Fall 2005 Alumnae Quarterly Web Extra

“A Whole New World: Tales From Studying Abroad”

By Susan R. Bushey ’96

We received more stories about experiences abroad than the printed Quarterly could accommodate, so we share these additional and expanded stories here as a Web exclusive.

Katy Smith ’06

I studied abroad in Siena, Italy, last spring and while there, I wrote this little vignette about the bus ride that I took into the city every morning.I rush out of the house, throwing cheerful Buona Giornatas behind me as I tumble down the stairs, thrilled by the cool morning air and the prospect of a new day filled with learning and unlearning. A half-remembered song left over from the night’s dreaming filters through my lips, and the long row of cypresses between me and the bus stop seems to come alive in a sympathetic dance inspired by these morning breezes.

At the bus stop, which is represented only by a red-and-yellow sign hanging impudently from the corner of a stately villa, I peek through the gaps of my neighbor’s gate and stare, once again, at the expanding countryside, which has laid itself delicately in folds and rifts upon the land. Vineyards, fields, castles, and one ever-present flock of sheep lead most enticingly to the very doorstep of Siena. If I stand at a certain angle, I can see three great towers rising out of the early fog like lighthouse beacons, calling me across this distance to their safe harbors. Before I can convince the neighbor’s cat to come sniff my fingers, I catch the familiar thundering of the bus as it hurtles round the bend of swaying cypresses. I turn towards the road and languidly throw my hand up to catch the driver’s attention, attempting to appear as nonchalant and Sienese as possible. I settle into an orange plastic seat at the back of the bus and quickly observe the few other passengers before turning my gaze to the outside world, where frost-dripped fields and blending skies distract me from the slight smell of urine and the indistinguishable mutterings of the old woman with the plastic bag and the raisin face in the front of the bus. As if to mock my morning reverie, the driver increases his speed for the two mountainous speed bumps on either side of the Hotel Certosa, and sharp jolts are sent sliding up my back straight to my head, where my eyes rattle slightly in their sockets. The brick houses fly by now, doused in sunlight and wrapped in clotheslines, and I eagerly watch the old ladies at each new stop. They board gingerly in drab coats and 1940s shoes, with their hair in bluish halos around their heads, and I am happily enveloped by the scent of baby powder, reminding me of a long-ago grandmother of my own. The old men on this careening vehicle are all chivalry, and they stand stalwart next to the seats where the old women chatter, their legs swaying with the movement of the bus, and their kindly sun-browned faces wearing an expression of unending contentment beneath their farmers’ caps. We reach Siena and pass through the imposing Porta Pispini, another medieval relic in this embalmed city. We are now in the realm of shadow, and my attention is drawn to the maze of pedestrians and parked cars through which my little bus must maneuver. I hold my breath as we glide past motorcycles and baby strollers, but I have learned that the bus is infallible—omnipotent, even—and I trust my life entirely to this black-and-orange deity, which rattles around ridiculous corners in a mad, unheeding dash for the Piazza del Mercato. We finally arrive, panting from our brushes with death, and I step out confidently onto the concrete piazza. I stride towards the Campo, my hands clenching and unclenching inside their wool mittens and that half-remembered song breathing in tuneless echoes through my lips. The fresh air runs through my grateful mouth, and I swallow the cool sweetness of a spring morning.

