An Interview with Michelle Eilers, Alice Rowan Swanson Fellow

Michelle in Belen, Chile with Aymara physician Don Basilio and Señora Benita

Michelle Eilers is a senior at Tufts University, where she studies Anthropology and Community Health. In the spring of 2009, Michelle participated on the SIT Study Abroad Chile: Culture, Development, and Social Justice program in Valparaiso. Originally from central Texas, Michelle has worked with Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrants. She became interested in minority-related health disparities when she had an internship and later worked at a small, family-practice clinic in rural central Texas. Michelle was recently awarded the first Alice Rowan Swanson fellowship, which provides grant money for SIT Study Abroad alums to pursue projects relating to human rights. To read more about Alice Rowan Swanson, click here. To learn more about the fellowship guidelines and to download an application, click here.

Why did you decide to do SIT Study Abroad in Chile?

When looking at study abroad programs, I knew that I wanted to study in Chile, and I was attracted to the possibility of working with a community and conducting independent research while abroad, rather than simply taking university classes.  I was attracted to the program theme in Valparaíso and I knew that I did not want to live in a city as large as Santiago, so I chose the program on Culture, Development, and Social Justice.
 
What was your independent study project (ISP) in Chile, and how is that connected to the work you will be doing in Chile this coming January?

A new Aymara birthing room at a hospital in Arica, Chile

My independent study project focused on the pregnancy and birthing practices of indigenous Aymara women, who live in northern Chile, Bolivia, and Peru.  I looked at how the traditional practices have shifted due to Chilean Ministry of Health norms and trends towards increased modernity, as well as the current processes in place to maintain these traditions.  The work I will do in January focuses on a particular program called Utasanjam usuña (which means “to give birth as in our house,”) which was implemented in the northern city of Arica to provide Aymara women with a traditional birthing room that provided the appropriate herbs and treatment from an Aymara doctor within the local hospital, to ensure safe deliveries.  I will work with the organization that implemented the program, PESPI (Special Program for Health and Indigenous Communities) to assess the awareness of the program for the Aymara population, and how it is being received by Western medical professionals and the Aymara community.
 
Why did you decide to apply for this fellowship, and what do you hope to get out of it?
 
Upon return to school this summer, I felt that I was unable to fully assess the situation I had investigated during the ISP period, and I wanted to provide the community with a tangible and useful resource that would facilitate the process of retaining cultural birthing practices.  I was unsure of how to find enough funding to be able to return to Chile, until I read about the Alice Rowan Swanson fellowship, which is an amazing opportunity for an SIT alum to give back to the community where they studied.

 

Michelle with two Aymara physicians

How will this fellowship influence your next steps, and what do you plan to do after you graduate from Tufts?

The fellowship allows me to understand the process of independent research and facilitate my career plans to work with similar communities.  Through my coursework at Tufts and my experience in Chile, I have learned and witnessed firsthand the discrimination that impoverished communities suffer from, and my goal is to make meaningful contributions to such groups to help improve their health status.  I plan to apply for a Fulbright or Rotary Scholarship to work with a maternal health program in South America, and I aspire to attend medical school and complete an MD/MPH, with a focus on international medicine.  Following this, I plan to continue working in international health development in Latin America.

How has SIT Study Abroad shaped the way you look at the world?

SIT Study Abroad provided me with eye-opening experiences that I would likely have never experienced otherwise; I was able to live with families of different social strata and experience life in both a rural and urban setting.  Apart from greater language comprehension, I am now more aware of distinct cultural notions and how to navigate differences in cultures.  Additionally, the program introduced me to the field of international development, through the lens of human rights and social justice, and allowed me to more fully understand global issues and how to think about international concerns of which I was previously unaware.

SIT Study Abroad Panama Alum turns field research into education scholarships

In the fall of 2008, Tim Soo traveled to Panama on the SIT Study Abroad Panama: Tropical Ecology, Marine Ecosystems, and Biodiversity Conservation program. Soo, a student at Emory University who plans to become a doctor, spent the summer of 2008 working in a medical lab in Japan before heading directly to Panama. Once in Panama, the stark contrast between his homeland and the research lab in Japan struck him immediately, but the turning point occurred a few months later when his group visited the Comarca Ngobe, a reservation for the Ngobe indigenous group.

