FALL 2010 - UNC Global · Morgan Abbott Jessica Bodford Jakelin Bonilla Annie Clark Kathleen Ellison Lee Farese Elaina Giolando Estes Gould Carolina Guerra Laura Harris Nushmia Khan

v

FALL 2010

Carolina Passport 3

Editors-in-Chief

Designers

Copy Editors

Contributors

Advisor

Sponsor

Ali Amoroso Sarah RiazatiMcKay Roozen

Annie ArntzCarolann BelkSonya ChudgarLaura ConnollyAmanda DavisRenee KimBrittain McNeelBeatrice Moss

Daniel ByrnesKaty CharlesCourtney Coats Rachel ColemanKristine LearyRylan MillerKate SawyerJen SerdetchnaiaCindy Scott Morgan AbbottJessica BodfordJakelin BonillaAnnie ClarkKathleen EllisonLee FareseElaina GiolandoEstes GouldCarolina GuerraLaura HarrisNushmia KhanJess LittleElliot MontpellierNina RajagopalanWill RidenourRenee SullenderAlecia WestphalenBo Zhang

Melissa McMurray

Ron Strauss

Cover photo by Jessica Bodford“Bedouin man on the Mount of Olives”

Jerusalem’s Old City, Israel

Opposite photo by Nina Rajagopalan“View of Salta from a mountaintop”

Salta, Argentina

Special thanks to Rosario Colchero Dorado, Mark Nielsen and Jon Outlaw

This publication is funded by Student Government at UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC Global and the Center for

Global Initiatives.

Questions? Comments?Carolina PASSPORT welcomes feedback

and suggestions. If you are interested in submitting stories or photos, contact the editors at [email protected].

Design Editor Sarah Riazati is a senior journalism and mass communication major from Marietta, Ga. Contact her at [email protected].

Content Editor Ali Amoroso is a senior journalism and in-ternational studies major from Raleigh, N.C. Contact her at [email protected].

Managing Editor McKay Roozen is a junior international studies and political science major with a Chinese minor from Lexington, Ky. Contact her at [email protected].

A View from Between Bars by Jessica Bodford 4

Remembering Rwanda by Estes Gould 12

La Historia Romántica del Área Andina del Perú by Jakelin Bonilla

Aftershocks by Lee Farese 20

Unexpected Discoveries in Cairo by Elaina Giolando 25

The Music of Sevilla by Jess Little 28

The Poor are Rich by Kathleen Ellison 30

Humari Shaadi Main by Alecia Westphalen 32

Suit & Tie by Carolina Guerra 36

Getting Past Descriptions by Nushmia Khan 7

Congratulations Vickie & Oliver! by Annie Clark 15

Anecdotes from the Far East by Bo Zhang 10

Elly’s Family by Laura Harris 16

CONTENTS FALL 2010

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

HOOKED ON PASSPORT?

Think you can’t afford to go abroad?Check out some of the scholarships and

grants Carolina offers.

Traveling HeelsSee where Carolina students have been in

the past year, and where you can go too!

Photos from around the world 34

18

37

38

Find even more at global.unc.edu/carolinapassport

People often talk about a phenomenon known as the “college bubble”—a

metaphor for the belief that students often get caught up in the “bubble” of a college campus, focusing solely on their own needs and commit-ments as individuals in terms of academics and extracurricular activities. Invariably, the bubble is often referenced as something negative that students need to burst out of in order to become more involved in the greater world around them.

To those who question the ability of college students living within this bubble, we want to voice that PASSPORT Magazine is a testament to the fact that students are not only capable of bursting out of the Carolina bubble but that students do so in a variety of incredible ways by immersing themselves in new families, new friends and new cultures. This issue offers a wide spectrum

of Israeli-Palestinian relations to embarrassing oneself through a cultural faux-pas in China to visiting the recovering country of Haiti after its earthquake—that clearly illustrate how students at Carolina do amazing things outside of the campus bubble.

The mission of PASSPORT is to inspire students to travel by taking advantage of the opportunities Carolina offers in order to expand their horizons. This is not to say that we agree with the negative connotations of the Carolina bubble. All we want to say is love the bubble for what it gives you: the opportunity to experience remarkable moments both in Chapel Hill and around the world.

From left to right:

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

4 Carolina Passport

Above: The view from the back of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (also known as the Church of the

-‐pound has developed. This picture was taken over

directly above the rock quarry Calvary.

Right: A soldier near the Temple Mount of Jerusa-‐

graduates to enter the military for three years

-‐

-‐gogue in the world.

Below: A Muslim woman hides her face from pass-‐

-‐semane. She is near the entrance to an ancient and

the Mount of Olives facing Jerusalem’s Old City.

5Carolina Passport

B E H I N D B A R SA V I E W F R O M

By Jessica Bodford

I couldn’t help but gawk at them as we passed through the gate, imagining myself in their bodies with an M-16 slung casually over my chest.

The following is an excerpt of a blog writ-ten by Jessica Bodford, who explored the Holy Land (Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria) with a group of young adults and served as the resident blogger, Tweeter and photographer.

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

If you happen to be following my Tweets, you might have noticed to-day’s were oddly absent—not because my iPhone died (thank goodness), but because Cellcom exists in just as many places in Bethlehem as AT&T in the U.S. — in other words, nowhere at all.

I stated earlier that the hillside houses throughout the West Bank look somewhat boxlike, which caused me a bit of grief—the word doesn’t really do them justice. It was Mohammad who nailed the metaphor perfectly on the head: they’re Legos. They are perfect Lego houses built into the hills. But re-gardless of the similar shapes of all the houses, the di!erences between Pales-tinian and Israeli communities is strik-ing… and not simply because of their surroundings. As a purely Palestinian settlement, Bethlehem—like the rest of the West Bank—is something of a pris-on that completely prohibits movement beyond the 700-kilometer wall that Is-rael set up on Palestinian land.

Keep in mind that if, say, the U.S. was to erect a wall along the Texas-Mexico border, it would be entirely within its rights to do so without a care for the Mexican citizens’ own wants and needs if, and only if, that wall was

constructed on Texan terrain. Not only did Israel place their wall on Palestin-ian territory, but it was placed almost 20 miles past Israel’s border. As a result, the wall’s construction has split fami-lies, neighbors, convents and schools in the process. For this reason, Bethlehem is one of the cities most adversely af-fected by the wall’s presence.

As we entered the countryside of Teqoa we were stopped by two mili-tary personnel, both of whom looked roughly my age. They were, accord-ing to Father John, ensuring that each and every one of us was a Westerner. I couldn’t help but gawk at them as we passed through the gate, imagining myself in their bodies with an M-16 slung casually over my chest. It’s a na-

tionwide requirement in Israel that all high school graduates join the army (women for two years, men for three) before entering college. It was also a bit of a surprise to learn that the road we

were taking had only been open for the past few months—a prime example of the uncertainty in Israeli-Palestinian relations even now.

As we traveled into Bethlehem, it became apparent that we were in an-other world entirely. The streets were almost deserted and even the residents themselves seemed subdued. Every car featured a white and green license plate with the Arabic letter “P” for “Palestinian,” which quickly identi"es those whom the Israelis refer to as “ter-rorists” outside the wall. The street and shop signs, unlike Jerusalem’s, did not feature Hebrew at all. (I couldn’t help but squeal when I saw “Stars & Bucks Co!ee.”)

In the heart of the nearby Shefa-‘Amr is Ruth’s Field Restaurant, where we were presented with an elaborate feast as well as co!ee, espresso and lattes, and for a moment the lush Medi-terranean-style rooms seemed to trans-port us into a di!erent world again. It wasn’t until I walked onto the back terrace to watch a few group members toss a Frisbee back and forth that I was reminded of our surroundings. I saw the barbed wire fences, the cookie-cutter houses, the decrepit automobiles and rusting bicycles, and the shapes of a free Israel on the distant horizon. For a few moments, it was as though even a few of us had the power to bring hap-piness and innocence into such an op-pressed world.

After spending the afternoon in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativ-ity and the Bethlehem Peace Center,

ISRAEL

Population: 7.2 million

Capital: Jerusalem

Language: Hebrew

Jessica Bodford is a junior psychology and Spanish major from Raleigh, N.C. She par-ticipated in the Pilgrimage to the Holy Land through Kanuga Conferences Scholarships. Her trip was supported by Kanuga Conferenc-es, the N.C. Episcopal Diocese and Province IV for her work as a blogger and correspon-dent. Contact her at [email protected].

Top

Center -‐

Right:

we headed back into Israel Proper. If we were shaken up by the military checkpoints leaving Israeli territory, they were nothing compared to those along the way back. I had to sneak pic-tures from the windows of our bus as we neared the wall (the guards have been known to con!scate cameras), but it was Kat who managed to snap a picture of a gra"ti message scrawled across the Palestinian side that read “TO EXIST IS TO RESIST.”

It’s odd how the mind plays tricks on your subconscious. As Father John told us horror stories of the guards sta-tioned at these checkpoints, I began to absentmindedly form an image of ter-rifying men with pencil mustaches, se-vere faces and inhumanly empty eyes. What other kinds of people could pos-sibly let men die while being held for years at the wall or let women go into labor without allowing them access to Israeli hospitals? It was only when the two military personnel boarded our bus and paced down the aisle that I realized my mistake. These men were my age, with kind faces and open ex-pressions, and yet they held their M-16 ri#es so naturally that they might as well have been extra arms !xed into place. They scrutinized each face with casual interest and, after ensuring that none of us appeared to be Palestinian, let us continue on our way. Moham-mad drove through calmly, as if this were an everyday occurrence.

Ah, that’s right…it is.And then we were back into the

Israeli Promised Land, and it was as though we were returning from a mat-inee show at the local movie theater. The sun was bright and shining, ven-dors were playing wooden #utes and waving pitas from the roadside, and men and women strolled calmly from place to place as though it were just an-other day.

It’s true that it was, without a doubt, just another day for people who have lived with these ongoing con#icts for decades. Observing and contrasting both lifestyles within mere minutes was enough to give me whiplash. How could anyone stand between the wall’s gates, straddling the border between two entirely separate worlds, and claim that only one of the two was “right?” So much more is at play here than simple agreements and governmental nego-tiations. There are cultural di$erences as well as political and geographical ones that underlie these never-ending con#icts, and simply decreeing one the “winner” would never su"ce.