Sierra C. Thomsen ’05

Squished into the back on of a taxi, I am face to face with this bright red sign. In partially rubbed of letters of clear Arabic script it says “absolutely, no smoking.” I glance around, do any of my fellow cabmates recognize this irony. I nudge Claire and point towards the sign; “Does this mean what I think it does?” She’s in awe. How can we be in a cab, blurring through this buzzing city where merely living here is the equivalent of smoking two packs a day and have, there in front of us, a no smoking sign? We look up at the driver. Chuckling he turns around as we approach a policeman signaling us to stop, “my father, he doesn’t like the smoke, he says it makes the car smell bad,” he explains as he reached his hand out the window to ash his cigarette. In a world full of hypocrisies and ironies, Egypt is in no way innocent. Just as our immune systems have built up a tolerance for sweet potatoes off the sidewalk carts and tap water, our psyches have begun to accept without question the non-sequitors of life here. The sky has begun to darken and as we exit the cab, a silent drop falls on my nose. A crisp reminder of days gone by, of steamy summer nights and fresh cooling rain. Looking up, I have to blink hard to see as the water begins to fall in torrents soaking my clothes and washing over my face. Yet, this rain does not deliver these promised hopes of freshly cut grass and salty sea air. It is not cleansing or renewing; it is a harsh and muddy reminder of the filth that plagues Cairo’s tattered streets and broken buildings. Safe inside, protected from the onslaught; looking out my window, down into the street, it is a muted mix of vibrant color and tea stained drear. How is it that a city this beautiful can suffer this much pain? I arrived here a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed foreigner, but the passing four months have turned me into a hardened local with a fierce glare. And while it may not have renewed my spirits or my soul, the rain of these past weeks has renewed my outlook on the life I live here. Nowadays, there is a fierce chill in the air. Wrapping a scarf around my neck is no longer just a fashion statement or a pre-emptive means of readiness for spur of the moment mosque tours, it is a necessity. The cold brings a comfort with it that is difficult to explain and impossible to compare. A born and bread New Englander, the cooling breeze paints pictures of crisp autumn nights and being snuggled up in a warm bed. None of us expected it to get as cold as it does here and every chill is a sharp reminder of how unprepared we all were for this experience. Surrounded on either side by desert and date palm plantations, and split in half by the Nile, anyone who has flown into Cairo knows it’s like flying into a sand box. The buildings here are built to keep out the desert heat that was overwhelming when I arrived, but as the seasons have changed that same ingenious construction has left us all wearing more layers inside than we do out. Slipping on my thickest pair of socks and tucking my feet under the covers, I prepare to start writing my final few papers of the semester. Reassuring myself by recalling all the finals periods I have lived through so far, I am reminded of something someone quoted in my high school yearbook; “for every exit there is an entrance, and for every door that shuts there is one that opens.” As I look out the window now though, I have to wonder whether exits and doors are even necessary in the metaphors of life or whether we are all just winding down our own paths like Robert Frost suggests. I’m no expert in philosophy or the ways of the world, and for now at least, I’d just like to hope that I won’t ever have to close the door on my experiences here. Rich with a history of victory and strife, Cairo’s story is one you can read off the buildings and the streets, broken down mosques, towering minarets and donkey carts competing with delivery bikes in rush hour traffic. Turn off onto a side street and you might even see some goats grazing in the trash, or some neighborhood kids surrounding a television playing Super Nintendo. Winding through the pathways of the Islamic quarter, your senses swim in the days of old and the struggles of new. “Buy a sheesha.” “You want a camel?” “Come into my shop, I have what you’re looking for.” Everyone has something to sell, but has Cairo sold its soul to a growing population and a shrinking budget? As the power of the pound drops and the dollar rises, it is hard not to notice the economic downturn that Egypt has taken. Things that were once moderately priced have skyrocketed beyond the limits of the average Cairene’s budget and taxis that were once driven by poor rural immigrants looking for work are now manned by engineers and college professors trying to scrape by. My economic privilege here is as blatant as my bright blond hair, and for every opportunity I am afforded there is someone that goes without. Coming to grips with this has been perhaps the hardest battle I have had to face here. Yet with a bukra insh’allah (tomorrow, if god wills it) attitude toward life it is hard to imagine Cairo going anywhere. Trapped by the glory of the days Nagib Malfouz recounts in his books, this city’s residents are living in a dream world of their own construction. And until the ticking time bomb of deterioration and decay finally detonates, I fear that Cairo is offered little hope of renewal.

Leah Forehand ’04

Once upon a time (1988, to be exact), my six-year-old self was perusing a book that contained stories about children from different cultures of the world. I came across a picture of a young Tibetan girl sticking out her tongue. The caption explained that sticking out one’s tongue was a sign of trust and respect in Tibet. With great delight, I closed the book and ran downstairs, where I proceeded to show my newly-learned Tibetan respect to my American mother. Upon discovering why I was behaving in such a “rude” manner, she quickly informed me that I was not in Tibet, and that my tongue needed to stay in my mouth for as long as I was in the U.S. Trudging downheartedly back upstairs, I quietly vowed that some day I would go to Tibet, wherever it was. Years passed and Tibet was forgotten. My tongue stayed in my mouth and I became a teenager- hanging out with friends, listening to music, longing to be anywhere but where I was. At the age of 16, a friend and I discovered that some of our favorite music groups were performing at a Tibetan Freedom Concert. Free Tibet? What’s that about? Tibet... why does that seem familiar? As I started to answer these questions, I reawakened my connection with Tibet. I co-founded a Students for a Free Tibet club at my high school. I started reading everything I could find about Tibetan history, culture, the Chinese takeover, and the current political situation. I was hooked. No, I was more than hooked; I was driven. I vowed, once again, that I would go to Tibet...one day. Politically unstable and cut off from the rest of the world by its high altitude and dramatic landscape, the odds that I would actually get to Tibet were not in my favor. Now I’m 23-years-old and a proud MHC alum. During my years at MHC, I traveled to Tibet twice, once through the IES Beijing program and again via SIT Tibetan Studies. I will never forget my first trip to Tibet. Stepping off the plane and into the blinding Tibetan sun, I knew that, despite the odds and with a whole lot of help, I had made a lifelong dream come true. I smiled the most enormous smile of my life, looked up at the brilliant blue sky, and joyfully stuck out my tongue. I learned so many things during my time abroad—about the world, about myself, and about my role as a human on this planet. I met some incredibly inspiring people, some known—such as the Dalai Lama, and many unknown, like the little old lady who patted my behind in the marketplace and gave me a mischievous grin. Each person has touched me, and each person has taught me. I gained invaluable life experience—like how to survive on $5 a day, how to chase monkeys out of my room, and how to braid my hair so that even if I haven’t showered in two weeks, you can’t tell how dirty it is. But the most important thing I learned was that my passion and dedication actually lead to results—I really can do whatever I dream of doing, even if it seems ridiculous or impossible to others, and even if it starts with something as simple as a young girl wanting to stick out her tongue.