Though Soo and his fellow group members spent only one night in the Comarca, the experience was transformative for many of them. The Comarca Ngobe have traditionally been a nomadic people, but recent population growth in Panama has severely limited their movement. As a result, the Ngobe of the Comarca have become isolated in a small reservation in the mountains, virtually unable to produce enough food for survival. Language and cultural barriers only make the situation more severe, and the group receives very little help from the national government.

Soo originally planned to conduct research on medicine, but found the conversations always drifting back towards more basic needs for food and shelter. It was the first time he and the other group members had truly observed extreme poverty, and they decided that they needed to do something about it. “Through various discussions afterwards, we attempted to come up with a solution to escaping this endless cycle of poverty, to escaping these difficulties; we decided the best way was through education,” he says. The group then started “Few for Change,” an organization devoted to raising tuition money for students of the Comarca Ngobe. To date, the group has raised enough money for two scholarships, and has begun working with ASMUNG and Padres Familiares, two local organizations in Panama, who will help to identify scholarship recipients.

The organization is now up and running, and a prime example of the impact that field research can have on SIT Study Abroad students. To learn more about “Few for Change,” visit the organization’s website at: http://www.fewforchange.com/

SIT Study Abroad Alum Continues to Give through the World Learning/SIT Global Reciprocity Fund

Nadine Channaoui attended SIT Study Abroad Bolivia: Culture and Development Program in fall of 2008 and will start her final year at Brandeis University this fall.  She is currently fundraising for her host community in Bolivia through the World Learning/SIT Global Reciprocity Fund. 

SIT Study Abroad’s model of international education is grounded in the host communities and organizations with which they work. To support these communities and partnerships, SIT Study Abroad is expanding efforts to fund local initiatives in healthcare, the environment, education, and more through its new Global Reciprocity Fund.

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I was not originally planning on studying abroad in Bolivia.  Honestly, I didn’t even know where Bolivia was when I started browsing through programs.  Early on, I knew that I wanted to go to a Spanish-speaking country.  Later in the search process, I realized that I wanted to go to a developing country.  I was also very drawn to SIT programs as they seemed to add a whole other twist to studying abroad.  When (a friend) mentioned the (Culture and Development) program in Bolivia, I got hooked.  I read about the rich cultures and pressing social issues and knew that Bolivia would offer me a completely different experience from anything I had ever known—which was ultimately exactly what I wanted.

When I arrived in Cochabamba, Bolivia, the city seemed as spunky as its name with its panoramic mountains, colorful buildings, and picturesque plazas…However as I spent more time in the incredibly diverse country, I was gradually introduced to the complexity of its interior: the cracks that needed repairs; the features that, though different from my familiar home, were completely functional; and the differences among various regions, opinions, and cultures that all existed “under the same roof.”

During one of (SIT Study Abroad’s) seminar classes, we had sociology students from a local university visit and we all watched a couple of SIT student-made films about Bolivian migration and had a discussion about the topic afterwards.  One of the films, by Hanna Rosenthal-Fuller, was a series of interviews that discussed what life was like for children and spouses who lived in Bolivia while their family members migrated abroad.  It was a very touching film and really tugged at my heart strings.  I immediately wanted to learn more about the topic and wanted to provide some type of resource for the children. 

I decided to investigate this theme for my Independent Study Project (ISP), a month-long, field-work-based project done at the conclusion of the program. My investigations, which explored the emotional and behavioral effects of children with migrant parents, included volunteer work with an NGO, interviews with professionals, and group charlas (or chats) with Bolivian children who had at least one parent or relative abroad. I was not surprised to find that the children experienced emotional, academic, and responsibility alterations after their parents went abroad; however I was surprised to learn that despite their grief, they often so maturely understood that their parents left to benefit them… I was also aware that children’s literature was hard to come by in Bolivia and wanted to give back to a society that had taught me so much.  Writing a children’s book during my ISP seemed like the perfect solution!