I don’t mean to chastise our his-tory textbooks, but throughout middle school, high school and college we drill concepts such as wars and battles into our minds like stenciled sketches. There are pen strokes and then there is paper, and no shading can exist be-tween them.

One side lost, another gave land and yet another secretly supported both in hopes of getting better trading condi-tions from whoever pulled out on top. That’s all we’re taught because that’s

all that is asked of us on essays and ex-ams: who won? How many died? On what date was the treaty signed? And, for extra credit, what was the name of the U.S. president’s pet canary during that time?

I think all of us are beginning to understand that the world is made up of far more shades of gray than we previously thought. It’s a simultane-ously unsettling and comforting no-tion. Although it shifts and blurs the rigid lines we paint between “right” and “wrong,” it also reassures us that friendship, loyalty and trust cannot be based on similarities in ethnicity, faith, gender, race or political a"liation. At times it’s di"cult to see the “good” in ourselves because of sheer humil-ity, but that day I believe that we saw goodness in everyone around us in some shape or form. Whether we stood inside or outside the wall could not—and will not—change that.

“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier,

the dividing wall of hostility.” (Ephesians 2:14)

6 Carolina Passport

Getting Past DescriptionsNourish International-Turkey strives to understand and promote the realities of women and children at the Water Lily Cooperative in Duzce, Turkey. By Nushmia Khan

Top: Upon arrival, we were shocked at all the work that needed to be

-‐

Above:

7Carolina Passport

Nushmia Khan is a senior multimedia journalism major from Cary, N.C. She traveled to Turkey with Nourish Inter-

national. She can be contacted at [email protected].

Above:

we do it in America!

-‐

Below:

TURKEYPopulation: 76.8 millionCapital: AnkaraLanguage: Turkish

8 Carolina Passport 9Carolina Passport

Tiananmen Square, 4:47 a.m.The sun has not risen yet, but Tiananmen Square is already full of visitors. Everyone, including myself, has come to watch the daily !ag-raising ceremony that takes place at sunrise. We stand as close to the railing as we can, squeezing tightly against each other in an e"ort to get a glimpse of the !ag guards’ procession. Everyone is holding cameras; I, too, raise mine high.

The ceremony only takes a few minutes. The national anthem plays three times as the !ag is pulled slowly up the pole. When the sun peeks over a stand of trees in the northeast corner, the crowd gradually disperses. In less than half an hour, the place is as bright as mid-morning. The sky is a pale, clear blue with no clouds to be seen. I walk past groups of tourists as old as my grandparents and a class of students in fatigues taking a group photo in front of Tiananmen Gate.

The street around the square is lined with trees and paved with smoothly joined stones. Breakfast is in order from a lady selling freshly made Chinese pancakes from a bicycle cart. She dips out a cup of batter and pours it onto a !at stone circle set over a heating drum. Her hands are sure and steady. She scoops, !ips and a few seconds after scat-tering a handful of green onions into the mix, it is done. She gives it to me in a plastic baggie. I sit down on a nearby set of stone steps, savor the smell and eat.

Overnight Train from Beijing to Xi’an, 8:30 p.m.Above all, the train station is hot. There is no air condition-ing—only a few open windows—and if any breeze wafts through it is stopped within a few feet by the dense air in the room. Train 19 doesn’t depart for another 45 minutes.

The room is packed. Everyone sits, stands or sleeps as they wait for the trains to arrive. There is remarkably little impatience. One man lies with his head on his wife’s lap while she watches their luggage. Others, dressed in workers’ uniforms, sit on tarps on the ground, each next to a perfectly stu"ed rice bag that is nearly as tall as they are and twice as heavy. It takes a moment before I realize that the rice bags

are actually their luggage. The sleeping compartment is tiny. Four bunk beds to a

room with two feet between the beds. Where were we going to put our bags? Overhead, of course. A single plastic rose leans in a glass jug in front of a curtained window. I claim a top bunk and stow my backpack at my feet. Sleeping is made easier by the gentle side-to-side rocking.

Nansuo Village, Xi’an, 10:44 a.m.It’s raining but that matters little to the children who are here to meet us. They tote adult-sized umbrellas and stand qui-etly to one side, smiling and sometimes laughing amongst themselves. They know who we are; they have been expect-ing us. In the main courtyard, their parents make last-min-ute adjustments for a welcoming performance they have prepared. The dancers wear yellow costumes and dance in the drizzle with aplomb, banging drums and cymbals for a dragon dance. When they are #nished, we clap loudly and cheer.

To have the opportunity to visit a countryside village is rare. Modern China is represented in the cities: skyscrapers, shopping malls, restaurants left and right. Here, every-thing is slower, quieter, less developed. The houses are older, poorly maintained. The streets are old stone, muddy in the current rain and tra$c signs—as well as general notices—are painted on buildings and walls instead of poles. Inside, the rooms are a little dark; one yellow light bulb, o" during the daytime, dangles from the ceiling. Functionality is a priority. In one room, the hearth leads into the underside of the bed as a means for warmth during the winter. A poster of Chairman Mao adorns one wall behind a desk; in the room behind, a little girl studies Chinese with her mother.

There is no holding back in the welcome we receive. After the dance, we are invited to lunch: a veritable feast that

By Bo Zhang

Opposite right

Opposite far right

Anecdotes from the Far East

Bo Zhang is a senior from Chapel Hill, N.C. majoring in biology with minors in chemistry and creative writing. She went to China with the International Scholar Laureate Program (ISLP) - Delegation of Medicine, China. Contact her at [email protected].

rivals any meal at a high-class restaurant. We are treated with plate after plate of food—cucumbers sliced as thin as paper, eggs fried with onions, noodles, green beans, tofu dipped in spices and soy sauce, pumpkin soup and sugared tomatoes for dessert. We eat until we cannot eat any more, and still more plates arrive. I am humbled by their hospitality.

World Expo, Shanghai, 10:52 a.m.“The wait for the Japanese Pavilion is seven hours,” a young policeman says. He is clean-shaven and very polite. “The end of the line is over there.” A neatly gloved hand points to his right, toward a long column of people standing three abreast. I thank him, trying to contain my disbelief. Seven hours to visit a pavilion! It would be nearly impossible to comprehend but for the masses of people who are present. There are tour groups marked by !ag-carrying guides and brightly colored hats, high school students in blue and white uniform sweats on a #eld trip and families toting backpacks containing portable chairs, picnic blankets and food.

I walk along the sky bridge with Jane, a friend. The story is the same for nearly all the pavilions—three hours, #ve hours—and we decide it is better to see the expanse of the

whole Expo rather than the contents of only a few. Every pavilion we see inspires awe: the domed bottom and !at roof of Saudi Arabia, the sloped sides of New Zealand covered with live plants, the resting snake of Spain.

But the true beauty of the Expo comes at night. Jane and I travel until the sun sets and watch as lights slowly blossom across the Expo #eld: electrifying the tips of Great Britain’s fuzzy pod, lighting up the panels of Poland’s lattice, color-ing the framework of Serbia. Across the river, downtown Shanghai glitters, with LED lights faceting its iconic build-ings. Yet above them all is China’s centerpiece of the year: the gravity-defying Chinese Pavilion. It is painted a brilliant red, the color of prosperity and luck. The size of the struc-ture is misleading, as is that of a mountain – it is larger than the eye can comprehend from a distance. It stands as an em-blem of China’s hopes for the 21st century, proud and bold, towering into the starry sky.

CHINA

Population: 1.3 billion

Capital: Beijing

Language: Mandarin Chinese

10 Carolina Passport

By Estes GouldOur !rst memorial was what we anticipated. The videos of victims who survived by some sort of miracle; the walls covered in histori-cal information about the origin, process and consequences of the genocide; the marble with an endless list of names of people lost to the world; the mass graves in a garden over-looking Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda. Those of us with strong stomachs braved the second "oor, where we read and watched the tales of other genocides. We then moved into a brightly colored room adorned with pictures of children and small plaques in front of them.

Patience’s favorite color was green before her life was cut short and Louis’ last words were, “Don’t be scared,” before he was killed by a machete.

The drive to our second memorial, Mu-rambi, took my breath away. But so did every drive in that exquisite country. We made our way through the gentle rolling hills, !nally resting atop one that jutted out like a peninsu-la into a sea of green grass and red earth. Mu-rambi was a school in design and had small buildings one classroom deep, like most other schools in Rwanda. Radios told Tutsis it was

a safe haven during the bloodbath of the 1994 genocide, and so they came, in "oods. Forty thousand people stayed in these rooms.

I walked into the !rst room. The plain concrete square had one window and two wide tables; it smelled like nothing I had ever smelled before or can ever describe. Impos-sibly white and skeletal bodies lay like paper mache freeze-dried sculptures. Tufts of black wiry hair spotted the heads of several—the only sign that these were once living, breath-ing people. These dead ones contorted, as if life still possessed them in some way; even the smallest hands and feet looked like they strained to escape their fate.

Forty thousand people stayed in these rooms; 39,997 people died in them. The radio programs had been a trick, and the refugees had been starved for days. Hutu militiamen surrounded the school and killed everyone with machetes, guns, clubs and even stones.

The bodies continued, room after room, un-til I came to a room of skulls and thigh bones and another !lled with dirt-colored clothes. I silently walked outside, to join the rest of my group, but like them, stood alone to process what I had just seen. As if processing it were even possible! Before us was a sign: Here Was A Mass Grave Where The Tutsis Were Dumped After They Were Killed. Less than three yards away was a second: Here The French Army Played Volley Days After The Massacre.

After the killing spree, the Hutus cleaned up their mess. They threw all the bodies in a mass grave and cleaned the blood o# the walls. But before they had washed it all clean, the French army, which had trained the mili-

tias, came to Murambi.I stood, unable to cry. As I looked out into

the terraced beauty of the Rwandan hillside, trying to understand how a place this beau-tiful could witness such horror, a woman reached out to me. She had strong hands and the proud cheekbones and wrinkled, smiling eyes characteristic of older women.

She was a survivor, one of the three, and she comforted me. She comforted me! That is a strength I will never know.

We didn’t expect the third memorial; we only recognized it for what it was as we walked right up to it. It was a church where hundreds, maybe thousands, died after a priest told them they were safe hiding there. But he got scared; he heard the Hutu militias were coming and left the people to fend for themselves.