Chloe Martin ’06

I am currently studying at DIS in Denmark. The most important part of my time abroad has been my stay with a host family. I live with a family of four: a husband, a wife, a nine-month-old boy and a three-year-old girl. My family’s house is a long commute away from Copenhagen where my school is but the Andersens (my family) are worth the distance. Not only I am in the middle of a learning experience about contemporary Danish culture I have a wonderful and friendly group of people to spend time with. I spend most of my time with Julie, a Danish kindergartener who is bubbling over with life. Not only is she a great companion she is my best Danish teacher. In Denmark, almost everyone knows at least a little English so an American has no problem getting around. Except for the three-year-old who is still getting the hang of her own language. Before I started learning Danish I was reminded what it was to just purely play. Julie and I couldn’t speak to each other but there we were being silly and laughing together the first day. As time went on, I started to pick up on what she was saying, and sure enough, one of the first phrases I learned was ’jump on the bed.’ We could play together in a different way now. Jumping on the bed became her favorite activity in my room, partly because it is a great activity and partly because that was when we understood each other best. She tirelessly tells me things in Danish and I try to follow. I at times do the same in English when I don’t know what to say. We both give each other courteous, ’Ja (yes), as though we really understood. Another one of our favorite activities is baking American cookies. This was a whole new activity for her. She loves to help with the process and of course enjoy the fruits of our labors. She talks often about our special activity. Julie has taught me about all the different ways that we have to communicate with people and that great teachers and friends can come from very small (and lively) packages. In Danish there is a word that English does not have, hygge sig the closest translation is a’ cozy time’, but it means so much more than that. In an inadequate attempt to describe it, this word means a cozy time with friends (new or old, many or one), a comfortable atmosphere, and pleasant and cozy activity. The Andersens have shown me the meaning of this unique word.

Anna Isozaki ’90

I was in India, doing population research in slums and discovering what should be obvious—that people, poor or not, do consider how many children they want to have, and given basic assurance that their children will live, they will go to great lengths and great hardship, in fact, to avoid having more. The mortality rate of the children of the people I interviewed was: two children out of five died before age five. I met some people who’d gone for sterilization operations, only to lose their only two children later. Despite the fact that all were very poor, the people in the cities had some access to doctors, and therefore also had more confidence that their children would survive. Ironically the government was bent on “clearing” city slums, which meant midnight bulldozers on squatter settlements and being dumped in a field two hours outside town—impossible to get to town in time to secure day labor jobs, allotted in the early mornings… So coming back to the west and the dominant ideology that “those poor brown people don’t think before procreating” was a bit of a strain. I met Christa and some others and with Davina Miller’s encouragement, we set about making connections between our own very disparate “lives”—the lives we’d had before and the lives we had “now,” back in the US. Jumping to 2005, I think we have continued in that work. (We’re all 36). I think most of us did some more time abroad in various countries after graduation from MHC, eventually finding our “places” and keeping the ties between our far-flung experiences alive, because those ties are also intrinsic parts of our own identities. I ended up marrying a Japanese man and we’re raising our little son here in Japan. They’ll be days when I’ll need to do something as simple as put on some reggae and dance with my kid. My son of course will have similar challenges in his life, so I’m grateful—very grateful—for MHC’s support of study abroad opportunities for students because the experience not only changed my life, but hopefully, as a mother, I’ll be more aware of the issues my little biracial/bilingual will face, and supportive of him, as he struggles and grows up in the 21st century.

Maya Aguilar ’05

I spent all of my junior year in Salamanca, Spain. The time I spent there was perhaps the most life-altering nine months for me, and there are many, many experiences that changed how I view myself and how I view others. Many of these things I have unconsciously adopted, and they now just seem like a normal part of who I am. However, looking back one year later, the thing that still stands out in my mind the most is the idea of race and what that means in different contexts. I am half-Japanese, half-Ecuadorian. Though I grew up in a predominantly white environment, I never faced racism until I left the U.S. to go abroad to Spain. Because my Asian features are stronger than my Latina features, I was constantly mistaken for being Chinese, and heard a lot of racist slurs and ignorant assumptions. Surprisingly, however, those who made these comments were not just Spaniards, but Americans as well. Coming from the politically-correct, open-minded atmosphere at MHC, I was not as aware of my race(s) until I went abroad because I had not been forced to face these types of situations before. Additionally, though I am half-Hispanic (and presumably should feel more of a connection to Spaniards, their culture, and the language), I did not feel that at all, especially since Ecuadorians (who are the second highest immigrant group to Spain) are the target of much marginalization.

Anyhow, in sum, the people I encountered abroad forced me to think about how others view me. I had always thought about my racial background from my own perspective, how I view myself, but never from their perspective.

 

Janet Twomey ’74

I spent my junior year abroad in Paris and was one of the lucky American students who actually got to live with a French family. To me, that made all the difference between living in France, and getting to know the French people.

