine since I am acquainted with traditional healers in the area.

As I embark on this trip, I’m reflecting on why I chose to apply for SLA and my desire to improve my Spanish. Almost halfway through this PhD journey, I feel I am becoming a stronger version of myself: a researcher, a doula (birth assistant), and a person dedicated towards cultivating mutual understanding and/or connection between people in the world. This is less of an expectation, but a motivator and a hope, that bettering my Spanish will help me be my best and most capable self in all of these roles. Being half Dominican, I also come from a Spanish-speaking culture on my mom’s side, and there is an aspect of reconnection with the language in which I spoke my first words. In Oaxaca, I hope to feel more like myself in many different ways.

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The Metro Station: The Pyramids to the Nile

I have walked to the pyramids every day for the last 3 weeks. Well, not exactly. The metro station that I start from every morning is a 15 minute walk away from my grandmother’s apartment, and coincidentally, it’s called “Al Ahram” which directly translates to “The Pyramids.” What luck! Now, on a more honest note, I actually have walked past the Nile every morning as well, its in my path. These last three weeks have been crazy. `I have experienced some of the hardest and some of the most fulfilling things I have encountered in my life within the city of Cairo so far. Class is going well, and I go 5 days a week for 4 hours a day, speaking only Arabic with my teachers. I have heaps of vocabulary to learn, and have gone through about 90 percent of the arabic grammar, in my opinion no small feat, but i know there is still much to go. The immersion occurring has also been a ridiculous experience. This is the first time I have seen my family in 6 years, and much has changed, both in me and them, but love reminds us quickly. On top of that, the last time I came I was 14, and frankly, my parents would shelter our experience pretty drastically. The trip was usually only 2 weeks, one week in Cairo, and another week on the coast somewhere on a nice beach vacation. Very different compared to this time, where I really live in the country and am not a tourist. I see the same faces daily in things like the gym I attend, I have built relationships with some of the people like my professors and other students who study in the Academy, and even have had the chance to befriend people like the florist who lives close to grandma’s Mister Samir. There is so much to write. I think I will have to break this up into parts.

Stop One:The walk to the Metro and boarding at Al Ahram Station
The first week was a completely new experience in every way. Everything that I thought I knew about the language or the culture was nearly thrown out, and the false level that I assumed I had was knocked down by more than half. Going to a country thinking that I’m at a high intermediate to be quickly reminded that I’m a high beginner/low intermediate at best was definitely a hard pill to swallow at first.
On top of that, navigating the metro system was no joke. The second day I was in Egypt, my uncle took me to show me the path. I felt like a rat in a maze having to navigate the underground tunnels. But something about the liveliness really attracted me. The first week was new even through the things that should seem familiar. It has been six years since i’ve seen my family in Egypt, my little cousin Youssef, my cousin Nada, my Uncle Amir, aunt Mona, and Grandma Hoda. My cousins and I have grown tons since the last time we saw each other, so the first week was like a discovery period, trying to understand their personalities and them trying to decipher mine.

Stop 2: Kolleyet El Banat Station (¼ of the way)
This stop will talk about the second and third weeks. By this point, I have a decent grasp of the metro system, using it every day basically, buying the ticket from the front desk and everything with ease. My classes are intense, every day new vocabulary and grammatical concepts, but for the most part i’m keeping up. There is something both motivating and defeating about being given a reading by my professor and not understanding about ¼ of the words, having to ask her for help nearly each sentence and not grasping the meaning without her help. On the one hand, the motivation comes from the fact that hopefully I will be able to reach this level soon in my stay. On the other, there is this fear that I won’t get to that level at all, and that maybe the academy placed me higher than my actual level. There is a fear here, deeper than just the passage that I didn’t understand, more so it’s a fear of something bigger, failure. I’m scared that maybe this summer was a mistake or I won’t succeed in the ways I expected to during this summer. During this time however, I find that I’m getting more comfortable with my family, being able to contextualize the love that I grew up having for them. It’s a strange thing to love someone from afar without really truly knowing them and then spending time with them and realizing where that love comes from. Strengthening those relationships with every day that passes is something incredible.