I walked into the dark room of the church and almost bumped into a shelf of skulls, hips and femurs. Hanging from the beams of the ceiling were more earth-stained clothes and in the back of the room was another shelf with shoes and jewelry. The sunlight that streamed through a broken window gave the room a backlit glow and it shone on a table with a cloth draped over it, which bore the words, “Umenya nawe kimenya ntuba waranishe”—“if you knew me and you knew yourself, you would not have killed me.”

When the militiamen, or interhamwe, came, they threw a grenade into the building. They asked if anyone survived the blast, if any-one needed help, and then stabbed whoever raised his hand.

I stepped into the o$ce of the priest. His

Opposite page

Above


books were strewn about and his chair leaned against the table. A picture of Jesus holding the cross occupied the open page in front of his chair.

We sat outside talking after we made our way through the buildings. By that time, we were used to the drain of thinking, talking and watch-ing everything about the genocide. We still felt it, but none of us cried. Only a week later our Academic Director and friend, Apollon, broke through our cal-loused minds.

He stood before us with a piece of paper; he had never used notes to teach us before. His voice cracked as he be-gan his story.

He had just graduated from high school in the spring of 1994, and was a young, intelligent man looking forward to college. His family was wealthy, as Tutsis usually were at the time, so he could a!ord higher educa-tion. But when the killings began that summer, he and his family "ed to a U.N.-protected school. Like everyone else, they assumed the U.N. would not only keep them safe but would also end the madness that had taken over their small nation. The U.N. evacuated the school for their own safety and left the people hiding there with no protec-tion.

Apollon, his parents, brothers and sisters all "ed the school. His brothers

and sisters died or disappeared, and he witnessed his parents’ death. He saw rapes and murders and dogs eat-ing bodies while hiding in the bush of Rwanda, moving only at night.

“There was only one friend—dark-ness,” he said.

Weeks later, the army that stopped the genocide—the Rwandese Patriotic Front, the Tutsi-majority group that now dominates the government—saved Apollon. He then attended uni-versity in London, married, had two children and returned to his home country. He discovered that one of his sisters had survived. He helped de-sign the Gisozi Memorial in Kigali, the #rst one we visited, and others across the country, including the third at the church. And this handsome, capable, hilarious man taught us about his country’s past and future.

He was a survivor. But he said heal-ing and genocide cannot coincide. He said everyone who pretends every-thing is all right lies awake at night crying, wondering how it all could have happened.

Back in Kigali a few days later, dur-ing 7 p.m. rush hour, I was trying to catch a matatu, a taxi bus, back home. A nice older man pulled me through the masses onto the matatu. I rode home, talked to my homestay family, ate some beans and rice and went to bed. The next morning, I found out that someone threw a grenade at my matatu stop at 7:15 p.m. the night be-fore. Thirty-two people were injured; two died.

I formed some of the most reward-ing friendships of my life in Rwanda with some of the most resilient and

”“I looked out into the terraced beauty of the Rwandan hillside, trying to understand how a place this beautiful

could witness such horror.

admirable people I’ve ever met. I’ve witnessed women—both wives of genocide perpetrators and genocide victims—unite through a common faith and work to reconcile their com-munity. I’ve heard a man who killed four people in the genocide say he is at peace. But despite all of the healing that has taken place in Rwanda and the people who have recovered, I still sometimes wonder: is it possible to fully heal from genocide?

Estes Gould is a junior from Memphis, Tenn., ma-joring in journalism. She completed the SIT (School for International Training) program on post-con"ict transformation in Kigali, Rwanda/Gulu and Uganda. Contact her at [email protected].


RWANDAPopulation: 10.7 millionCapital: KigaliLanguages: Kinyarwanda,French, English

When you travel to a foreign country, there are certain things you have to do in order to truly experience the local culture. In Paris, you have to eat crepes at a café and visit the Ei!el Tower; in New York City, you might attend a Broadway play and walk in Central Park. In Hong Kong, you visit Victoria Peak and eat dim sum.

Dim sum is a traditional Chinese meal involving small portions of a va-riety of dishes served with tea. With strong recommendations from friends in the states, Amber, another UNC student, and I decided that we would make reservations to enjoy a proper dim sum experience. We chose a popu-lar local restaurant along Hong Kong’s waterfront “Boulevard of Stars,” which overlooks Hong Kong Island. For 70 Hong Kong dollars, or about $10 US, we

could enjoy the all-you-can-eat style dim sum. Since this was our "rst au-thentic experience with dim sum, we thought sampling the various Asian delicacies made the most sense.

Unfortunately, we didn’t do our homework well. We left our hostel with hungry stomachs, only having a vague idea of what the meal would entail. When we arrived for our reser-vation, the hostess directed us to the fourth #oor. As we stepped tentatively out of the lift and onto the red carpet, we were suddenly surrounded with lace, #owers and wedding decorations.

Thinking we had gone to the wrong #oor, we started looking for food and waiters and causally dressed people—things to indicate that we were in the right place. One man who looked like he might be a waiter motioned for us to come into a room and pointed to a table...right in the middle of a wedding reception. There was a cake, a fran-tic mother-in-law, about 70 elegantly dressed Chinese guests and a banner reading “Congratulations Vickie and

Oliver!” We were the only western-ers in the room, and we were clearly out of place. Not only were we not Chi-nese, but we were also dressed casual-ly. People snapped pictures of the bride and groom—and of us. Before we had even ordered, a few people walked by just to stare. The waiter arrived, and we were ready to order. We began to check the boxes of food we wanted o! the list. At the top of

tthe menu it said “8 dishes per person.” Obviously, we wanted to try it all,

and since it was all-you-can-eat style, we could. Assuming this to be the sug-gested amount rather than the maxi-mum allowed, we each ordered eight dishes. Our ordering card was passed around by waiters and waitresses, and hand-covered grins appeared from ev-ery corner of the room. Did we not or-der properly?

Confused by the laughter and not realizing our mistake, we smiled and forgot about it. Then the food came.

Amber and I began to eat, and eat. And eat sum more, and dim sum more. After "ve dishes had arrived, the wait-er explained that the others would be a few minutes. Others? We then real-ized we had 13 dishes to go. We had steamed dumplings, fried dumplings, soup, wontons, buns, pork balls, noo-dles, vegetables, cakes, fruits and tea. People were staring and more pictures were snapped. We were quite embar-rassed of our dim sum faux pas.

As buns were stacked four and "ve baskets high, we kept eating more and more. We resorted to spreading around the food so it would at least look like we had consumed a decent amount. We felt like kids who didn’t want to eat their vegetables!

An hour later, we decided we had two options: we could be either the Americans who ate everything or the wasteful Americans who ordered too much. An unfortunate decision and some wasted food later, we asked for our check. People looked again, their eyes were on the immense mountain of half-eaten food stacked on our table.

The bride and groom ceased to be the main attraction as people took more picures. We sat there and waited an eternity for our check, faces red, in-ternally giggling and toasting Vickie and Oliver with last bit of our tea.

: A picture

of the sign

outside of the

restaurant,

“Boulevard of

Stars.”

Below: Our table full of

food.

By Annie Clark

Annie Clark is a senior from Raleigh, N.C., majoring in political science and psychology. She participated in an exchange program at Mahidol Uni-versity International College in Salaya, Thailand as a Phillips Ambassador. Contact her at [email protected].

CHINA


Capital: Beijing

Language: Mandarin Chinese&Vickie Oliver!Congratulations

15Carolina Passport

Tadaima!”“Okaeri, Eri-san,” calls my host

mother as she leans over the threshold to let me into the apartment. It’s on the seventh !oor of the 13th building in the High Town Shiohama apartment complex. This is home for my two months in Japan. I slip o" my shoes and step up onto the shiny wood !oors then I go to wash my hands and gargle,

while answering my host mother’s questions about my day at school.

She’s funny in a sly, shy way, cooks like a chef and frequently apologizes for her poor English; I tell her honestly that it doesn’t bother me at all. My host sister, Natsumi, is still at school. She is a quiet girl who uses polite Japanese when helping me, but when it comes to her brother, Dai, she transforms into a

12- year-old Japanese Incredible Hulk.Dai is a gangly, endearing Tasmanian

devil of a child. He’s nine but looks like a runty six. Saying that Natsumi and Dai #ght like cats and dogs is a slur on the good names of cats and dogs alike.

Their father is a slightly surly salaryman with a heart of gold and a gru" way of talking. He embodies much of the antiquated chauvinism of

Eri no Kazoku: By Laura Harris

Dai, Mama, Natsumi and me

Elly’s Family

“

”

JAPANPopulation: 127 millionCapital: TokyoLanguage: Japanese

Natsumi and me at the going-‐away party

My host family gave me so many things and taught me about the love

and sacri#ce that is part of being a family member.

Mama and me on my 20th birthday

Laura Harris is a junior Asian studies major from Raleigh, N.C. She participated in the UNC Summer in Japan program as a Phillips Ambassador. Contact her at [email protected].

an earlier Japan, making me grind my teeth every so often. But I don’t forget that on the night when I went into liver failure, it was he who was sitting with me in the ambulance, translating my answers for the paramedics.

On my 20th birthday, just released from the hospital and stuck at home while all my friends went to hot springs, my family did everything they could to make it a special day for me. Dai coyly asked me my favorite kind of chocolate before running out to the corner shop to buy it for me. Natsumi gave me a furoshiki, a kind of cloth that the Japanese use to wrap packages and presents, while Papa presented me with a chunky stone necklace he’d picked up on a trip to China (where, he complained, they use simpli#ed Kanji). Mama let me dress up in one of her kimonos, and the whole family presented me with a delicious cake shaped like a bear’s face with the chocolate birthday wish, “Omedatou Eri-san.”

I went by “Elly,” since the Japanese pronunciation of Laura renders it the hardly melli!uous “Roora.” Not everything was idyllic. My host father seemed to have a pathological inability to accept that people just released from the hospital shouldn’t be marched around town to the point of exhaustion. The language barrier created frequent misunderstandings. I was slightly stalked at my home train station by a couple of young Japanese men who had seemingly decided that an English-speaking girlfriend would be appealing. Most of all, it was hard to hear my bright, kind host mother tell me how her husband wouldn’t allow her to go back to work and how boring it was to be stuck at home as her kids grew up.

By going to Japan, I witnessed and tried to become a part of their everyday lives. The day they had to put me on the bus to Narita Airport was di$cult. I scrubbed my eyes as the bus pulled away from the station, which earned me a slightly panicked look from the middle-aged ojisan sitting next to me, who most likely hadn’t taken an inconsolable gaijin girl into account before boarding the airport shuttle.