 I hope that my book helps children with migrant parents understand that they are not alone, it is okay to miss their parents, and there are various methods of expressing and coping with their emotions.  At the conclusion of my study abroad experience, I was able to read my book aloud to a small gathering of local children. I’ll never forget their eyes gazing at me and my book as I read a story to which, more than likely, at least one of those ten children could have personally related.  I also hope that the book informs other children and adults around the world about the trend of Bolivian migration and possible emotional repercussions for children.

I learned many lessons from being in Bolivia.  One simple lesson that I learned and now think about on a nearly daily basis is that things aren’t so bad.  Life is so different “on the other side” and if people there (in Bolivia) are alright, I will be alright too.

(My advice) for students about to leave on SIT Study Abroad Programs: dare to be different.  By that, I mean to say challenge yourself to try new things that you never ever imagined you would do.  You’re already going on an incredibly unique program in a foreign country, you might as well make it is whacky, adventurous, and enlightening as possible! 

For the alumni: share, share, share!  It’s easy to fall right back into the fast-paced US American life, but when you share your experiences with others, it gives you a chance not only to remember your incredible experience, but also to educate and inspire others.

Visit Nadine’s fundraising page.

View pictures of Nadine’s experience in Bolivia.

SIT Study Abroad Academic Director Heidi Baer-Postigo Contributes through the “Bilingual Children’s Literature Reciprocity Project”

Visit the children’s section of a bookstore and you might run into Heidi Baer-Postigo, co-Academic Director of SIT Study Abroad’s Bolivia: Culture and Development program. She admits to a love of children’s literature and is continually searching for Bolivian culture books for her own bilingual children, a task which she notes is not easy. This lack of relevant children’s books along with her desire to give back to Bolivian society led her to create the Bilingual Children’s Literature Reciprocity Project.

The roots of the project date back to the spring of 2008 when two students on SIT’s Bolivia: Culture and Development program decided to create a bilingual children’s book based on the life of their host mother as their Independent Study Project (ISP). Heidi viewed the book, Esperanza, as a meaningful method of reciprocity and it inspired her to launch the bilingual book project utilizing the talent and inspiration of other SIT Study Abroad students.

Today, the Bilingual Children’s Literature Reciprocity Project consists of books generated by SIT Study Abroad students who seek to provide Bolivian children with affordable literature and to raise awareness about Bolivian culture. These books focus on Bolivian reality and fulfill a need in “a country where most children’s books are imported, expensive, and culturally irrelevant.” This past fall, Heidi worked with five students to produce books “celebrating the country which has hosted them with open arms.”

 Heidi expects that this is just the beginning of a much larger series of bilingual books which “celebrate Bolivian life and culture for Bolivian children.” She plans to sell the books in the US and to fund donations of low-cost books to libraries and schools in Bolivia “so that Bolivian children have access to books which validate their own reality and culture.”

Heidi notes that the project continues to impact SIT students after their return to the US. Students who worked on the Bilingual Children’s Literature Reciprocity Project have applied for funding from their university to publish their book, received approval to produce other children’s books for academic credit at their home campus and given presentations at children’s libraries and churches in their home communities on the bilingual books. Heidi wants to see students of SIT Study Abroad’s Bolivia: Culture and Development program “feel empowered by their own academic production and to continue finding ways to build upon this once they have returned to the US.”

Reciprocity, or ayni in Quechua, has been an important part of cultures of the Andes for centuries and is a central focus of SIT’s Bolivia: Culture and Development program. Heidi anticipates “that students will take from this experience the idea that academic production can be something that benefits society at many different levels, not just university assignments for a grade.”

Heidi Baer-Postigo serves as the co-Academic Director for SIT Study Abroad’s Bolivia: Culture and Development semester program with Ismael Saavedra. Students on this program also have the opportunity to produce an ethno-graphic video documentary for their Independent Study Project.

For more information about the Bolivia: Culture and Development program, please visit the SIT Study Abroad Find a Program webpage.

Watch the YouTube videos  of SIT Study Abroad Bolivia students.

View photos on World Learning’s Flickr site.