The French are generally fairly reserved—polite but not open and friendly the way Americans are. They won’t “tell you their life story” when they meet you the first time… or even the fifth time. They do not casually or routinely invite people into their homes. I had the good fortune to live with Madame Poirrier, a widow in her 60’s, and her 22-year-old son Jean-Jacques. To be sure, Madame was being paid room and board, but she seemingly spent every franc she received. Every evening she served a lavish, five-course dinner that she prepared herself in a tiny kitchen. And when dinner was over, she sat and talked with me. She never ran out of things to say, which probably helped my French immeasurably. Madame was intelligent, articulate, and well-read. In her own detached way, she wanted to get to know me and became a mother hen. When I wanted to meet people, she signed me up for a French cooking class. When I had questions she was there to answer them.Then there was Jean-Jacques. We hit it off right away. He was my tour guide, social director and friend. I got to meet his male friends, go to parties, and just hang out with French people my age.It would be impossible for an American tourist to have this kind of cross-cultural experience. Even American students who live in dorms don’t really get to know the French. I will always remember Madame Poirrier and Jean-Jacques. I can only hope that they learned some things from me, because I certainly learned a lot from them...

Cait May ’05

I am studying in Guadalajara, Mexico this year, but the most exotic experiences I have had have been traveling around in the more rural areas away from the city. In November, my friend and I traveled to Michoacan, to see the day of the dead celebration. Before going to this celebration, we went on an unplanned trip farther south in the state to see an inactive volcano. This was the coolest thing I have done in Mexico. My friend Pati and I decided to visit the volcano about 4 hours to the south of Patzcuaro at the last minute. The volcano is called Paricutin or Paringaricutirimicuaro in purepecha, the native language. It is a very remote area, so when we arrived we were in an indigenous village, without a way to ask directions. I was learning Spanish immersion-style in Mexico, so I was shocked to enter the little world of this village where not even Spanish is spoken. The women were dressed in these brilliantly colored taffeta-type skirts and clogs, but the men were dressed in jeans and t-shirts. Many people wanted to rent us horses and they spoke in (what even I recognized as) broken Spanish. I asked a man selling something in a covered dish what kind of food he had. He looked bewildered, pointed and said, “Tacos?” in a barely understandable way. It dawned on me that I spoke more Spanish then the majority of the Mexicans in this town… a very strange position to be in.

The volcano that looms over the village erupted in 1948, destroying all of a very prosperous town. Nothing was rebuilt, and all that remains is the Tarasco village. However, the huge lava flow did not completely cover the giant church, so there are two church towers sticking out of the cooled lava. Many people hike there to picnic and climb over the bell towers, and it is one of the most impressive things I have ever seen.

Rebecca Garfield ’05

When I first moved in with Paulina de la Paz Novoa and her family in Viña del Mar, Chile, I wasn’t allowed to help clear the table. Or wash the dishes. Or even enter the tiny kitchen where the poodle Lulú peed on the Las Últimas Noticias newspapers in the corner. Paulina served me breakfast in bed, washed and ironed my laundry, and left my sheets creaseless and my pillows fluffed. For five weeks she treated me like an American paying for an experience abroad in Chile. Then one day, finally, it happened. I had been homesick and asked Paulina for a hug. The next morning she left my breakfast—white bread, bland cheese, apricot jelly, fruit topped with yogurt, and tea—on the table next to her husband’s.

I became the hija gringa, Paulina’s American daughter, her confidant, her cooking apprentice, and her friend. During the year I studied in the twin cities of Viña del Mar and Valparaíso, Chile, I traveled the country from tip to tip: from the Atacoma desert in the north to the Straits of Magellan in the south. I also explored other parts of South America—Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, and Argentina—returning from each trip to Valentina’s welcoming cries of “Hermana! Hermana!” reverberating down the apartment stairwell and a hug and kiss from Paulina at the door. I sometimes discovered a similar feeling of familiarity in my travels—a spontaneous, unexpected ease that overcame or diminished the foreignness of my surroundings. More vivid than even the most breathtaking landscapes, these moments of sudden intimacy shape my memories. They stir me with their randomness, their beauty, and their generosity of spirit. ***September 2003Las Pampillas, Valle Elqui, Region IV, Northern ChileGuadeloupe’s eyes contracted, puzzled, when she saw us in front of her gate, but five minutes later she’d helped stash our heavy backpacks in the patio and was offering us juice and soda—or did we prefer Cristal beer? It was the last day of the festivities celebrating Chilean Independence, and the tiny house was bustling with lazy activity. The family had been eating when my companion Avi and I had asked if we could pitch our tent in their yard. All eyes were now on us as we tried to eat our mini hotdogs, compliment the beef empanadas, and introduce ourselves at the same time.

“We know some gringos,” Guadeloupe’s father said. “Mormon missionaries.” He explained that Guadeloupe had once rented a room to missionaries to help pay her daughters’ school fees. Now the whole family was Mormon too—but only Mormon “up to here,” her father chuckled, drawing a line at his hip. He was smoking a cigarette and there was an empty Cristal on the table in front of him. We smiled. Assembling our tent was a family affair. Guadeloupe’s daughters helped with the poles, jointing the pieces together with the bungee connectors. Their grandfather oversaw the construction, and Guadeloupe came out with tri-colored ice cream for the spectators. Once it was together, our modest tent barely left room for walking around the dirt patio, decorated with hand-cut blue, red and white paper streamers for the holiday. The girls licked their ice cream spoons and stared at the tent with curiosity.