My host family gave me so many things and taught me about the love and sacri#ce that is part of being a family member who is cared for and cares for others. The best thing I brought back with me couldn’t #t in my suitcase (well, not without violating some pretty serious human tra$cking laws): my new, unforgettable Japanese family.

”17Carolina Passport16 Carolina Passport

Te levantas por la mañana viendo, sin-tiendo, y respirando un aire puro sin contaminación del mundo. No hay contaminación de cultura, medio am-biente, o de política. Es más, olvida la política, la gente se organiza entre el-los con sus propias leyes y sistema de justicia. Todo lo que está ahí es puro y único a la gente y al territorio. Es tan puro que al entrar, te ven como extran-jero, aunque parezcas, vistas, o hables como ellos. Ya lo intenté.

Las mujeres utilizan mantas, faldas, y sombreros que son únicos de esta comunidad. Las imágenes de colores vibrantes del sol, la luna, los animales, y los ríos son únicas. El color rojo que utilizan es representativoe de la sangre del valle sagrado. Tú te das cuenta cu-ando ves a tu alrededor a las mujeres utilizando sus mantas rojas y los hom-bres sus ponchos rojos. Y no, esto no es solo para impresionar a los extranje-ros- es lo que utilizan cada día.

En las mañanas, me levantaba con el sonido de los niños corriendo afuera,

buscando leña para prender el fuego. Aquí nadie come hasta que alguien prende el fuego. Ahí te olvidas del gas y la estufa, te recuerda al comienzo de la historia del fuego. Los niños corren a buscar leña y hojas de eucalipto a las 5 de la mañana. Las hojas son para que-mar pero también una fragancia natu-ral. ¿Te imaginas qué bello es despertar con este olor (o de esta manera)?

Pero aunque la belleza es pura y las acciones puras no contaminen, in-evitablemente vivimos en un mundo en el cual la acción de uno afecta a los demás. Estamos unidos por este siste-ma global y más porque todos vivimos en un solo mundo juntos.

Asi que olvidemos lo bello por un momento y hablemos de la realidad, no basados en lo que vemos como turistas. Salgámonos de la historia romántica del área Andina. Veamos esta situación humana con ojos de sobresuperviven-cia económica.

Esta comunidad donde viví este ve-rano por tres meses, depende mayor-

PERÚPopulation: 29.5 millionCapital: LimaLanguage: Spanish, Quechua

PERÚLa Historia Romántica de la Área Andina de Perú

But even if pure beauty and pure actions do not contaminate, inevitably we live in a world in which the action of one a!ects the other.

Top: Going to tend the llamas that are at a

Middle: the plots of agriculture and visit those who

By Jakelin Bonilla

mente de la agricultura como forma de supervivencia. La investigacióno que realicé fue para observar la realidad de la vida Andina. Decidí investigar más sobre la supervivencia económi-ca y menos sobre cómo sobrevive su cultura. Fue este verano que descubrí cómo las vidas de las comunidades an-dinas de Perú está cambiando debido a factores climáticos. Estas comunidades que parecen tan lejos de la in"uencia del mundo exterior, que parecen inmu-tables, no están excluidos del impacto del cambio climático. Más allá de ver las decisiones de los individuos como re"ejo de su cultura, decidí enfocar mis estudios en la fuerza de la super-vivencia económica en las decisiones de los hogares y la comunidad. Estas decisiones son pertinentes a temas como su uso de la tierra, la educación, las formas de ingreso, la salud, etc. Una fuerza cada vez más apremiante porque el cambio climático está po-niendo en más peligro sus medios de subsistencia y alimentación.

Estos cambios afectan directamente a la gente de la comunidad ya que sus vidas están directamente in"uidas por cambios en el ecosistema. Especí#ca-

mente, dependen de los animales y la tierra para sus oportunidades económi-cas que abren fuentes de ingreso.

¿Entonces qué pasa cuando ya no se pueden desarrollar o sustentar igual estos recursos? La consecuencia es que ahora sufren de pobreza de recursos naturales.

¿Qué pasa cuando también no ex-isten los recursos o entrenamientos para adaptarse a esta nueva realidad creada por el cambio climático? La próxima opción para muchos es emi-grar a otro lugar. En los países menos desarrollados, la migración laboral suele ser interna, temporal y circular.

La migración forzada es el problema más urgente al que se enfrentan mu-chas de las comunidades rurales.

Al despertar a las 4 de la mañana se veía la neblina en el valle así como el hielo que se acumulaba entre los valles. Esto signi#ca que la oscuridad también traía con ella mucho más hielo que an-tes. En una sola noche podrían morir las llamas o las vicuñas, que son una forma de ingreso para muchas familias andinas. Algunas familias utilizan es-tos animales para hacer textiles y otros para vender su carne. También el clima en esta comunidad, ha in"uido en el cultivo de la papa, ya que no crecen como antes en estas comunidades. El crecimiento de la papa es menor y así como el rendimiento de la cosecha. Ya no es su#ciente.

These communities that seem so out of the in"uence of the outside

world, almost immutable, are not excluded from the impact of climate change.

Top right: Riding on the market truck Maiz and meat

Read the English version of the story, and others, online at:

global.unc.edu/carolinapassport

Jakelin Bonilla is a junior from Siler City, N.C. majoring global studies with minors in geog-raphy and entrepreneurship. She received the Burch Fellowship for her summer in Peru.



AftershocksAftershocksBy Lee Farese

[1]

HAITI

Population: 9 million

Capital: Port-au-Prince

Language: French, Creole

1. Motorcycles in the streets

[2]

[3]

[4]


[7]

[5] [6]

23Carolina Passport

[8]

[9]

Mars, directly across the street from

[10]

Lee Farese is a !rst-year student from San Francisco, Calif., and is undecided on his major. These photos were taken around Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with Mer-cy Corps (with a big thanks to PhotoPhilanthropy). Contact Lee at [email protected].

[11]


Overlooking Cairo

at sunset from my

favorite mountain-‐

top perch

Cairoin

Unexpected DiscoveriesEGYPTPopulation: 78.9 millionCapital: CairoLanguage: Arabic

By Elaina Giolando

27Carolina Passport

Elaina Giolando is a senior from Bu!alo, N.Y. majoring in global studies and Chinese. The Class of 1938 Fellowship award supported her three-month internship with Ashoka Arab World. Contact her by sending an e-mail to [email protected].

Shu Shu and I at her apartment.

Chinese greeting on the third ring. “Hi, Shu Shu. My name is Elaina

and my friend, Ahmed, gave me your phone number,” I explained in nervous Chinese. “He told me that you sell clothing from China and I would like to buy something.” She agreed to meet me, and we arranged a meeting place for the next day.

Shu Shu met me in our designated location over an hour outside of down-town Cairo and led me down a maze of dusty side streets to her home. Her four-bedroom apartment housed "ve Chinese couples—surely crowded but decorated warmly with Chinese bless-ings and pictures from their home in northeastern China. She told me that everyone in the apartment made their living by selling goods door-to-door. Because they worked from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. (in order to catch Egyptians at home after work and to avoid the day-time heat), they woke up at 2 p.m., made dinner and were o! to work.

She gestured for me to sit on her bed, which was in the middle of the living room, and began carefully sift-ing through the tightly packed knap-sack she carried each day, laying out di!erent clothes she sold. Adorned with animal prints, glitter and Chinese characters, the clothes were perhaps most be"tting for an average Chinese teenager, priced at roughly $7 US each. I picked out a pair of pajamas I liked and paid her in cash, which she sheep-ishly slipped under her pillowcase.

We sat there for a long while after, talking about how she liked Egypt, how she decided to come here and how work was going.

“Slower than last year,” she replied. She and her husband had been in Egypt for over two years and had not yet been back to China.

I saw a photo album sitting on the kitchen table and wondered aloud if she had any pictures from China. She grabbed the album and began #ipping through pages of pictures of her as a child and her whole family together outside their home in rural China. There were also pictures of her two children, now eight and ten years old, who were be-ing raised by their grandparents back in China.

“When will you go back to China?” I asked gently.

“If business doesn’t improve,” she replied, “then maybe this year.”

As we talked, the various men and women she lived with popped in and out of their bedrooms, startled to see a blonde stranger in their apartment.

“She speaks Chinese,” Shu Shu would explain, and they would smile widely and come sit down next to me, asking where I came from, what I was doing in Egypt and how on earth I knew Shu Shu.

It was 3 p.m. and dinner was cook-ing: a meal of rice, soup and an assort-ment of Chinese vegetables. Noticing it was soon to be mealtime, I excused myself to return home but was bom-barded with protests from all of the oc-cupants of the apartment.

“You must stay and eat!” The oldest

man said matter-of-factly. “Do you like Chinese food?”

“Do I ever!” I replied with a grin. Before I knew it, a seat at the table

was cleared and a mountain of vegeta-bles and rice lay before me with spicy steam rising to my nostrils. As I eager-ly gulped down my "rst mouthful of rice, I suddenly felt a surge of emotion like nothing I had ever experienced be-fore.

Here I was eating a home-cooked meal with 10 Chinese migrant workers in their apartment in Egypt, speaking Mandarin Chinese and laughing and conversing like I would with family and friends at home. Feelings of joy, irony, shock, gratefulness and the cra-zy senselessness of the world hit on me all at once. Why do we live in a world where people leave their children for two years to make a living half a world

away? And why were these people so generous and welcoming to a complete stranger?

In three weeks I would board a plane for Bu!alo, N.Y., to go home to friends, family,

school and a job that required very lit-tle sacri"ce on my part. The immense freedom and privilege of my life sud-denly became crystal clear. But instead of feeling ashamed, I took consolation in my deep and genuine desire to reach a greater understanding of the world around me and to be kind and sym-pathetic to people whose lives I will never fully comprehend.

I looked around the table and thanked all of them for their kindness in allowing me a peek into their world. It was a true gift, one I will always re-member from my time in Egypt.

The immense freedom and privilege of my

life suddenly became crystal clear.


I will never forget the sweet scent of shisha "lling my nostrils as I wove my way down bustling streets lined with men smoking and sipping tea or the precarious taxi rides speeding along the Nile that brought me to work each morning. I will forever remember the conversations I had over endless cups of tea with friends from all walks of life on those cool Egyptian nights when the piercing desert sun had already set on the relentlessly bustling Cairo. I loved climbing a quiet mountain just outside the city at sunset to hear the call to prayer echo over the sprawling metropolis and to see the orange hori-zon dotted with mosques poking out over shanty buildings that were likely a thousand years old.

