I‰Ûªm sure every Fellow (that wasn‰Ûªt sleeping) can remember the presentation on Culture Shock‰ã¢ that Andy, team leader from Ecuador, gave one of the final days of Pre-Departure Training. A graph of the process of immersion on the board, an upside-down parabola. The honeymoon phase of cultural awe and giddiness, the slow but relentless awkward…

19 May, 2015

You can spend hours talking about the issues of Senegal with Senegalese people: the sexism, defined gender roles, discrimination against non-heterosexuals, problems with the education system, the child and spouse abuse, dominance of Islam, ignorance of current world issues, elevation of elders/males, and the absence of discussion of these difficult issues. Or you can highlight…

18 April, 2015

I never understood how lucky I am. My father (papi) was born in Barrio Mexico, one of the poorest neighborhoods in San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital. Raised by his mother and alcoholic father, he and his two brothers shared an outhouse with the entire block. Even after being adopted and moving to Palo Alto, California…

26 January, 2015

On a brisk spring morning 14 years ago, my Costa Rican father and gringa (Caucasian) mother got up at 3:30 in the morning and waited in line all day to ensure my enrollment in a bilingual immersion elementary school. When I reached middle and high school, they coerced me (that may be a slight exaggeration)…

26 December, 2014

In a collection of his infamous graduation speeches (found after the previous Fellow Eli left it in my house), there are a few things that stand out about Vonnegut’s brief, insightful, words. He chooses a different theme and moral for each speech, but they always have the same recurring stories to illustrate that theme. One…

24 November, 2014

I never should have made that French toast. I had missed cooking and American food so badly that I’d spontaneously decided to buy dehydrated milk, eggs, bread, and oil and managed to prepare a half-decent “dinner,” that sweet, thick, crispy dish I used to make every Sunday morning after a late night. Matar, my 26-year-old…

24 November, 2014

Global Citizen Year made it very clear to the Fellows crazy enough to sign up that this experience and the places we were going to would defy all of our expectations. Before I left for this experience, my mother drove me all the way to downtown Washington, DC, waltzed into the air-conditioned souvenir shop, and…

13 October, 2014

For months, I have been telling anyone who is willing to listen about the upcoming year.  Everyone that I know and their mothers know that I’ll be spending the following 8 months in Senegal.  I have been so excited and afraid at the prospect of being away from home and the United States for so…

23 August, 2014