SIT Study Abroad Students Participate as Election Observers in El Salvador

Three SIT students share with us their involvement in this historic experience. 

By Jessica Bashford, Writer/Editor, SIT Study Abroad
 

After twenty years of National Republican Alliance (ARENA) leadership, on March 15, 2009 El Salvador elected Mauricio Funes, lead candidate with the opposing political party, the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN), to be the country’s next president. Students from the SIT Nicaragua: Revolution, Transformation, and Civil Society program arrived in El Salvador five days prior to the election to be trained as international election observers. 

“Through the Social Initiative for Democracy (ISD), we received our credentials and left for Cabañas, a department to the north of San Salvador on the Honduran border,” reported SIT students Courtney Turner, Emily Grady, and Katie LaRoque.  “As observers, we were instructed to pay close attention to the opening and closing of voting sites along with any suspicious activity throughout the day.”

In San Isidro, SIT students witnessed a dispute between Salvadoran election officials over fraudulent identification cards.  According to Turner, Grady, and LaRoque, “the FMLN representatives accused nearly ten people of posing as deceased members of their community in order to vote.” The students also observed an ARENA official tearing FMLN ballots during the counting process, which according to Salvadoran electoral law, would nullify the ballots; speculation ensued on whether the incident was intentional or accidental. 

Overall, however, SIT students felt such incidents were “isolated anomalies”, and “did not prevent the nation from successfully holding a democratic election.”

The day ended with SIT participants joining student reporters from Radio Victoria to celebrate, as they described, “the success of the civic process with our Salvadoran counterparts.”

View photos on World Learning’s Flickr site.

Technology and Study Abroad: Some Reflections (Part II)

by Alvino E. Fantini, Former Academic Leader for Study Abroad / The Experiment in International Living (programs of World Learning)

(Part I of Technology and Study Abroad was published on the World Learning NOW blog on January 13, 2009)

Recently, I was asked to do what I found to be an interesting task: reflect on the impact that technological advances have had on exchange programs and study abroad (for the upcoming publication The History of Study Abroad: 1965-Present).  Here are some thoughts.  Feel free to add to them by posting comments below:

Communication and Technology

Of course, the travel mode was not the only thing that changed. Advancements in technology accelerated so rapidly over the past 40-50 years that how we communicated with our academic leaders, student groups, and colleagues abroad, were also affected. It would be hard for someone today to imagine how laborious, time consuming, and slow were most of our administrative procedures in comparison with today’s world, especially when dealing internationally.

It is also hard to imagine that basic office equipment consisted of the typewriter and telephone. Group lists, documents, records, etc. were all typed by hand, often requiring multiple copies which were made by using onionskin copies and carbon sheets (white for distribution copies, yellow for file copies, and green for chron files). And mistakes in typing were annoying and time consuming because mistakes had to be erased and corrections done separately on the original and each of the multiple copies.

Duplicating in larger quantities meant cutting a ditto or mimeo stencil master and then running off multiple copies by hand on the ditto machine or Gestettner (at first, manually operated and later electric), taking care not to ruin the stencil or smudge the copies; or worse yet, getting the ink on your hands and clothes. Selectric typewriters in the 1980s were an advancement; they facilitated the typing process and cut neater stencils but the process remained essentially the same. Later models with a small screen above the keyboard which displayed what you were typing were of dubious progress, in my estimation, since the lack of synchronization between the print that appeared on the screen and the typing process was somewhat disconcerting.

A simple yet vivid memory dates back to 1964 with the installation of the first photocopier on the entire SIT campus (then known as Sandanona). This first photocopier was a marvel — slow, but still a marvel. Copies were reproduced on thick and heavy glossy sheets that usually emerged slightly browned or burned but this beat making carbon copies on the typewriter.

And of course everything was mailed by post both within the US and abroad, meaning that advanced planning time was essential for communicating since this generally took about three weeks by airmail to Europe and often longer to other parts of the world.