Avi and I had been traveling through northern Chile for eight-days when we stopped at Guadeloupe’s one-story, cement house. A block away the dusty town roads ended and the valley opened up into a patchwork of tents and kiosks set up for September 18. The party had been raging for three days, and that night was the final night of festivities. Avi’s eyes looked determined: he wasn’t going to sacrifice the opportunity to experience a local fonda just because I was worried about the security of our cameras and camping gear. It turned out that his solution wasn’t as audacious as I feared: Guadeloupe and her family had seen us pass by earlier, burdened by our gear, and wondered whether or not to call out to us. From the yard we moved to the house. Guadeloupe invited us to spend a second night, this time in her daughters’ empty bedroom—as long as Avi slept on the floor, she said, eying my bare ring finger. We decided to cook them dinner that night—something American. The moment we arrived in Vicuña at dusk, we knew we were in trouble: we’d forgotten that it was Sunday night. The nearest open supermarket was probably more than an hour away. Avi racked his mind for an inventory of our leftover camping provisions. It was sparse: some pasta and tomato sauce at best. Resolutely, I strode towards a restaurant, towards what looked like the kitchen entrance. It was worth a try… After half an hour of inquiring at restaurant kitchens, Avi lagging behind, I’d managed to amass a lackluster assortment of onions, lettuce and tomatoes for three to four times their market prices. We found a small stand that sold bread rolls and pre-sliced cheese, and another selling packets of Tuareg coconut cream cookies, and headed back to Las Pampillas on foot. It had long been dark by the time we arrived. We’d hitchhiked with an off-duty cop part of the way, but Guadeloupe and her husband were tired and had already eaten. They assured us that they’d share our meal anyway, and sat at the kitchen table to watch the preparation. Silence was punctuated with questions about where we could find the kitchenware, Avi’s murmured instructions, and the sizzling of onion and garlic on the stove. I chopped and stirred while Avi created an “American” pasta dish and salad out of our odds and ends. Over dinner Guadeloupe and her husband talked about their jobs harvesting grapes for export; we could hardly understand a word of their thick rural Spanish, but asked questions as best we could. We ducked behind the two bedroom’s curtained doorways after washing the dishes.

Nearly every family living near Las Pampillas worked in the vineyards—either for grape export or for the distilment of pisco, Chile’s national drink. Early the next morning Avi and I walked with our hosts to the dusty main street where noisy buses passed to pick up the field and packaging workers. As we neared the bus stop we parted ways: a kiss for Guadeloupe, a firm handshake for her husband. We insisted that they take 20,000 pesos, about $28, for their hospitality. At first they shook their heads, but then Guadeloupe accepted the bills, tucking them carefully into the pocket of her jeans.

January 2004 Plaza Principal, Ica, Perú

“Hey, Blondie, look! It’s one of your cousins!” I had already gotten used to my Peruvian nickname. Teresita had started calling me Blondie when we lived across the hall from each other at Mount Holyoke College, and it spread like wildfire now that I was the only blonde in hot, dry, unspectacular Ica, Peru. But to my surprise there really was another blonde ambling across the plaza, a conspicuous tourist who was aimless or more probably lost and trying his best not to look it.

Teresita’s French-Canadian boyfriend, Simon, bounded off to inquire, and returned triumphant, rattling away in his native tongue. My “cousin” was French and his name was Francis. We roped him into our afternoon plans, and within hours Teresita and her sister Faride were plotting to make us travel companions, using the woman-traveling-alone ploy to secure his e-mail address. I never thought I’d e-mail the quiet, lanky Frenchman. But the closer I got to Bolivia, the more I wanted to visit, and the more appealing it sounded to go with male company. Francis had seemed companionable. I decided to write. Francis was waiting for me a week later when I got off the bus in Puno. Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable lake, lapped against the piers behind the bus station, and I could feel the altitude. We greeted each other with a kiss on the cheek, and loaded my backpack into a bicycle taxi that took us to the hostal where Francis had spent the previous night. My first impression was highly sensory: The communal toilet perched, eternally clogged, in the shower stall, and a single, threadbare blanket covered each of the stained mattresses. So began the week I spent with Francis. We walked side by side, our strides matched, our conversation soft and occasional. We hunted for cheap meals, spending less than 50 cents on as many as we could, even if the meat was unidentifiable. We ate bread and bananas for breakfast. We grew familiar with each other’s canned small talk for tourists, and accustomed to each other’s accented Spanish.

