It began in January, 2010. I was interning at Oregon State University at INTO, an international student program that focuses on a year of intense English classes for the students so they may enter OSU the next year fully prepared for what they may encounter there language-wise. Social-wise, I'm not sure if they knew frat parties, condoms and droning professors awaited them, but they would at least be able to talk about it in well developed English. I was only there for a month, but by the time I left I had witnessed many types of cultural interactions that never ceased to fascinate, amuse, or baffle me, including the time when a Japanese girl asked me why I wasn't fat.
But this story is not about that. This story revolves offhandedly around my supervisor, Julianna. She liked to serve Japanese tea in the office, deliberately forgetting the fact that it was 5 years old... but I never could tell the difference. I asked the fortunate question one day of where she bought the tea, and she launched into this story about how she had worked for the JET (Japanese Exchange and Teaching) program for three years and she had ADORED it. Suddenly her eyes were fireflys, dancing and alight with excitement and adventure and nostalgia for this place so many miles away and years ago. I couldn't help but soak in some of her craze and begin to get excited myself. Maybe I could do this! Maybe this was what I had been searching for for months, trying to find a way to get out of this country and overseas to a place without suburbs and 24-hour Taco Bells.
Just as I was starting the Google-Search stage of budding ideas and information gathering, my 5-minute dream was crushed by these four words, "The Deadline Has Passed." And suddenly I was back to where I had been 10 minutes ago: without a path. Wandering aimlessly through my last semester, imagining post-graduate life being spent working at a car wash, or worse, in an office. In charge of archiving and putting post-its on my computer saying things like, "Call ITS to fix mouse," or "Archive Anderson file." Or maybe reception, becoming a human recording each time I answered the phone, "Welcome to Carl's Electric, how can I brighten your day?" I headed home in a slight depression.
I walked in the door, threw my purse on the couch and grumpily sat down at my computer. While waiting for my email to load, I had a sudden flood of emotion and slammed my fists down on the table while yelling, "JUST TELL ME WHAT TO DO ALREADY!" I had been trying to figure out this crap for months now, why couldn't I get a break?! Give me a damn sign! I glared at the ceiling for awhile. When nothing happened I sighed and turned to my computer. And the first unopened email I had was titled, "Teaching Assistantship in Spain."
I stared. The words "ask and you shall receive" had never echoed in my mind more clearly. Talk about a sign.
I opened the email and skimmed it, then went back and read it more slowly, not believing my eyes. An assistantship teaching English in Spain for 9 months. Paid. It took me less than 5 minutes before I was reading the application requirements and writing down a list of everything I would need to do for the program.
And here I am, 6 months later: accepted, placed and confirmed, just returning from my visa appointment in San Francisco. I have been placed in a town of 22,000 people in Andalucia (southern Spain) called Priego de Cordoba, located almost exactly between the cities of Cordoba and Granada. I will be assistant teaching at a secondary school consisting of students from 12-16 years of age. I leave in about a month and a half and I have only a slight idea of what to expect, based on Google searches, word of mouth and guidebooks; everyone dresses up, even to go to the grocery store, the men are good looking, the cuisine is excellent and based on sea food, the partying in the big cities makes The Peacock look like a peaceful cafe, and my town is surrounded by olive trees. I have a week-long orientation in Seville put on through the program I applied to, and I have 5 days worth of paid accomodation when I'm actually in my town until I can find my own place.
