Previous Study Abroad Profiles

Laura Hartstone

IDS/IS Development track Senior ; working on water problems of Tanzania and projects aiding in access to safe water supply
Current Location: Arusha, Tanzania

Laura’s comments and experiences while living in a new culture:

Daily activities are in many ways completely different than they would be in the states.   It is always a joke that I am on "African time", which to me means things are a bit more laid back and relaxed.   There are times I go to shower and there is no water, go to use the computer but no electricity, or go to get money out of the ATM and it is broken.   It is not really a problem though, as it is much easier not to plan everything in advance, but rather, just sort of flow.   Somehow, things work out in the end! I love that the culture here revolves around human connections.   If you walk through town or the villages, it is expected that you greet people.   Everyone is very welcoming and excited to chat.   It is much easier to get into the swing of things and get used to the culture here, than I have found in many other places around the world.   A week in London can make me feel so isolated and different, even though in appearance no one would know I am a visitor.   Here it is most obvious I am a visitor, and yet, the people call me a resident and are completely welcoming.

Laura picutred with Luku, a Maasai morani (warrior)
Photograph by Felix Borner (www.wildlens.com)

When asked of her favorite travel story, Laura chooses to tell one of a short period she spent living with the Masai:

I won't tell about the mud house I lived in, or built with cow manure. And I won't tell about milking goats or even cows. I want to share with you a story about my 11 year old sister. Her name is Neamjini. And though she taught me everything from collecting firewood to carrying water on my head, she taught me how to think differently. For three full days we spent every hour together. We slept together on cow hides, squatted in the same bush to use the bathroom, and ate from the same bowl. She may very well have been the best teacher I have had in many years. The morning the car came to pick me up when the homestay period was finished, I asked her what time it was, knowing the car was scheduled to get there at 9am. She glanced up at the sun and said not to worry for it was only 2 o'clock. 2 o'clock her time is 8am. Why 2? Because the sun had only been up 2 hours and that is how they tell time. So in essence, the cars were coming to get us at 3. She then grabbed my hand as usual and led me away from the hut. We walked outside of our boma up onto a hill where we had the best 360 degree view anyone could ask for. To the South stood Oldoinyo Lengai, an active volcano I climbed in June. To the East Lake Natron. To the West the Rift Valley, and to the North endless plains.

Walking by Lake Natron, North Eastern Tanzania in the heart of the Great Rift Valley
Felix Boren Photography (www.wildlens.com)

We sat there talking in kiswahili, our common tongue, for she speaks Kimasai and I speak English. At times we would sit and sing, teaching each other songs. While she taught me tribal chants, I taught her the itsy-bitsy spider. While she taught me to drum using my lap, I taught her patty-cake. We stopped for a moment and sat silent, both gazing into the distance at the Great Rift Valley. Being only 8am, the temperature was perfect. It was the temperature you almost cannot notice, because it feels neither cold nor hot to your skin. Our red cloth which we wore for clothing casually floated in the wind. The beaded necklaces around our necks were strung with small metal pieces which would also chime when the wind came. She laid her hand on my arm and looked up at me to ask, "Unajua Mmerikani iko wapi?" - (Do you know where America is?). I nodded and visually, using hand gestures, pretended to lay out a map in front of us. As I began to explain where Africa was on the invisible map, she shook her head looking up "ah ah, iko pale" - (No no, it is there), she said while pointing far into the distance over the ridges of the rift valley. I was taken away to think of it that way. I mentally closed the map I had withdrawn and looked off to the horizon with Neamjini.

Dan Tuttle

Applied Political Economy and Development Senior
Current Location: Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

While studying abroad in China, Dan has been active in updating an online blog to stay in touch with his friends and family back in the States. It includes various topics from his daily activities, education and classes, new experiences, weather, and holidays and events. Below are selected pieces from his blog that are most pertinent to future travelers.

After studying Chinese for a semester, Dan found that his classmates in the Chengdu program did not share the same dedication to learning the language; he considered the work load to be less strenuous than it should be and decided to skip a semester’s worth of material and enter a high level class. Dan finds his new class to be much more fitting and demanding, as the professor is more demanding. Dan now is able to participate in an internship with a local newspaper. In reference to his new class:

Teacher Xiao is in her fifties and very demanding ,speaking  99% Chinese in class, forcing us to make up sentences with new grammar and vocabulary on the spot in class. She's drilling us very hard in preparation for the second 'block' of the semester, which should start in mid-March, where she's setting us up with an internship for the Chengdu Daily Newspaper, working on translations and interviews and who knows what. I'm stoked to finally get a chance to throw all of this classroom knowledge into practical use and, hey, how often does a guy get a chance to say "I worked for a Chinese state-owned newspaper last spring" and add "...while living in state-subsidized housing.” She's a tough-love teacher who's doing it for our good, even despite certain painful class days.