Yet among these memories of my Egyptian experiences, I recall most fondly the time I spent with people from another of the oldest civilizations on Earth: China. Of all that I could do in Cairo, I chose to devote several days a week to chatting with Chinese men and women who had migrated to Egypt to make a living, taking ad-vantage of the relaxed Egyptian im-migration policies, relative safety and large market for the purchase of Chi-nese goods. Most of the time I found them by chance, but one of my favor-ite experiences began when a friend of mine collected the phone number of a Chinese saleswoman who had come to his door just days before. I had heard about these Chinese saleswomen who sell Chinese products door-to-door in Cairo, but never thought I would have the opportunity to meet one.

Thrilled with the opportunity to learn more about these women’s lives, I dialed the number and wondered how I could ever explain why I wanted to meet her. “Wei?” came the familiar

My fondest memories of Cairo are quintessentially Egyptian: being welcomed into the homes of strangers for huge meals I could never "nish and wandering down alleys "lled with men selling fresh mango and guava juice, brightly colored hijabs, live chickens and rabbits, and fragrant perfumes.

The Beginning: The echoes that I have heard my whole life, faint wisps of familiarity, have transformed. The pounding rhythm now guides me with a certainty that is irresistible. I !nd myself in Sevilla where my dreams melt into the soft notes and golden light. When my plane heaved its way o" the ground and rose clumsily above the steely clouds of London, I entered a new world of deep sky and pale rays of sunlight. This is the story of my time in Sevilla, a place that sharpens the hues of your life, intensi!es your passion and makes the world blindingly clear.

Day 1. The exhaustion rolls o" of me in waves. I can still smell the stale cramped spaces, sense the waiting, feel the arti!cial air. But as I walk outside the rain has abated and the night is humid with a breeze that rustles trees and drips water onto cobblestones and crushed oranges. Coral clouds race across the dark sky and I start to breathe again.

Day 5. The characters I spent my life imagining have so-lidi!ed. I meet the quintessential Spanish señora who wor-ries if I wear socks and drink my milk. She talks endlessly, of her crazy mother with piercing blue eyes and her fear of Asians. There are countless morbid tales of men ripped to shreds by their dogs, tonsils bloodily removed, deaths and tragedies that in their journey from the lips of a stooped, colonel-esque señora provoke many a silent chuckle. Every day the smells of pungent olive oil, red peppers and roasted

By Jessica Little

Jessica Little is a junior from Richmond, Va. majoring in Spanish and interdisciplinary studies: crossing borders in global health. She attended the UNC in Sevilla program and can be reached at [email protected].

garlic wake me from my sangria-induced stupor as the wa-vering notes of her morning songs !ll my ears.

Day 13: Walking. In an age where most people roll around in the solitary con!nement of their cars, walking has revived me. The cool air cuts into you, awakening your mind and mouth, stimulating long conversations and keen observations as you pass bubbling fountains, kiosks full of colorful candies and dogs following their owners like shad-ows. As my friends and I walk, life is suspended and we live brie#y in the moment, reacting only to quick beats of life around us.

Day 43: Trips open our eyes to the world outside our small spheres of exploration. As we return from Granada, time stretches out like the empty horizon ahead. The bus driver turns up the heat, su"ocating us into drowsy dreams. I wake to a world of grey, realizing that perhaps the vivid landscapes of Sevilla are not ubiquitous. The mountains roll across the sky like lumps of charcoal broken only by the stark white rows of birch trees. Twilight begins to fall as we reach Sevilla. The sky has become a blue-green hue that turns muddy puddles amongst gnarled olive trees into pools of molten silver.

Day 90: Time is passing like the world did that night in the moments before dawn as we spun headily, euphorically twirling our !ngers as dancing Sevillanas. The sky blurred with the chalky concrete, lights streaking across our vision as dim recollections race through my memory.

Day 117: The colors of Sevilla have disappeared under a thick curtain of rain. Walking becomes less appealing when every shoe you own allows the icy water to seep in, soak-ing your socks for painful hours. Every ounce of my being objects to the cold jeans that I slide on and the cruel wind that blows stinging water into my face. Grumbling silently, inwardly furious at this class that has forced me to abandon my warm nest, I slouch down at my wooden desk in the yel-

low room as the rain pounds outside. The professor shu$es in, wiping the rain from his face with a rumpled hanky. Af-ter passing out a few papers, he turns on soft opera music and begins reading the sonnets of Góngora, pausing only to point out hidden messages and open secret doors to under-standing. The pouring rain fades with the rising notes of the opera and the passionate words of a sonnet.

Day 140: The heat of summer has reached Sevilla. A dry heat, relieved only by the swift breeze, creates a mirage-like landscape of the red hibiscus along the river. In the moments when the wind inexplicably ceases, the world revolves around banana ice cream dripping slowly down a spoon and endless days burning on a beach with a foil wrapped sandwich and a soccer ball. Sweat pools in the small of my back as I doze near a river painted with paddleboats, each one holding a small red umbrella. The quick excitement of spring has been replaced by a lazy apathy and a crushing sadness of the approaching end. In the late afternoon, when the heat of the sun lessens, the light takes on a certain qual-ity of emptiness that shoots sparks of loneliness to the tips of my toes. I listen to a single song again and again, willing the present to last forever.

After: The places I am bound to are not my home. From the moment a soft voice !rst described the velvety silence of a procession past perfumed orange trees, I lived in an imag-ined world. Those streets that I found myself on in Sevilla morph erratically in my mind, familiarity causing conjured !rst impressions to become disjointed parts of another re-ality, one where my imagined world yawned uncertainly before me. Broken illusions and veiled discoveries spread out like the chaos of ink spilt across a canvas. Those streets, once condensed scenes, singular and complete, now form a grid, memories and a city that burns stronger than the glow of street lights next to an ancient cathedral. The city burns stronger than the shot of Manzanilla heavily poured in a tent swirling with polka dots and graceful hands. It is the white-hot burn of the cigarette lighter amongst tall grasses near a sunken ship in a !eld that feels like home, a familiar rhythm reverberating deep within. It is no imagined world.

The Music of Sevilla

SPAINPopulation: 40.5 millionCapital: MadridLanguage: Spanish

Polka dots dance across the dresses of young girls at Feria.

29Carolina Passport


I imagined spending my !rst days in India browsing through vibrant or-ange and pink silks in local markets, immersing myself in various religious landscapes and talking with people to understand the challenges and complexities they face when dealing with the question of “Indian” identity.

Instead, as I walked around down-town Delhi during my !rst week in India, the smell of spicy sweat !lled my nose as the sounds of horns and rickshaw bells rang in the overwhelm-ing 120-degree heat. The streets were packed with rickshaws, bicycles and vendors selling fruits and vegetables. The public buses were crammed with men hanging from windows, sitting

on top of the roofs and just !tting any-where they could—a human version of Tetris. Rather than my mental image of picturesque markets, I saw something else on the sides of the streets and in the alleys. My gaze !xed on a dusty sprawling slum surrounding a large Su! shrine.

Some of Delhi’s largest religious sites are sprinkled with sprawling slums—striking sights of abject poverty. While some are built with concrete walls and tin roofs, others are tent cities—canvas shelters brimming with activity during the day and glowing by smoldering !relight at night.

One such religious center I visited was the Dargah Hazrat Nizamuddin,

a 14th century Su! shrine in the heart of Delhi. Muslims, Hindus, Christians and curious tourists visit the shrine to secure the blessings of the deceased saint and hear the ancient music of the Dargah, called qawwali, unchanged and passed down from the 11th cen-tury among generations of accordion players and vocalists. All of us visi-tors wound through a medieval laby-rinth of crumbling alleys and uneven dirt roads that led to the Nizamuddin, passing pilgrims and impoverished residents. The merchants had stalls arranged along the path, and they sold warm chapati, vibrant marigolds and thick red strands to give to the saint in prayer. A man wearing a plain white

The Poor

are Rich

By Kathleen Ellison

A woman showing her son

31Carolina Passport

Above: A boy selling corn on the road from

qawwali

kurta, a traditional tunic, directed us to sit in the front of the qawwali audience. Upon sitting down, a man wielding a large palm fan began to cool us, promptly holding out a felt drawstring bag for donations to the Dargah in exchange for his services.

During the qawwali performance and the subsequent touring of the Dargah complex and its various tombs, I could only think of the 20,000 impov-erished residents who line the basti, the area surrounding the shrine.

However, while walking around the Nizamuddin, I saw a small alcove with a red cross painted on the door frame. I asked a man sitting inside what the room was, and he informed me that it was a clinic—one of the re-sources made available by the descen-dents of the Su! saint to the residents of the neighboring slums. People who cannot a"ord health care can walk to the makeshift clinic to receive treat-ment. The operators of the shrine have also created other institutions, such as schools for children, women’s micro-

enterprise initiatives and vocational training centers where adults can learn marketable skills. In addition, they are working with the government to se-cure basic needs such as clean water and sanitation facilities.

The goal is not only to help the im-poverished re sidents of the Dargah but also to alleviate some of the caste con-#ict in the area.

Spiritual centers in India, such as the Nizamuddin, serve as centers of well-being in spiritual and personal aspects. When I saw the multitudes of people begging outside the Nizamuddin, I was startled by the living conditions surrounding the Dargah complex. I thought the residents lacked perma-nent home structures, economic stabil-ity and access to basic human services. But after talking to residents around the Nizamuddin, my perspective shift-ed away from the de!ciencies and be-gan to change. They had unparalleled optimism and faith in their religious institutions. The people with whom I spoke were con!dent that they would

one day reach their potentials and have improved qualities of life. The shrine operators provided for their residents by giving them access to education, meals, and health clinics, and encour-aging hope, faithfulness and spiritual enlightenment.

Though I left India without seeing my vision of picturesque markets cov-ered in billowing canopies, I did man-age a glimpse into India’s complexities. I learned that spirituality and a mutual quest for truth can connect the most unlikely of people. I learned to slow down, explore more, ask questions and seek to understand the person, rather than judge by his or her circumstances. People have more in common than one could ever imagine. After all, the visi-tors at the Nizamuddin were seeking blessings and luck from the saint. And so were the people who lived there.