We visited the famous floating islands of Lake Titicaca, and spent a night with a Quechua-speaking family on Amantani Island. The women of Amantani wore black veils draped over their long braids, white blouses embroidered with vibrant flowers, and black skirts over petticoats that flashed startling orange, pink or green as they walked, continually knitting, along the island’s narrow footpaths. Francis and I scurried to keep up with our hostess as she quietly led the way along a sandy cove and through fields to her house. We ate by the light of a candlestick and slept on hay mattresses under a picture of grazing alpacas and a glossy, colorful poster of Jesus Christ.We crossed the border into Bolivia at Copacabana and, for $1.25 a night, shared a room with a flimsy latch on the door to the street and no running water after noon. We hiked Lake Titicaca’s Isla de Sol in blazing heat, and picnicked on a summit, silently passing the Swiss Army knife back and forth to cut our avocado and tomato. We arose, shivering in the dark, to watch the sun rise over the distant snow peaks above La Paz, and joined the early-morning tide of townspeople and pack llamas heading downhill to the harbor where the first boats were starting to come in. Over the course of our week together, conversation ebbed and flowed, gently subsiding. Chitchat exhausted, our language became the rhythm of our strides and the shared pauses we took to appreciate the beauty around us. Our intimacy was one of comfortable silence, of subtle companionship. We parted in La Paz with a kiss on the cheek. I’d already put on my backpack; it would have been awkward to hug.

January 2004 Arequipa, Peru

The people I met extended hospitality and initiated intimacy in different ways. In Peru, hospitality seemed to center around food and feeding: in Ica my plate was continually piled high, and etiquette dictated that I eat everything on it. When I couldn’t manage another bite, I could trade plates with the person next to me—something that I never felt comfortable doing. At social gatherings friends circulated a bottle of beer or pisco and a single, shared glass. They served themselves a tumbler, toasted their neighbor by looking them in the eyes—Salud—and then passed on the bottle before downing the alcohol and emptying any remaining liquid onto the floor or into a centrally located bucket.

I had bid farewell to Teresita in Ica and traveled southeast alone to Arequipa, where her uncle and cousins met me at the bus station with a sign that read “Miss Rebeca Blondie.” I didn’t know if they thought Blondie was part of my name or if they were in on the joke, but it quickly became clear that I would be as well fed in this volcano-ringed city as I had been in the desert at Ica. Within hours of my arrival 22-year-old Albertito had invited me out to try a regional specialty, cuy, or guinea pig. Albertito had commandeered the menu and ordered for me. We were sitting under a large, outdoor tent at a popular, local restaurant, and a brass band played loudly—too loudly for easy conversation. Albertito was attentive but awkward, and I found myself smiling dully, munching toasted canchita corn kernels and evading his efforts to engage me. The cuy arrived splayed inelegantly, its claws, eyes, and teeth intact, giving the impression that it had wanted to escape that final moment before death. It looked like a fried rat, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off its awful, gray claws. Despite the normality of the taste, I couldn’t stomach more than a few bites. Albertito watched me anxiously; he’d also ordered us a massive plate of gristly pork and potatoes. It was enough food for five. I picked at the guinea pig with my fork, willing myself to strip more meat from its gaunt carcass, if only to make it look like I was eating. The restaurant’s chicha morada, a traditional drink made of purple corn boiled in water and seasoned with apple or other fruit and spices, wasn’t as good as usual, but I gulped it gratefully to wash everything down. Just when I thought I’d go mad staring at the spread-eagle cuy and the mound of pork that refused to diminish, Albertito motioned for the check, clearly disappointed.
April 2004Connecting flight between Salvador de Bahia, Brazil and Santiago, Chile“Do you know what time buses stop running from Santiago to Valparaíso?” I asked my in-flight neighbors. We were seated in the first-row of the economy cabin, and we’d been chatting since the plane took off from Salvador de Bahia half an hour earlier. The middle-aged couple shook their heads, apologetically.

I sighed. I already knew the answer: the buses would stop running an hour before our late arrival in Chile’s capital. “I hope they’re still running,” I said. “I had to spend a night in the airport last month, and it was miserable. I don’t think I slept more than an hour.” I wondered whether to mention how I had camped out at the café table, clutching my enormous backpack—bloated with Peruvian textiles, dirty clothing and awkward hiking gear—as I struggled to stay upright in the booth. How I’d been determined not to loosen my grip on its straps. How I’d worn my passport and money in a sweaty, beige pouch between my pants and my underwear. How I’d left a generous tip for the waiters for not kicking me out even after they’d cleared away my empty hot chocolate mug, even after I’d long been their only customer, even after they’d started mopping the floor.I decided not to overdo it, but silently willed the couple to imagine how the early morning hours had stretched endlessly before me, the solitary traveler, yawning, eyes glazed, alone in a foreign country. I was desperate not to spend another night in the airport. But they didn’t take the bait, and guided the conversation back onto conventional topics. She was Brazilian and he was Chilean. They’d been on vacation in Salvador and were returning to their house in Santiago where they lived in a middle-upper class neighborhood with their two blonde-haired children. They were of German ancestry, and he worked in Chile’s dairy industry distributing brand-name milk around the country. They spoke English well. Their son, a year older than me, had spent a year in the United States on an exchange program. Their daughter hoped to travel to Germany. Our flight landed in São Paulo’s giant airport and we parted ways. We weren’t seated together on the next flight. My plan had failed. Half an hour later I was squinting at the flickering green print of the televisions announcing international departures when I heard my name. I turned. The Brazilian was making her way across the terminal towards me; her husband followed a few paces behind. “Rebecca, we’ve talked about it, and we’d like to invite you home with us for the night,” she said.“No! En serio? Are you sure? I don’t want to be any trouble… Well, if you’re certain... Muchas, muchas gracias. I can’t thank you enough.” I feigned the innocence as best I could. The gratitude was real. Officially linked by more than ephemeral airplane chitchat, we headed towards a café for coffee before our next flight. Within minutes I’d catapulted my sugar spoon up and out of my café con leche, sending the hot, creamy brown liquid flying onto his pressed khakis. I wondered if I’d be able to mop up the damage with a napkin. It was good that we weren’t seated together on the next flight.