Dan during new student orientation week

The climate, weather and cultural differences of his new environment:

Chengdu in 2006 has ascended to new levels of weather variability. One day was windy, blowing the pollution out of the city and actually letting me see the distant skyline for miles in every direction. The next day climbed out from bitter wind chill and ended up in the low fifties with sun poking through, so I went to the Starbucks downtown for the first time and sat at an outside table to do two hours of homework. [Note: Chinese pedestrians, especially the very old and the very young, are extremely interested in foreigners studying Chinese. Homework progress is often impeded by curious, staring, red-cheeked Asian kiddies too shy to engage you in conversation but too engaged to run away without taking in the sights. Random teenage girls may or may not sit down and attempt to convince you to become their foreign language teacher in exchange for being your guide on trips to other parts of China. Restaurant staff will likely be extremely cordial and watch your things while you run to the McDonald's bathroom next door to relieve caffeine-induced water expulsion.] Today began rainy and miserable, then warmed up to the high forties, and is now clouding back over so as to accentuate the again-building blue-gray fog-smog atmospheric layers that grace this city in a basin. Katie's observation was that buildings across the street often appear fuzzy. But don't tell that to anybody Chinese, even if they're a well-traveled close friend, or you'll find out that Chinese people believe this is the natural state of Sichuan, that this is all just a kind of fog and not air pollution. They may take extreme offense.

Dan at home with a sample of different Chinese cuisine

Dan also has been able to experience authentic Chinese cuisine unlike what an American may order from the local Chinese takeout:

I've become a sidewalk gourmet. Here is a list of the culinary delights I've partaken in over the past week: pig's blood (in soup), pig's feet (in soup), pig's ear (in a sandwich!), pig's brain (hotpot), chicken hearts (barbequed), duck tongue (but you'd swear it was claw, hotpot), duck shank (cold cuts...does 'shank' even exist on a duck?), cow's stomach (hotpot), squid balls (sidewalk), McDonald's new low-fat yogurt (surprisingly not bad, split with a friend), baijiu ('white liquor,' a Chinese specialty that is slightly sweet)

Matt Stone

International Studies and Economics Junior
Current location: Moscow, Irkutsk, & Vladivostok, Russia

While in Russia, Matt has found the concept of “normalcy” to be quite skewed according to American standards:

Life in Russia is an exercise in the absurd.   A sense of humor, being able to laugh off the absurd, is indeed the most effective way to blunt the jolt of the unexpected and incomprehensible.   For instance, I was recently shopping at a Vladivostok supermarket (feels very American, mind you) and purchased two pots for cooking.   The cash register at which I paid was out of plastic bags, so they recommended I ask for some downstairs at a different cash register.   Which I did, and was met with a quizzical, somewhat horrified stare, a shaking head and the words, “Absolutely not!”   All of which was done while the lady was protectively clutching her prized pile of plastic bags. So much for customer service.

In Irkutsk, cold water is often shut off for days at a time.   Normally a cold water shutoff in the middle of winter (average temperature = -25 degrees Fahrenheit) would not be a large concern until one realizes all the functions that require cold water: toilets no longer flush, cooking becomes problematic, and as the only water coming out of the tap is scalding hot, washing hands, shaving, and washing dishes are all next to impossible. In Vladivostok, hot water shutoffs in the dead of winter are just as common.   And when all heating is centralized, rooms get cold real fast. In Moscow, cold water is shut off for four weeks out of the summer to “conserve” hot water for the winter.

The church of Khuzhir and the ineffable blue of Lake Baikal
Olkhon Island, Siberia

This is the absurd: things that occur for no apparent reason, things that no one can quite explain.   And in Russia, the absurd is normal (yes, that in itself is an absurdity).   But armed with a sense of humor, nothing fazes a wary traveler.   Laughter puts the most frustrating moment into context and reaffirms everything a foreign student should be about.

Matt Stone’s views on the value of studying abroad:

Study abroad is about grappling with the idea of “un-normality” or perhaps “dis-normality”: that every society, while conspiring to be “normal,” is in fact working off of variations on this theme.   Indeed, when you peer across the Atlantic or Pacific (perhaps the Arctic) at America, you begin to get a sense that our very American understanding of reality is only part of the picture.   There is no such thing as the Normal, only familiarity. Study abroad is about ultimate flexibility.   Being able to change plans, change expectations, change how one fits into a given context – these things constitute the whole of study abroad and travel in general.   Laughing off the absurd is one way to do this.   Opening up a cant-filled mind to ostensible challenges is a solid complement.

Matt in Red Square, outside of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow

Study abroad, be it in Russia or elsewhere, is about challenging deeply held beliefs.   Living with a host family will show you more about your own entrenched personal philosophy than a Dr. Phil self-help book.   Learning to prepare genuine sushi from Japanese friends will give you a better sense of another culture than eating sushi in Tucson.   And trying to rhetorically defend a country – America – that you might not always agree with will help you determine its correct role in the world far better than watching the evening news or taking a political science class. Study abroad is ultimately about unlearning and relearning the most basic concepts, things we take for granted, things we don’t expect, and in the end I hope, we are all the better for it.