Kathleen Ellison is a senior from Chattanooga, Tenn. studying global studies. She traveled with the UNC Summer in India program as a Philips Ambassador in the summer of 2009. Contact her at [email protected].

INDIA


Capital: New Delhi

Language: Hindi

I learned to slow down, explore more, ask questions and seek to understand the person, rather than judge by his

or her circumstances.

are made of the traditional cow dung, others cement. No one has a toilet or running water, but several of the hous-es share tube wells that they can use to pump water. The villagers all have electricity that they have stolen from the main power line near the market. Everyone in the village dons traditional Madhesi clothing: kurta surwal, sari, and dhoti. The main meal is rice, lentils and vegetables, which is always eaten with the hands, no questions asked.

We entered the house, which was surrounded by a wall made from mud, dung and bricks. With no time to settle in, we put our bags in one of the two rooms in the house and started to cook. This year I came to the village to visit my boyfriend’s parents but also for the Vinod’s cousin’s wedding. We were not only helping to cut, cook and prepare the food for the wedding, but our task was to prepare the entire village for the groom’s arrival that evening. We had a lot of work ahead of us.

I followed Anita into the yard of an uncle’s house and began cooking with all of my aunties. I used the traditional Nepali blade to cut the vegetables—bit-ter gourd, potatoes and onions—while trying to keep my right foot holding the wooden stabilizer. The women were talking and laughing with Vinod be-cause he was the only man cutting veg-etables in the entire village. He smiled at them and then back at me as I concen-trated, my brow furled in order to better cut the vegetables.

With piles and piles of vegetables cut and after some funny Hindi/Nepali/Maithili conversations, Vinod told me to come back home to eat lunch. Music played throughout the whole village; loud Bhojpuri jams blasted through speakers near the main road. We crossed the path and went into our yard to eat curd, rice and vegetables. Just thinking about the delicious food my sasur ama, or boyfriend’s mother. Soon after we started to prepare the yard, which con-sists of gathering cow dung, bringing it back to the yard, mixing it with water and spreading it around the yard. My sasur ama started to spread the cow dung and my !rst instinct was to take it from her and do it. Immediately I told her, “Mommy, rookhiye, mai ye kam karoungi,” or “Mommy, please stop, I will do this work.” She laughed and handed it over

to me, so I observed Anita doing the work and followed her example.

The wedding was a beautiful ceremo-ny that lasted two days and two nights. Because we were part of the bride’s party, I got to meet the bride and even help her prepare for the !rst part of the ceremony. By the time we were !nished doing her hair, makeup and dress, she looked !ve years older than she was, the mere age of twenty-one. Like typical Madhesi mar-riages, Sharmila’s was arranged—she had only met her husband once before. I went up the ladder to the second "oor of her house on the night of her wedding and saw her surrounded by her sisters and cousins. I joined them in a circle and she turned to me and said, in English, “What do you think of these arranged marriages?” With a shimmer in her eyes, she listened carefully as I explained how I understood the logic but that not many people have arranged marriages in the U.S. She smoothed down her extrava-gant wedding sari and looked at all of her married sisters around her and then

looked at me and said, “Alecia, I want you to be my bhowju.” Perhaps the most meaningful thing that anyone in the vil-lage said to me in those three days was this simple word by Sharmila. In Mai-thili, bhowju is the equivalent of sister-in-law. To me, being accepted by Sharmila was equivalent to being accepted by the entire Mahato village family. Even more than that though, it was the realization that Brampuri is more than just a village on the Nepal-India border, and more than where my boyfriend is from, but it is now a part of me, my home.

Over the past two years, I have come to adopt Nepal as my home because of the sharing of my heart with Vinod, his family in Brampuri and my children, the boys and girls of Nepal Orphans Home, who brought us all together. Thank you for being my family, forever and always.


June 13, 2008 to volunteer at Nepal

At 4 a.m. we arrived in the dusty mar-ket of Arnama Rampura. I knew the place well as I remembered it from the previous year: the same stores, the same road, stretching past the market and into more and more rural Terai villages. Vinod, my two nanad (boy-friend’s sisters), Anita and Sunita, and I pulled our small bags up from the ground and started walking down a thin, bumpy road toward Brampuri. It was still dark but daybreak was near. Only a few older village men were awake as they went to use the !eld as their “toilet” early in the morning, as was their habit.

We walked past meters and me-ters of rice and vegetable !elds, and started singing to pass the time. Our Hindi songs passed through the !elds to the gharaw, or houses, and villagers started to wake up. The hot Nepal sun shone over our heads, so we picked up speed. Soon we had passed the low-

caste village and we reached a mid-dle-caste village of the Mahato caste. I knew where we were as soon as we got there. We made a left at the small mandir and passed several houses. The people all stopped to stare at me; their gaze was unwavering and so intense that it made me look at the ground to avoid it.

Soon we encountered our elders: grandfathers, grandmothers, aunties and uncles. We began to touch their feet. First, we touched their feet with our right hand and then touched our heads followed by our heart. The el-ders knowingly and kindly looked at me with wise eyes as I rose from touch-ing their feet with their hands on my head, giving me blessings for a long and happy life.

We made our way into Brampuri, the village where my boyfriend’s fam-ily lives. In Brampuri, there is a main path with houses on each side. Some

Humari Shaadi Main

By Alecia WestphalenDisclaimer: When you are in Nepal, no matter if you are Nepali or a foreigner, you automatically call any person that is your elder an “auntie” or an “uncle” regardless of the fact that they are not actually your aunt or uncle.

churra

33Carolina Passport

NEPALPopulation: 28.6 millionCapital: KathmanduLanguage: Nepali

Alicia Westphalen is a sophomore from Raleigh, N.C. She plans to major in global studies. Contact her at [email protected].

At the top of -‐

INDIA

PHOTOS FROM

AROUND THE

WORLD

When I approached with my cam-‐era, the grandmother tapped her

Renee Sullender

Elliot Montpellier

-‐

3Carolina Passport

KENYA

MALIWill Ridenour

the plain

Morgan Abbott

PERUPopulation: 29, 546,963Capital: LimaLanguage: Spanish

Suit & TiePolitical, academic and civil society heavy hitters from throughout the Andean region and the United States were slowly gathering in the hotel lobby, mingling as they awaited the ride to dinner. The !rst day of the U.S.-Andean Dialogue Forum was nearly over, and after hours of serious discussion everyone was ready for a mental break and some delicious food in downtown Lima.

I saw my boss, Santiago, step o" the elevator with what appeared to be a men’s suit in his hand. He looked stressed. He headed to-ward one of the conference participants, an indigenous Bolivian man named Germán Choque.

“I’m sorry…I keep trying to reason with them, but they simply won’t let you in if you don’t follow the dress code,” he said. “Here, I brought you an extra suit and tie you can change into…”

The dinner was to be held at the Club Nacional, famed as one of the oldest and most elegant social clubs in the world. It had been quite a feat for the conference organizers to arrange dinner at this exclusive club, and I was thrilled to have been invited as an intern helping with the forum. Part of the deal, however, was that the establishment’s dress code had to be strictly obeyed. When Mr. Choque entered the lobby in the tie-less, traditional suit of his peo-ple, Santiago had made a frantic phone call to the Club directors.

“In 150 years, we have never let in a man without a tie,” they ex-plained to him. “That isn’t going to change tonight.”

Mr. Choque remained completely calm, assuring Santiago that he didn’t have to go. Wearing a tie was out of the question but he was !ne with eating at the hotel rather than the Club.

To Mr. Choque, the tie is a symbol of oppression. He is not alone in that regard; in fact, Bolivian President Evo Morales has also de-!antly rejected wearing a tie. “If what [Pres. Morales] represents is opposition to 600 years of exploitation,” Eduardo Gamarra from Florida International University explained to the Washington Post, “why should he wear a suit and tie?’’

Mr. Choque was with us, without a tie, as we drove up to the Club. The Club clearly represented the Peruvian elite in its pur-est form. The rich, ruling men of Peru have been smoking cigars and toasting crystal champagne glasses in the Club Nacional for more than 150 years. Though the rules had been adjusted in the past few years to allow entry to women and indigenous people, the dress code served as an e"ective barrier to anyone below the high-est echelon of Peruvian society. Wearing a tie would sacri!ce an indigenous man’s dignity and ruin his reputation; the Club could rest assured that few, if any, indigenous men would be darkening their doorstep.

I remember standing in front of the beautiful building in central Lima, waiting to see if Mr. Choque would be turned away as prom-ised. My boss had made the executive decision that if Mr. Choque were turned away, we would all !nd another place to eat.

He was allowed in—for the !rst time in their 150 year history, a symbol of South American elitism hosted an honored guest from the lowest social class openly and proudly.

Caroline Guerra is a senior from Little Rock, Ark., studying political science and global studies. She received the Hogan Fellowship from the Johnston Scholars Pro-gram. Contact her at [email protected].

By Caroline Guerra

‘In 150 years, we have never let in a man without a tie,’ they explained to him. ‘That isn’t going to change tonight.’

A street running through the Santa Catalina Monastery in Arequipa, Peru.