Besides being slightly nervous, I also can't wait to be on that plane, heading for God knows what. I am putting myself in a difficult situation and I am exceptionally curious to see how I handle it. Will I cry? Will I run screaming? Will I simply walk up to someone and become instant friends? Will I choke on my pizza from laughing at the insanity of what I'm doing? No matter what, I am ready to grow and adapt and learn about others as well as myself. 9 months is a long time to be away from what you know, from home, from a place you can navigate without even thinking. Monotony. I know from studying abroad in Mexico that everything you do in a new country requires thought. Going to the grocery store, finding a snack, making a phone call... everything is much more vivid and complex, giving unusual life to all actions. I cannot wait to discover Spain in a non-tourist way. Being a tourist, so temporary, makes me uncomfortable. This, I believe, is the best way to travel; becoming immersed and close with the culture, learning it from the inside, teaching a skill as well as receiving hospitality, experience, and a way into the heart of a people.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Barefoot
I wrote the following essay in response to a mid-term requirement in my anthropology class, "Language and Culture," during my spring semester of 2010. The prompt was, "Pick a metaphor that describes a group you identify with." Though I didn't take it to extreme measures such as my very good friend and roommate at the time, Claire Carter, who for her essay articulated the metaphor of cheese and how it reflects people who can't eat cheese (lactose intolerants, such as herself) but do anyways because of their love for it, I feel that this essay is an unequated way of describing to you the beginning of my journeys and the reasons behind my somewhat ludicrous but rather brave choices I make in my life. How Claire pulled off a passing grade with an essay about cheese that including the sentence, "Just as Swiss cheese has holes where there is no cheese to be found, lactose intolerants’ diets have a cheese hole." is beyond me, but if anyone can take a dairy product and create a full blown anthropological essay out of it, it would be her. I only wish there had been a camera wired into this essay, so I could greedily watch the reaction of our professor as she read it and realized that Claire must have been drinking copious amounts of wine at the time of its creation, which we were.
But back to my essay. I will simply let it explain itself, and hopefully you can become more aware of and connected to my innate need to clumsily dance into situations that I don't understand but want to be a part of, to fly off on a 9 month adventure without the slightest hint of where I will live or what I will eat, to trust that everything works out as it should, and to accept that signs appear all around us and we only have to open our heart to them.
Barefoot
By Ashley Shenk
Becoming immersed in a culture can be described in shoes. Shoes take you places, protect you, indicate your purpose in wearing them. Take the expat, for example. Heels are the essence of expats. They are shiny, pretty, and formal. Heels take part in fancy events and indicate status within the society. Only the balls of the feet touch the ground, and all else is elevated above it. Expats take part in the shiny parts of the culture in which they live, and never experience all that is part of the life around them. They are limited in their mobility, but they enjoy the status that comes with wearing them.
Tourism is another way in which one can get closer to a culture. Tourism is experienced as wearing tennis shoes. Tennis shoes are meant for comfort. The tennis shoes allow one to walk around, see all there is to see and continue on their way, but yet stay within their comfort zone. There is a barrier separating the tourist and the culture, and the tourist prefers to stay within this barrier of the tennis shoe. Tennis shoes are for continued walking, and the tourist never becomes fully immersed in the culture because they are simply striding through, seeing the popular and beautiful attractions, and continuing on. Tennis shoes protect them from the obstacles on the road, and therefore the obstacles of the culture.
I belong to the group with no name. We are not travelers or journeyers… that implies transition. We are not immigrants… we plan to move on some day. We are the group that wants to immerse themselves as much into the culture as they can; the group that plans to stay and learn and become. I am a part of a group that will live among a new culture and experience all there is, the wonderful as well as the dreadful. The group that is barefoot.
Being barefoot is no easy task. The barefoot person must walk slower, feel all the crevices and pebbles in the ground; we experience all the bumps and difficulties that come with living in another culture in sharper form, yet we can also feel the sand beneath our feet and wiggle our toes in the grass. There is more intimate contact with the world around us, as our bare feet feel everything. Our skin is the only thing separating our feet from the ground, just as our own cultural standpoint is the only thing separating us from this other world. We are fully exposed and at the wrath of another people, another culture. We may hurt more, but we also feel more than people wearing high heels or tennis shoes.