Also, telephone calls were expensive and often difficult when calling certain places in the world. A call to La Paz, Bolivia, for example, required making a prior appointment with an overseas operator a few days in advance, who then placed the call at a designated time to an operator in Buenos Aires who in turn relayed the call to La Paz via radio. Europe of course was easier to manage by phone but quite expensive so staff relied heavily on telegrams. The introduction of the telex machine, and later the fax, both made a great difference in the speed with which we could now communicate with other parts of the world. Given this situation at that time, it was not hard to enforce a rule that program participants not call home during their stay abroad since this was considered to constitute an “interruption” to their cultural immersion.

The change in communication possibilities, of course, had a tremendous effect on how we designed and implemented programs and how we coordinated work with colleagues abroad in so many countries around the world. Slow communication meant time lapses between communiqués; it required more advance planning, and thoughtful composition of letters and documents (we even had an official editor who periodically checked correspondence sent out for formatting and accuracy in accordance with institutional standards). Instant communication sped up the process to the point where most people now expect to turn around an item within a day or so. Clearly, the latter is more “efficient” but also more demanding in terms of instantaneous responses.

Today, by contrast, with all the means available for rapid communication, it is much more difficult to maintain total cultural immersion as we used to think of it. Today’s participants commonly walk around plugged in much of the time — listening to their favorite tunes, instantly sending text messages to friends and family around the world, snapping and sending pictures and even video clips back home on the spot, and of course maintaining conversations face to face on skype as often as they wish and at absolutely no cost. The effect of this modern miracle is obvious, giving one the ability while being in Japan, say, to speak — and see — friends and family back home at will.

When I first began to use skype about 3 years ago, I noted in the line below the screen that the number of users at any single moment was commonly at about three to four million and already that number is now generally at about twelve to thirteen million people speaking, and perhaps seeing, each other at the same moment around the world, distance notwithstanding. Today, exchange and study abroad participants can dip in and out of their host culture as they choose, by surrounding themselves within a cultural cocoon of their own creation, if they so desire. They may be abroad in a new and strange environment, yet they can still maintain instant and frequent contact with everything familiar to them.  How times have changed!

Alvino Fantini is Professor Emeritus with the  SIT Graduate Institute and recently served on the Graduate Faculty for the  MA in Language Communication at Matsuyama University in Japan.

Promoting Social Justice Through Documentary-making, Academic Director Ismael Saavedra Engages SIT Study Abroad Students in Bolivia

Written by Megan McBride, SIT Graduate student/ World Learning VISTA-Americorp

Ismael Saavedra, Academic Director of SIT Study Abroad’s Bolivia: Lens on Latin America and Bolivia: Culture and Development programs, found his passion for documentaries in a matter of minutes.  While viewing a short Cuban documentary on racism and discrimination, he was struck by the film’s ability to reflect the reality of the situation on the ground in Cuba. 

The documentary on Cuba encouraged Ismael to assess the political, economic and social situation in his native Bolivia.  Ismael felt compelled to record that reality through the medium of film and to share his films with the public to encourage discussion and action.  Ismael became convinced that film has the potential to give voice to the problems he was observing in his own country and around the globe.  This was more than 30 years ago.

Today, Ismael is busy helping SIT students find their own voices through film-making.  “I want my students to realize the importance and potential of working with the language of the 21st century and, in doing so, I want them to learn and produce quality and moving short documentaries as a result of their research.”  
          
SIT’s Bolivia: Lens on Latin America program offers students the chance to partner with a Bolivian film student and to research and create their own documentary film.  Students take classes on production and have access to the program’s media lab for editing. Ismael’s goal is “to have the students understand the importance, in research, of images and sounds, and to learn to apply the principles and techniques of visual anthropology.” 

Ismael, who has worked as an academic director with SIT in Bolivia since 1999, encourages students to create films offering insights into contemporary Bolivian reality.  Today, the program has an archive of over 50 student-made films on topics ranging from the Bolivia-U.S. relationship in the “war on drugs” to female soccer teams. One recent film by program alumnus Aaron Naar, entitled ‘Los hombres del lago,’ focuses on the history and pollution of a local lake and uses shots of water and mounds of fish and narration by a local fisherman. 