Stop 3:El Geish Station (½) (culture shock)
Unlike most of my classmates in different countries doing their study abroads, this isn’t the first time I visit my country, I’m Egyptian in origin. Mom and dad immigrated in ‘99 to America, and I’ve visited Egypt a handful of times before, but never long enough to truly “live” there. The visits would be two weeks, one week in Cairo where we would go to visit family and friends mostly, and the next week would be to a beach resort, completely different from the day to day that i’ve experienced here. After being here for a while, I’ve noticed some things. First, once I open my mouth to speak, people can immediately tell something’s not quite right, and they follow up with the age-old question: “Anta Masry? ” which translates to: “ Are you Egyptian?” Other than this regular, daily occurrence, I’ve had 4 instances that come to mind when thinking about culture shock in my time in Egypt. The first of these occurred during Eid al Adha, a muslim feast centered around sacrificing and eating sheep. In Cairo, the Eid vacation lasted 6 days, and I happened to walk in the streets the day of the Eid itself. I got off at El Geish station to meet a brother who used to work in my high school and was working in Egypt for the last 3 years. The school he worked at was in the middle of the city, in a less developed part of town, and I saw so much in those walks. To begin, the streets were nearly empty regarding cars on the road, everyone was either traveling or inside their homes. However, in the streets and alleys, there was this smell, one of rotting flesh, blood dirt and concrete, one that smelled the same everywhere I went. This was because in the streets, people were butchering the sheep as per custom, but this was my first time seeing something like this. Regardless, when I met the Brother, he gave me a tour of the school, and then we walked together to another school about 15 minutes away. In this walk, we were speaking in english, and a group of kids came up to us, speaking in english and arabic, telling us phrases like welcome to egypt… then one boy on the back of a motorcycle zipped by and threw his eaten cob of corn at my neck, and hit it. Frankly, it was a good shot.
This was one of the first times in Egypt I felt a little nervous and I felt that the situation underlined how I was different there, not truly accepted. Also, as a Christian, walking with a Catholic brother in the streets to and from two catholic schools, I knew that something could happen. It did.

Al Abbasiya Station:
The next culture shock came on the metro itself, where I had the rare opportunity to sit down. In Cairo, metro culture exists where if you are young and able bodied you give up your seat to the elderly or women with children immediately. This was not the culture shock part, in fact I like this tradition a lot. What I did not know, however, was that there is a strong culture against sitting cross legged. It’s 100 degrees in Egypt these days, and I go from school directly to the gym, so I walk around in shorts. This time I sat down, an elderly man came and sat in front of me. We pass a couple of stations, and the man stands up, getting ready to leave and heads to the doors where I was sitting next to. He then asks me in Arabic my favorite question: “Anta Masry? (Are you Egyptian?)”I tentatively answer yes and as I get ready to explain, he cuts me off and scolds me as to how inappropriate it is for me to sit in front of an elderly man with my legs crossed and the soles of my shoes showing. This was one of the moments I realized that though I have a background in the country, there are many cultural nuances I still haven’t learned. However with each day, I feel as though I discover more about the culture I am immersing myself in.

Why does any of this matter? I think all the anecdotes show that my time in Egypt has been characterized by intensive learning, through a method like “trial by fire.” It is a blessing to be here, and I am proud of my progress so far, and look forward to what is to come.

Gamal Abd El Nasser Station (Nearly to school, what is removed from me while here):
This trip is teaching me about how I see myself as well. Before it, I had a few points that I would characterize myself with: Being a Notre Dame Premed Student, being Egyptian, being into fitness, and in a way, all three of these things have been somewhat taken away here. Everyone tries to distinguish themselves with their specific unique features. Firstly, Notre Dame is not well known here at all, and me being a student there means very little here, much less than it does in America. Regarding fitness and working out, I go to a pretty intense gym every day, where I’m surrounded by people much stronger and bigger than me, and I also had a hernia scare a few weeks in (but it thankfully ended up being nothing serious), so in a way working out was taken from me. Then finally, and most relevantly, the fact of my “Egyptianness” being a distinguishing factor has been completely squashed here. Here I’m not even fully Egyptian, which is something that’s hard to accept at times. And I know for a fact I am not fully American, so that leaves me questioning at times.

Sadat Station (The station next to my School):
So every day, I get off at Sadat, and then walk another 10 minutes, but this time on the bank of the Nile (super picturesque and Egyptian, one of the highlights of the daily journey). Then, I reached The Arab Academy, which in itself deserves a writing on its own. Regardless, after studying for 4 hours, I go to the gym, then return to grandma’s where I eat a good meal, study or spend time with my cousins, strengthening the relationships and loving my family more and more.

Then I rinse and repeat! I’m getting excited for the next two weeks, because my family will be visiting and I’ll get to show them around my life here! The way I’ll write forward will be one blog post regarding the school and studying itself, and the next will be an accumulation of little excursions I’ve done so far, and then finally, a post detailing and reviewing the food I’ve been able to eat in my time here so far.
Till next post!