They waited for me to find my enormous, blue backpack at the baggage claim and hailed a taxi to take us along the Andes to their house on the other end of the city. Their children were already asleep when we arrived, but the photographs on the guest room bureau confirmed their German-ancestry: blonde, blue-eyed, smiling. I felt like an intruder, suddenly privy to this intimacy, stealthily contemplating a family’s life. The mother left me a towel, and wished me a good night. I inched the bathroom door closed and tip-toed down the carpeted hall to my room. I slept in my sleeping bag so they wouldn’t have to wash the sheets, and fell asleep immediately. The next morning I descended with my backpack to the hallway, and followed the sound of voices past a large living room to the kitchen, where the wife was chatting with their nanny, who was washing the dishes. She insisted that I stay for breakfast, and set the grand table in the dining room for one: tea and coffee, milk, bread (the toaster and tongs were in the corner), cream cheese, a Brazilian preserve, jams and jellies, and fresh fruit. She and her husband had eaten earlier. He’d had to go to work. We chatted about my experience living with three Chilean art students in an old house in Valparaíso, and I told her more about Paulina de la Paz Novoa and the host family I’d lived with during my first three and a half months in Chile. In her car on our way to the metro station, she handed me a business card with their address, and told me to please consider them family if I ever needed anything in Santiago again. I thanked her for her generosity, shouldered my backpack and headed down the stairs towards the screeching of the metro, on my own again. February 2004Futaleufú, Region X, ChileIt was late summer when Esther and I crossed the border to Futaleufú, Chile from Esquel, Argentina on a nearly empty, local bus cloaked in dust. We had five days before we had to report back to classes in Santiago and Valparaíso, 30 hours north, and limited Chilean pesos. The nearest Chilean ATM four hours away, we decided to budget our rations and allot our remaining funds to horseback riding.
On the way back to town after a ride along the Futaleufú River, our guide, Eduardo Troncoso, and his brother, Ernesto, motioned to the wheat fields that their family was going to harvest the next morning. Jokingly, I asked what time we should show up to help. Uncharacteristically bold, Esther piped up: “En serio. If we help with the wheat harvest tomorrow morning, will you let us ride again in the afternoon?” They laughed and exchanged looks. Eduardo’s eyes sparkled mischievously; Ernesto’s eyes were guarded, dark and mysterious. Ernesto reached over and squeezed Esther’s arm, feeling for muscle. We told them we would only go if we could be helpful. They agreed to the proposition, and told us to meet them at their parents’ farm at nine the next morning. Betty Troncoso was surprised to see us at the gate. It was clear that her sons hadn’t told her about our deal, but she politely invited us in for breakfast after I gave a flustered explanation of our arrangements. While she served us coffee with fresh cow milk and homemade sopapillas, she told us that the wheat harvest was men’s work. That the sacks of wheat weighed between 50 and 60 kilos apiece. That there was no way we’d be able to help.

Eduardo and Ernesto smirked when they saw us. “You can stay here and help my mother with the women’s work,” Eduardo said, pushing away his plate and standing to join his father and a hired farmhand at the door. By the time I’d hit my head on the sink cupboards for the third time washing the dishes, Betty had warmed to us. We kneaded dough and baked bread in the wrought-iron wood stove. We prepared lamb for lunch. We peeled potatoes. Betty told me I peeled potatoes like her sons did when they were five. We laughed. Sunlight poured through the picture window facing the fields, playing with the wisps of steam escaping from the bubbling pots on the stove. The kitchen filled with the smell of fresh bread, the warmth of the oven, and the pleasant chitchat of three women—at once strangers and neighbors, mothers and daughters—drawn together by the tasks at hand. Betty told us about how she’d raised her sister after the death of her mother, about how she’d married young. She loved her sons, but she missed female company. I told her about my own family, about the island I’d summered on as a child, about how it felt to live so far away from home. When we’d finished cooking for the time being, Betty sent us out to watch the harvest. A large tractor deftly sliced the stalks of wheat and spewed them out the back, leaving a wake of fat white sacks in its swathe. There was a sack near the fence; I grasped the twine and heaved. It didn’t budge off the ground. The farmhand glanced over. I couldn’t see his face under the shade of his hat—A sneer? A scoff? A bemused grin? Esther and I headed back to the house, grateful to escape the sun. When we returned Betty had just finished sweeping the kitchen and was swatting flies buzzing against the windowpanes. She couldn’t think of anything else for us to do. Couldn’t we weed the garden? Or paint the barn? I asked. Betty smiled and shook her head. It was too hot out. In a while we could help her prepare the salad for lunch—she would show us how to score peeled cucumber with a fork so that it wouldn’t be bitter. I told her that my host mother Paulina rubbed the two ends of the cucumber together until they foamed. Sweaty and dirty, the fieldworkers returned for lunch. Eduardo made wisecracks, asking what I had cooked; Ernesto snuck sidelong glances at Esther. I was effusive in describing our activities that morning, but Esther tripped over her soft-spoken Spanish, clearly uncomfortable. I cleared the plates with Betty, and she called over her shoulder for the hired help to saddle two horses. Promising not to ford any rivers and to return in a couple of hours to help make panqueques, Esther and I tucked our feet into the wooden stirrups chiseled like Dutch clogs, and took off down the road. We passed the fields where the wheat machine kicked up clouds of chaff and dust and where the men’s skin gleamed, hot with sweat, and headed into town.