Ismael points out that the strength of SIT’s Lens on Latin America program lies in the minimal equipment that students use.  Students create their documentary using only a small video camera, a laptop and an external hard drive.  These three pieces of equipment easily fit inside a small back-pack, teaching students that “with this small baggage, (they are) ready to go anywhere in the world and make a brilliant, well researched, independent documentary.” 

The importance of these films does not end with the completion of the student’s projects.  As Ismael notes, the documentaries offer a way to “extend the duration of the experience and the possibility to reflect and deepen their research.”  Students regularly share their project with family, friends and colleagues once they return home and their films continue to generate discussion about social concerns in Bolivia.  If they so choose, students also get involved with social action movements that concentrate on the issues addressed in their documentary. 

Ismael worked on a number of ethnographic documentaries before becoming an academic director for SIT.  His works include Deception (Academy Award, 1992), Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Academy Award nomination, 1984), Chuquiago (a classic Bolivian ethnographic film, 1976), and Landscapes of Memory (prizes at Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals, 1997). 

When asked why he works with students to help them create their own documentaries, he states, “I think that one of the best ways that students have to record their experiences, investigations and findings is through documentary films.”  Given the powerful images and topics shown in students’ projects, the strength of their research and of Ismael’s teaching is evident.  “I want my students to realize their potential and to exercise their capabilities to conduct profound investigations, (and to) record and publicize their results in order to educate more people about their own and other cultures.”

Ismael Saavedra serves as the co-Academic Director for SIT Study Abroad’s Boliva: Culture and Development program with Heidi Baer-Postigo. Students on the semester program also have the opportunity to produce an entho-graphic video documentary for their independent study project. For more information about SIT Study Abroad’s Bolivia: Lens on Latin America or Bolivia: Culture and Development programs, please visit the SIT Study Abroad Find a Program webpage.

Watch the YouTube videos of SIT Study Abroad Bolivia students.

SIT Study Abroad Partnership Council meets

By Jessica Bashford, Writer/Editor SIT Study Abroad

From December 4-5, the SIT Study Abroad Partnership Council met on the campus of Brandeis University for a spirited and constructive exchange. As SIT Study Abroad’s principle advisory board, the Partnership Council provides vital perspectives and important expertise on the design, delivery, and assessment of SIT programs and their integration into the undergraduate curriculum. The Partnership Council is comprised of 15 deans and directors in the study abroad field from colleges and universities across the US. Present at the December meeting were 10 Council members and senior SIT staff including Adam Weinberg, Executive Vice President and SIT Provost, and Maureen Powers, Vice President and Dean, SIT Study Abroad.

This was the first time a Partnership Council meeting was held at a partner school, and SIT Study Abroad is grateful to Brandeis for hosting what proved to be an excellent and highly interactive discussion. Council members provided specific feedback and helpful recommendations pertaining to critical areas such as how the economy is affecting study abroad; academics and curriculum integration; student affairs issues; and program growth and enrollment.

The meeting also gave SIT Study Abroad the opportunity to share with Council members key improvements SIT is making to further enhance our programs, administration, and staff. These include the addition of new programs such as Chile: Public Health and Community Welfare and Uganda and Rwanda: Post-Conflict Transformation; Web site improvements; streamlining the on-line application process; and the addition of Michael Smallis, SIT Study Abroad’s new Dean of Student Affairs, charged with enhancing student life, safety, and security.

The Partnership Council plays an essential role in strengthening SIT’s relationships with students, faculty, and staff in many of SIT’s most important sending schools. Through open, vigorous discussion, Council members communicate to SIT Study Abroad the perspectives and concerns they encounter on their campuses throughout the year. This productive exchange of ideas improves SIT Study Abroad’s role as a full-service provider of outstanding, experiential study abroad programs for undergraduate students and their home colleges and universities.