PERUPopulation: 29.5 millionCapital: LimaLanguage: Spanish

PROGRAM: Burch Fellows ProgramDESCRIPTION: For students with self-designed o!-campus experiences pursuing a passionate interest.REQUIREMENTS: Full-time undergrads who have completed at least 1 but not more than 6 semesters at UNC. Must have 2 semesters at UNC after the Burch experience.STIPEND: up to $6,000DEADLINE: February 17MORE INFO: www.burchfellows.unc.edu

PROGRAM: Class of 1938 Summer Study Abroad FellowshipsDESCRIPTION: For students who need support to pursue independent career or personal projects outside the U.S.REQUIREMENTS: Sophomores, juniors or seniors planning on 5th year of coursework. Must be a U.S. citizen.STIPEND: $5,000DEADLINE: February 21MORE INFO: oisss.unc.edu/services_programs/1938/

PROGRAM: C.V. Starr International Scholar-shipDESCRIPTION: For students who have strong "nancial need to undertake an inde-pendent internationally-oriented experience during the summer.REQUIREMENTS: Undergrad students eligible for Pell Grant with min. 2.8 GPA; grad students who are NOT U.S. citizens or Per-manent Residents and have demonstrated "nanical need.STIPEND: $3,000 to $5,000DEADLINE: March 18MORE INFO: cgi.unc.edu/funding/cv-starr-ugrad.html

PROGRAM: Frances L. Phillips Travel ScholarshipDESCRIPTION: For students with individual, self-designed/directed interna-tional travel experiences of 2 to 6 months.REQUIREMENTS: Juniors/seniors in the Col-lege of Arts & Sciences with "nancial need. Must be a U.S. citizen and have attended high school in N.C. STIPEND: up to $9,000DEADLINE: October 15MORE INFO: www.unc.edu/depts/travel/

PROGRAM: Mahatma Gandhi FellowshipDESCRIPTION: For students to pursueindependent summer projects that bene"t South Asians.REQUIREMENTS: Full-time undergrad or grad students.STIPEND: up to $3,000DEADLINE: February 26MORE INFO: mgf.uncsangam.org/

PROGRAM: Study Abroad O#ce Scholarship OpportunitiesDESCRIPTION: For students to participate in study abroad programs approved by the College of Arts & Sciences.REQUIREMENTS: Full-time undergrad stu-dents accepted in a study abroad program. Speci"c requirements vary.STIPEND: VariesDEADLINE: Early Feb. for summer/fall pro-grams; late Sept. for spring programs.MORE INFO: studyabroad.unc.edu

PROGRAM: Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF)DESCRIPTION: For students to carry out research, mentored scholarship or creative performance projects during the summer.REQUIREMENTS: Full-time undergrad stu-dents in good academic standing. Projects must last at least 9 weeks (min. 20 hrs/wk). Additional support for international projects provided by the Center for Global Initiatives.STIPEND: min $3,000DEADLINE: February 24MORE INFO: www.unc.edu/depts/our/students/fellowship_supp/surf.html

PROGRAM: UNC Entrepreneurial Public Service FellowshipsDESCRIPTION: For students carrying out summer projects that employ innovative, sustainable approaches to complex social needs.REQUIREMENTS: Returning full-time under-grad or grad students. Projects must have a UNC faculty advisor and include a commu-nity partner.STIPEND: up to $3,000DEADLINE: January 28MORE INFO: www.unc.edu/cps/students-fellowships-eps.php

PROGRAM: Undergraduate International Studies FellowshipDESCRIPTION: For students pursuing aca-demic research or study in an international setting. REQUIREMENTS: Full-time second-term freshmen, sophomores and juniors who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Prefer-ence for students with "nancial need from underrepresented groups and for programs in areas of the African Diaspora.STIPEND: up to $2,500DEADLINE: October 15MORE INFO: http://sonjahaynesstonectr.unc.edu/programs/forms/uisf

PROGRAM: Honors Thesis Research GrantsDESCRIPTION: For students carrying out research for senior honors thesis projects. REQUIREMENTS: Undergraduates per-forming research for senior honors thesis. Students apply directly to their departmental Honors advisor. Additional support for inter-national projects provided by the Center for Global Initiatives.STIPEND: min $500DEADLINE: Varies by department.MORE INFO: www.honors.unc.edu/index.php/hnrs-enrolled/research.html?start=3

PROGRAM: Phillips Ambassadors ProgramDESCRIPTION: For students participating in summer or semester study abroad programs in Asia approved by the College of Arts & Sciences.REQUIREMENTS: Students accepted to a UNC study abroad program in Asia with min 3.0 GPA. 25% of scholarships awarded to quali"ed business majors/minors. Students going to China and India receive additional consideration.STIPEND: up to $7,500DEADLINE: Early Feb. for summer/fall pr-grams; late Sept. for spring programs.MORE INFO: studyabroad.unc.edu/phillips

PROGRAM: CGI International Internship AwardsDESCRIPTION: For students who wish to implement a summer internationally-fo-cused internship.REQUIREMENTS: Sophomore, junior or senior students returning to UNC. Graduate students pursuing a master’s degree.STIPEND: $500 to $3,000DEADLINE: March 18MORE INFO: gi.unc.edu/funding/internship-award-ugrad.html

PROGRAM: Carolina Undergraduate Health FellowshipsDESCRIPTION: For undergraduates to create a self-designed health-related project any-where in the world.REQUIREMENTS: Full-time returning under-grad students. Projects must have a health-related focus. Preference for students with "nancial need.STIPEND: $1,000 to $3,000DEADLINE: March 18MORE INFO: gi.unc.edu/funding/health-fellowship.html

Think you can’t a!ord an international experience?

37Carolina Passport

Think again.

1,171 Students in 65 Countries

SOURCE: Mark Nielsen, Information Systems Director, Study Abroad O!ce

KENYA

BOTSWANA

ISRAEL

MADAGASCAR

MEXICOCUBA

URUGUAY

COSTARICA

ECUADOR

PERU BRAZIL

CHILEARGENTINA

UNITED STATES

UNITED KINGDOM

SPAIN

SWEDEN

CZECH REPUBLIC

ITALYGREECE

EGYPT

TURKEY

MOROCCO

GHANA

TANZANIA

SOUTH AFRICA

SINGAPORE

THAILAND

INDIA

CHINA

S. KOREA

JAPAN

RUSSIA

AUSTRALIA

NEW ZEALAND

184130

141

FRANCE70

68

46

49

44

14

36

20

37

GERMANY34

24

20

AUSTRIA3

RWANDA2

2 5

18

7

11

9

2214

IRELAND16

19

23

3

NETHERLANDS12

6

10

2

DENMARK7

9TAIWAN

2DOMINICAN

REPUBLIC1

TURKS &CAICOS

2

GUATEMALA1

CAMEROON1

CROATIA1

FINLAND1

N. IRELAND1

1

6

1

5

JORDAN5

OMAN2

5

13NAMIBIA

NORWAY3

SWITZERLAND2

INDONESIA1

1

MALI2

NICARAGUA1

TUNISIA1

UGANDA1

Over 100 students

30-100 students

10-29 students

Fewer than 10 students

The Study Abroad Office at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill provides opportunities for students to travel all across the world. The mapshows the diverse travel experiences of students. This does not includeinternational programs offered by other units.

Data includes those who traveled on 2009 year-long, fall 2009, spring 2010 and summer 2010 programs.

1,171studentscountriesIN65


GLOBAL.UNC.EDU

Indio Solari concert

Photo by Nina Rajagopalan

FSC INFO HERE

Paradise Lost?

Fighting Climate Change,

Empowering Women &

Increasing Food Security in the

Maldives

June 11.Thirtyish hours in transit! Arrived at the Maldivian airport to learn

what it feels like to be a Mexican trying to enter the U.S…kidding. Mostly. Maldivian immigration knew nothing of my supposed “business visa,” which the organization I would be working with, Live & Learn Environmental Education, had promised to secure for me—tourism is strictly regulated in the Maldives to avoid interfering with the local Sunni Muslim culture.

The Maldives, located in the Indian Ocean, is a country of 1,200 islands, 300 of which are populated, while 80 percent are tourist resorts. The $8-a-day tourist bed tax is the main source of revenue for the government. The other

Fortunately, everything was straightened out, and Bushree, one of my co-workers, kindly came to pick me up and take the ferry with me to Male’. I feel

Asia, but the Maldives seems like such an incredibly unique place.

favorite person! If I was born Maldivian, I hope I would be as cool as her. She’s brilliant, gorgeous and smart. How wonderful it is to go somewhere you think will be very different and remember that people are all the same.

June 13.

and Education Project, a pilot project funded by the World Bank to improve food security and empower 25 women on the island of Thaa Veymandoo. Because the average Maldivian island is only 1.8 meters above sea level, rising oceans are increasing soil salinity and devastating Maldivian gardeners. The purpose of the project is to introduce gardening techniques resilient to these changes.

I went with Zaaji to get hedika (Maldivian “short eats”) for brunch at the

8 a.m. until 4 p.m., Sunday through Thursday, because Friday is to Muslims what Sunday is to Christians.

June 20. Zaaji has essentially adopted me into her life. We often hang out at her

friend Ishan’s place, where sometimes I feel like I haven’t even left the States—everyone is playing Wii, checking Facebook or playing music.

At one point or another, the Maldives has dealt with Dutch, Portuguese and British presence. Most professionals speak English as well as the native language, Dhivehi, a language relative of Sanskrit and Arabic.

This weekend we went to Dharavandoo and Maahlos in Baa Atoll to conduct a Rapid Assessment of Perceptions of the communities. Even though I don’t speak Dhivehi, watching and photographing the trainings was awesome.

I love working at Live & Learn. It’s a thrill to be working for an organization that follows such good practices. Everyone who works here is local. The trainings are interactive and all about capacity building, critical thinking, empowerment and community action. They place value on local knowledge and beliefs. It’s about collaboration and sustainability, not about imposing predetermined views on others.

July 6. The entire Maldivian cabinet resigned last week. There have also been

some audio tapes discovered that make corruption and bribery pretty obvious. “Maldivian Watergate” is upon us…

People’s Majils, the Maldivian legislative body. Over the course of his 30-year

Above Going scuba diving! With my friends Danu and Aisha.

Below A Maldivian couple on the island of Vilingili gaze across the ocean at the

Maldivian capital, Male’.

rule, he greatly improved socioeconomic conditions in the Maldives. But he was criticized for being corrupt and for the lack of political and civil liberties under his regime—opposition members were tortured and there was no free press.

In 2008, a multi-candidate election was held, and “Anni,” President Mohamed Nasheed, came to power, making the Maldives one of a handful of Muslim democracies. However, the opposition party still controls the legislature, and the president isn’t getting anything done.

Yesterday I called the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture (MOFA) to speak with a gardening expert about the best materials for the raised garden beds. The call explained a lot about the

spend most of their days going for coffees. I spoke to about seven different people.

Me: Hi, my name is Tasha, I’m calling from Live & Learn. I need to set up a meeting with a gardening expert.

Me: Yes.MOFA: Mmm, please call a different number. You have the

wrong number. This is the Ministry of Fisheries.

to speak to someone about agriculture, please.MOFA: No, no, please call different number.

activities are designed for participants to consider the goals of the project and engage in hands-on learning about gardening techniques such as composting, mulching, innovative pest control, etc. I now know how to make organic fertilizer from leguminous leaves and the fruit of the Neem Tree!

July 14. Sigh. Why does every country (ok, just Thailand and the

trip to Thailand this summer was cancelled. At least the Maldives waited until I actually got here…

But in exciting news I’ve completed the Monitoring and

July 18.There are a few things I’m looking forward to about returning

to the U.S. of A. My friends and family. Freedom of speech and the freedom to peaceably assemble. Being able to run and exercise comfortably in public. Salad and the farmer’s market. Wide sidewalks. Dryers. Natural light indoors. Drinking. Dancing. Murals. Wearing shorts and tank tops. Porches. Open spaces, especially green ones.