However, the more we walk barefoot, the more calluses we create on our bare feet, making it easier to navigate in this other place. Our fragileness slowly eases away as we become a bit more comfortable in our surroundings, yet never forgetting the fact that we are stripped of our comfort zone, even though we are forming a slightly new one the more we walk barefoot. We are learning to jump the crevices and avoid the pebbles, we are learning where to find the softest sand. We are learning the ins and outs of the culture and are now comfortable here, even though we can never be fully a part of it, we have come to understand it and appreciate it for its quirks and beauty and difficulties. We are barefoot but tough.
And when it is time to leave, we will move on to another place, discover new obstacles in the roads, and feel new warmth on our toes. And we will yet again start by tiptoeing slowly around, and figuring out the best ways to navigate in a new place. We will create new calluses as we discover the joys and hardships of a new culture, allowing ourselves to continue growing and walking barefoot around the world.
But back to my essay. I will simply let it explain itself, and hopefully you can become more aware of and connected to my innate need to clumsily dance into situations that I don't understand but want to be a part of, to fly off on a 9 month adventure without the slightest hint of where I will live or what I will eat, to trust that everything works out as it should, and to accept that signs appear all around us and we only have to open our heart to them.
Barefoot
By Ashley Shenk
Becoming immersed in a culture can be described in shoes. Shoes take you places, protect you, indicate your purpose in wearing them. Take the expat, for example. Heels are the essence of expats. They are shiny, pretty, and formal. Heels take part in fancy events and indicate status within the society. Only the balls of the feet touch the ground, and all else is elevated above it. Expats take part in the shiny parts of the culture in which they live, and never experience all that is part of the life around them. They are limited in their mobility, but they enjoy the status that comes with wearing them.
Tourism is another way in which one can get closer to a culture. Tourism is experienced as wearing tennis shoes. Tennis shoes are meant for comfort. The tennis shoes allow one to walk around, see all there is to see and continue on their way, but yet stay within their comfort zone. There is a barrier separating the tourist and the culture, and the tourist prefers to stay within this barrier of the tennis shoe. Tennis shoes are for continued walking, and the tourist never becomes fully immersed in the culture because they are simply striding through, seeing the popular and beautiful attractions, and continuing on. Tennis shoes protect them from the obstacles on the road, and therefore the obstacles of the culture.
I belong to the group with no name. We are not travelers or journeyers… that implies transition. We are not immigrants… we plan to move on some day. We are the group that wants to immerse themselves as much into the culture as they can; the group that plans to stay and learn and become. I am a part of a group that will live among a new culture and experience all there is, the wonderful as well as the dreadful. The group that is barefoot.
Being barefoot is no easy task. The barefoot person must walk slower, feel all the crevices and pebbles in the ground; we experience all the bumps and difficulties that come with living in another culture in sharper form, yet we can also feel the sand beneath our feet and wiggle our toes in the grass. There is more intimate contact with the world around us, as our bare feet feel everything. Our skin is the only thing separating our feet from the ground, just as our own cultural standpoint is the only thing separating us from this other world. We are fully exposed and at the wrath of another people, another culture. We may hurt more, but we also feel more than people wearing high heels or tennis shoes.
However, the more we walk barefoot, the more calluses we create on our bare feet, making it easier to navigate in this other place. Our fragileness slowly eases away as we become a bit more comfortable in our surroundings, yet never forgetting the fact that we are stripped of our comfort zone, even though we are forming a slightly new one the more we walk barefoot. We are learning to jump the crevices and avoid the pebbles, we are learning where to find the softest sand. We are learning the ins and outs of the culture and are now comfortable here, even though we can never be fully a part of it, we have come to understand it and appreciate it for its quirks and beauty and difficulties. We are barefoot but tough.
And when it is time to leave, we will move on to another place, discover new obstacles in the roads, and feel new warmth on our toes. And we will yet again start by tiptoeing slowly around, and figuring out the best ways to navigate in a new place. We will create new calluses as we discover the joys and hardships of a new culture, allowing ourselves to continue growing and walking barefoot around the world.
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