Nestled in northern Patagonia, Futaleufú emanates magic. At the beginning and end of the day, when the light enters and later fades from behind the mountains, the town seems to glow. Roosters cackle from hidden niches in their respective yards, and the occasional mounted huaso saunters down a dirt road. Sometimes, on summer nights, the policeman blocks off the main road so the town children can watch a Hollywood movie. They gather on the dark grass in front of the projector, emanating excitement, their legs crossed, their necks craned. The screenplay echoes across the plaza and then fades away, absorbed by the valley, by the water and the wind. Striking west from town, Esther and I urged our horses into a steady walk, and set out along the flat land between the mountains and the river. Four hours passed. By the time we neared home, late-day, golden light played over the mountains, illuminating the freshly shorn wheat fields. The tractor still sputtered in the distance, and I knew Betty would be watching anxiously from the kitchen window. I wanted to capture the golden light, to encapsulate the wild beauty of Patagonia, to belong to the cozy farmstead under the mountains. The dogs sent up a racket, announcing our safe return, and Betty came out to help unsaddle and water the horses. We washed up at the porch faucet, and joined her in the kitchen where she poured us cold juice and listened to our adventures: How we’d lost our way. How we’d crossed the old suspension bridge. How the horses’ hooves had made the boards ripple and the cables sway. How we’d been relieved to near home. Then we set about making the promised panqueques, the Chilean interpretation of crepes. Betty had already made the batter, and was heating two frying pans on the stove. The process was simple but made for a lot of laughs. Melting the butter in the sizzling skillets. Ladling just the right amount of batter. Studying their air pockets to guess when the undersides were golden brown. Manhandling the frying pans to send the panqueques flying through the air without the aid of a spatula. Spreading them full of rich manjar, or dulce de leche, and rolling them up like skinny jellyrolls. We were setting out dishes for tea when the tractor chugged up, pulling a cart loaded with heavy sacks of wheat. At the same time, three neighbors stopped by to visit. They entered the kitchen to find two plates piled high with golden-cream panqueques on the table. Eduardo chuckled, and the visitors teased Betty about her gringa “secretaries” and her new job in agro-tourism. Introductions were made. Betty brought out a maté gourd and we took turns sipping the yerba tea through its slender, silver straw before filling it with more hot water and passing it on. We gorged ourselves on panqueques and licked our fingers of the sticky manjar. It grew late. We thanked Betty for opening her home to us, and promised to stop by again before leaving town—with some of our favorite “American” recipes next time. Then, with a kiss and a wave, we were out the door and into the night, the light from the kitchen window glowing warmly behind us, the spectacular Patagonian stars gleaming overhead.

***

Welcome back! How was Chile? Did you have a good time?
It’s difficult to articulate how one has changed after returning from abroad. How to put into words the generosity of a family of Mormon grape harvesters? Or explain the contrast between their humble home and a middle-upper class house in Santiago? How to express in a sentence the moment I shared with Betty Troncoso in the warmth of her kitchen? Or the thrill of traveling “budget” in Peru and Bolivia with a French stranger?Such moments of connection were fleeting, shaped by chance and quickly trampled by time, but the sentiments they inspired remain with me, a constant reminder of the kindness I found in unusual places. The memories inform my own generosity of spirit, spurring me to look for randomness, for spontaneity, for understanding. My friends in the United States scold me. Don’t go out running alone! Bring your cell phone with you! Are you crazy? You opened your car door to someone who knocked on your window? Their message is always the same: You’re too trusting, Rebecca. You need to be more careful. I’m not stupid. Before I went abroad I carried my tote bag flung behind me, open to the world. Now I walk with it tucked under my arm, close against my chest. My travels didn’t send me scampering back to the U.S. seeking familiarity and comfort, striving to recapture the innocence of youth and long summer days of baking chocolate chip cookies and sipping lemonade by the sea. My home here grounds me as much as ever, providing a landing pad, a place to return to, and a familiar pattern to resume when I’m able. But I’m comfortable beyond it now. My sense of place has expanded. I want to travel further afield. Guadeloupe’s smile, Betty’s sopapillas, Paulina’s embrace, Albertito’s cuy: Despite particular circumstances and motives, the emotions are the same, the easiness reassuring. Home is what you make of it—and you can find slices of it all over the world.