July 21. How tragic and surreal that because of humanity’s wastefulness,

this country might be entirely submerged by the time I have great-grandchildren. Despite Maldivian contributions to greenhouse

July 24.

40 hours of transit later, I’m back home in Maryland. While it is great to be home with my friends and family, I miss my friends—and family—back in the Maldives, the place that has been my home this summer. The political situation there is still extremely tense, and I worry for my friends’ safety. I can only hope I get to see them again someday.

I’ve been so fortunate to meet such wonderful and kind people and to get to see the Maldives that so few foreigners get to see from the tourist resorts. This has been the experience of a lifetime, and I will never forget all that I have learned. I’m so grateful. Shukuriya.

Natasha Prados is a senior political science and

Latin American studies major from Takoma Park,

Md. Her travel was funded by Sangam’s

Mahatma Gandhi Fellowship. Contact her at

[email protected].

Above

Below With my Maldivian friends! L to R (top): Issey, Aisha and me,

You wake up in the morning, seeing, feeling and breathing clean air with no pollution from the outside world—think-ing there is no contamination of culture, environment or politics. Forget the politics altogether; people here organize themselves with their own laws and justice system. All that is here is pure and unique to the people and their territory. It is so pure that you enter as an outsider even if you look, dress and talk like them. I tried.

Women use decorations, skirts and hats that are distinctive to this com-munity. The vibrantly colored images of the sun, moon, animals and rivers are unique. The red color that is used by the community is representative of the blood of the Sacred Valley. You realize this when you see the women wearing their red decorations and men their red ponchos. And no, this is not just to impress foreigners; this is what they wear every day.

In the mornings, I awake to the sound of children running out to look for

and the stove and you remember the

at 5 a.m. The leaves are to burn but they

imagine how beautiful it is to wake up to this every morning?

But even if pure beauty and pure actions do not contaminate, inevitably we live in a world where the action of one affects the other. We are united in this global system and more so because we all live in one world together.

So forget the beautiful scenes for a moment. Let us think about the reality we do not see as tourists. Let us look past the romantic history of the Andean region. Let us consider this human situation through the eyes of economic survival.

The community where I lived this summer was dependent mostly upon agri-

culture for its survival. The general pur-pose of the research study I conducted was to look at the reality of Andean life. I decided to investigate more the economic survival and less through the single-focus lens of cultural survival. I discovered how the lives of Peru’s Andean communities are changing because of climatic factors. These communities that seem so removed

almost immutable, are not excluded from the impact of climate change. Beyond

individual decisions, I decided to focus my studies on the force that economic survival has upon the decisions of house-holds and the community. These deci-sions are relevant to issues such as land use, education, forms of income, health and more. It is a pressing issue because climate change is putting their livelihoods and nutrition more and more at risk.

These changes directly affect the people of the community because their

ecosystem. They also depend on animals and land for economic opportunities that open sources of income for them.

So what happens when they can no longer develop or sustain their natural resources? They suffer from poverty of natural resources. What happens when there are neither resources nor training to adapt to this new reality created by cli-mate change? The next option for many is to migrate elsewhere. Forced migration is the most urgent problem facing many rural communities.

When you wake up at 4 a.m., you can see the fog in the valley and ice that has accumulated between the valleys. This means that the night brought with it even more darkness. In one night, the llamas, which are a form of income for many Andean families, could die. Some families use the animals to make textiles and others sell their meat. Also, the climate of this community has affected the potato crop because they do not grow as before. The crop yield of the potato is falling.

Jakelin Bonilla is a junior from Siler City, N.C. majoring in global studies with minors in geog raphy

and entrepreneurship. She received the Burch Fellowship for her

summer in Peru. Contact her at [email protected].

La

Historia

Romántica

de la Área

Andina de

Perú

Bringing

“Musik”

Back Home

This is what Vienna

taught me.

Vienna was the stomping ground for such incredible composers as Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Schoenberg and Berg. The musical history there is unlike any other country; pride in musical history and culture runs thick in Austrians’ blood. They enjoy their music like Tarheels enjoy our 2009 National Championship—it is a

brings them joy.While studying in Vienna, I had

countless opportunities to learn about music and its relevance to my own personal performance and studies. I studied original Schubert manuscripts. I visited Mozart’s largest apartment in Vienna. I examined Mahler scores and saw Vienna from his perspective. I stood in the room where Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony premiered. I enjoyed countless operas in the Staatsoper, a living and breathing shrine to the musical greats—Gustav Mahler, Anna Netrebko, Natalie Dessay, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti. After only a few weeks of living in Vienna, I felt deeply connected to the musical life of this city.

This is the thing that struck me the most about music in Vienna: it’s Life. It truly is a Life, pulsing and thriving at the very foundation of the city. Signs for upcoming concerts are everywhere. Schedules for the opera are posted on street lamps. Ten-thirty is rush hour in Austria, because that is when the operas end. Students from around the world come to study in Vienna, to glean knowledge from this ever-changing volume in the book of music. To the Austrians, Le Nozze di Figaro, Mahler’s Fifth Symphony or a Chopin’s Mazurka are not stale, boring or stuffed museum exhibits. Instead, music is constantly growing, breathing, challenging and

amazing them. Every night at the opera, Austrians push and shove to have the best view of their favorite performers. Frighteningly intense Austrian women loudly shush you for creating the slightest noise. Especially tall people are viciously chastised for their height, should they block shorter people behind them. Season tickets to the opera are passed down in last wills and testaments. The queue to see Anna Netrebko perform in La Boheme began at noon and was wrapped around the opera house by 4 p.m.

As a little, lost American girl, I found

Whether knowingly or unknowingly, Austrians took me under their music-loving wings and allowed me to peer

One day during my last couple weeks in Austria, after waiting to receive standing room tickets to Mahler’s Fifth

that every ticket was sold out. Sensing my disappointment, an Austrian man approached me, inquiring whether I would be willing to purchase one of his extra tickets. I told him I could only pay 5 euro for the ticket. He agreed to my price and we entered the theater. As he guided me to our seats, I realized how close we were sitting to the stage. I looked down at my ticket and saw its price: 180 euros. This man knew the value of music, and he allowed me to have his ticket so that a beautiful concert and a beautiful seat would not be wasted.

Music really is the most accessible, moving and beautiful manner of communicating. It is the art form that reaches the unexplored parts of our being and shows us what we could not have

and it softens even the hardest of hearts.

Noelle Harb is a junior music and

English major from Knoxville,

Tenn. She participated in the IES

study abroad program in Vienna,

Austria. She can be reached at

[email protected].

My roommates and I just before Le Nozze di Figaro by W.A. Mozart.

We purchased standing room

This morning, Uteng came knocking on my door, asking if I was ready to go. We were leaving at 9 a.m., but it was only 7:45 a.m. The sun was deep in the clouds, still nestled and sleeping soundly. Fat, fresh dew hung heavily on the thatch roof, where the palm fronds rested gently atop solid wooden beams.

I watched, bleary-eyed, as my last precious moments of sleep shook away. I

stretched out wide in the distance before me. I had come from Singapore, and now I was headed back over the black ocean to the States. I was tired, lying in the dark, staring up at that roof. But I didn’t want Uteng to fret so I grumbled, got dressed and went downstairs. I still had to wait an hour for the driver. I don’t know why Uteng woke me up so early.

phrase for this situation, I scraped together some mi goring, the Indonesian equivalent of the poverty staple Ramen, in a dirty and caked steel pot. Unlike Ramen, when you cook mi goring, you crack an egg on top and let the yellow juices run down into the soft noodles beneath. I knew this would be the last time I’d have it here in this little kitchen.

A stray dog skittered along outside. A

I took the ride to the airport like a letter full of bad news, feeling taciturn. The driver, his hands clutching the wheel like talons, tried to engage me in the Balinese way. Where was I going? When

would I return?It came crashing in loud, aggressive

waves: Bali had really grown on me. As I slumped against the side of the van, I turned over new ideas in my head like silver coins. I considered my heightened awareness of monetary value and the steel capitalism machine that is America. Time to reevaluate some things.

The driver dropped me off at the airport curb, plucking my bags from the trunk and setting them, like two little dogs, at my heels.

With my head slung down and my hands in my hair, I sat in the airport next to an older woman looking at a glossy coffee table book about the island. Every picture in it was of crisp, clear and pristine scenery. But in all my time in Bali, I didn’t see one thing that looked like those pictures. It clattered around in my head that the photographers had taken pictures of what existed on the island, yes, but had removed all sense of life, all culture and lifestyle. The photographers

I felt a mild lurch in my stomach. These are the things that allow us to return to our Western culture and present inaccurate memories that forget about the reality. We forget about the needs of the people who make these places so important and beautiful to us. That’s true of other places besides Bali, I guess.

The Denpasar airport is rough. There are long lines for everything, ten different shaky checkpoints and scowling

because of the lines. Last night, Uteng told me that

I was his best friend. I’m pretty sure he was serious. I made him step out

afterward. When we went to Kuta, he told everyone we met for days afterward

strangers. I wish I was staying longer. The

Everyone I met asked, “When will you come back next year?” The question was not “Will you?” but rather, “During which month?” Some grasped and hugged. Some held my hand and thanked me. Some even begged me to come back. Gusti even said he’d pray to the gods. It’s serious. I feel like I have a loose family network here. The Balinese are really, really something.

later as opposed to never. It makes leaving

I wouldn’t ache when I left, but I kept myself open and in the end it got me. My goal all along was to let everything in, but I didn’t think it would happen. Well it did, and now it aches.

There will always be the Western piece of me that is concerned with Western things. Now I have a new piece has been added: the tiny Balinese piece that got under my eyelids and pried them wide open.

Christina Haver is a senior English and comparative literature and philosophy major

from Raleigh, N.C. She participated in the “Where in the World are We?” program as

a Phillips Ambassador. Contact her at [email protected].

ON LEAVING

Documents

FALL 2010 - UNC Global · Morgan Abbott Jessica Bodford Jakelin Bonilla Annie Clark Kathleen Ellison Lee Farese Elaina Giolando Estes Gould Carolina Guerra Laura Harris Nushmia Khan