SIT Study Abroad is very appreciative of the participation and contributions of the following Partnership Council members at the December 4-5 meeting:

• Dr. Elizabeth Brewer, Director, International Education, Beloit College
• Susan Holme Brick, Director of International Programs, Whitman College
• Kendall Brostuen, Director of International Programs, Associate Dean of the College, Brown University
• Mary Ryan Dando, Director, Study Abroad Programs, University of Colorado, Boulder
• Valerie M. Eastman, Director of Off-Campus Study, Scripps College
• Rob Hallworth, Director of Study Abroad, George Washington University
• Dr. Andrew Law, Assistant Dean for Off-Campus Study, Denison University
• Michael Monahan, Director, International Center, Macalester College
• Dr. Carolyn Sorkin, Director, Office of International Studies, Wesleyan University
• Dr. Ana Maria J. Wiseman, Dean of International Programs, Wofford College

Partnership Council Members who could not be present at last week’s meeting include:

• Mark Beirn, Director of Study Abroad, Tulane University
• Dr. Jeffery W. Cason, Dean of International Programs, Associate Professor of Political Science, Middlebury
• Cori Filson, Director, Office of International Programs, Skidmore College
• Minnie Battle Mayes, Director of International Programs, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University
• Teresa E. Wise, Executive Director, Office of International Affairs, Clemson University

SIT Study Abroad Alum Goes “Inkslinging in Africa”

Alexis and elephant tracks

Alexis Grant was an SIT Study Abroad Student in Cameroon in 2002. Six years later, after a stint as a reporter with the Houston Chronicle, she is “Inkslinging in Africa”, traveling through the continent for six months as an intrepid blogger and freelance reporter. She embodies the term citizen’s journalism.

Alexis reflects that although she loved the SIT program in Cameroon, “I thought I wouldn’t go back…it was a difficult semester. So much was different than what I was used to, and it was the first time I had been to a developing country.”  On her return, “I was just so happy to have American Food, amenities, and English! (Alexis studied and spoke French, the locally dominant language, in Cameroon.) But I had developed close relationships with two of my host families, kept in close touch with them, and it was those people (who) drew me back to Cameroon.” And her desire to go back to Cameroon grew broader: “This has been my dream for a few years – to backpack around a handful of countries in Africa – and I’m doing it. It wasn’t easy, because I had to leave behind the stability of a good job, but it has been so rewarding.” 

Alexis’ current reporting project is building on her 2002 SIT research project on polygamy in Cameroon; having first hand experiences and perspectives from then and now puts her in an excellent position to write a newspaper story on the changing dynamics of polygamy. Alexis explains, “Back when I was a student, I knew (polygamy) was interesting, but now that I’m a journalist, I see it has news value. I’m trying to take what I learned here six years ago, give it a news peg and turn it into a story an American audience would want to read.”

Her blog, which includes a map of Alexis’ route, photos, and personal narratives of her experiences along the way, serves multiple purposes: “Its an easy way to keep my family and friends informed about where I am and what I am doing.  I hope others, too, will read the blog and learn a bit about African life and adventure, and perhaps be inspired to get up from behind their desks and do something they’ve always wanted to do.  (I also want) to create something substantial with my writings. I crave writing – I do it all the time, partly because it helps me create context in my life, put a meaning to things that happen. I figure since I’m already writing for myself, I might as well turn that into something others can benefit from.” (Alexis has also discovered that inconsistent electricity and slower computers make her commitment to blogging a bit more time-consuming than she bargained for…)

In addition to keeping the connection with her homestay families, Alexis has also stayed in touch with other SIT Cameroon students from her 2002 group.  She reconnected with her SIT director online, and still hopes to meet up with some of the Cameroonian staffers who worked for the program.

As for the future, Alexis plans to return to her work as a full-time newspaper reporter, but is also considering using the material from her blog and other travel writing to create a travel book. 

Alexis feels that her path less traveled will continue to bring unexpected rewards. Her advice to other study abroad students? “Pick the country that’s different from your friends, even if everyone thinks you’re crazy!”

Travel across Africa with Alexis Grant at http://allonsy.wordpress.com.

Also, check out Alexis’ Flickr account.

Jordan homestay: Why we host students

While Alejandra was visiting SIT Study Abroad in Jordan last month, she spent time visiting and chatting with homestay families about their involvement in our programs.  In this video, a Jordan homestay family explains why they enjoy hosting students as part of a homestay.