Schuyler, Author at Fulbright Student Program Blog

Time is Liquid, Time is Gold…Time is Liquid Gold

September 14, 2015

Samantha Kay Kobs, 2014-2015, Fulbright ETA to South Africa - 2

Samantha Kay Kobs. 2014-2015, Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to South Africa, works with students in an after school English club that she and Fulbright partner Meia Geddes created at their school in Bloemfontein, South Africa. These games, provided by the Office of English Language Programs, help students improve their English speaking skills by prompting them to answer a variety of questions about themselves and the world around them (Photo Credit: Meia Geddes, 2015 Fulbright English Teaching Assistant placed here with me in Bloemfontein, South Africa).

The bell rings. Moments later, I hear the shuffling of 1,300 pairs of shoes as I brace myself for yet another lunch break spent working in the library; our library—the one at Dr. Blok Secondary School in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The one that my Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) partner and I just reopened after six years of being locked up behind giant iron bars.

As a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in South Africa, I’ve had many responsibilities: helping teachers, creating after school clubs, and reaching out to businesses for sponsorships. I’ve also spent plenty of time reestablishing the school library that was seemingly forgotten. Abandoned. Thousands of books—mostly outdated, torn covers, and enough dust to cause some serious asthma attacks—had to be cleaned and organized in a logical manner. Then came teaching my students the absolute basics of library etiquette. This has been exasperating to say the least, but I often remind myself that my students do not mean to disorganize with their frantic book grabbing—they are simply enjoying the privileges of a library for the first time in their lives. Challenges aside, I love what I do, but sometimes it’s difficult to see the impact that you’re having when you’re so caught up in the busyness of it all.

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U.S. Fulbright

Falling in Love with the Inferno: Adjusting to Life in Piauí

September 10, 2015

Ilana Robbins Gross, 2012-2013, Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to Brazil (second from right), visiting her students’ hometown in rural Piauí, Brazil – one of the many examples she experienced of people opening up their homes to her

Teresina, a small capital in the almost forgotten state of Piauí in Brazil, is known with affection, pride, and frustration as “the Inferno,” both for its intense heat and historic lack of opportunities.

Despite the roughly one million people who live in the greater metropolitan area, Teresina feels like a small town: everyone knows everyone or at least they know your people. A native New Yorker, I landed in Piauí as a Fulbright English Language Teaching Assistant (ETA), felt the heat (joy!), saw the mainly empty streets (panic), watched as people slowly ducked from shady sliver to shady sliver (behavior I was soon to adopt) and asked myself what the inferno was I going to do for the next nine months?

Once I had gotten over the initial shock, (mostly) adjusted to the heat, and accepted that people would stare at me no matter what I did since for many I was the first foreigner they had ever seen, I set about the business of becoming part of the community and falling in love with a city largely forgotten even by other Brazilians.

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U.S. Fulbright

Learning about Home—from Abroad

September 7, 2015

Brandon Tensley (far right), 2012-2013, Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to Germany, with one of his fifth grade classes at Realschule Stadtmitte in Mülheim an der Ruhr

Most of the time, I’d hear them before I’d see them.

“Are you the teacher from America?”

I’d spin around, and there’d be a knot of students, their shyness trumped by their curiosity, hungry to confirm the rumor floating around about an Ausländer—foreigner—on campus.

“That’s me,” I’d say, laughing. “And who are you?”

But they’d rarely be interested in talking. A moment later, I’d have about a dozen tiny fists, clutching bits of paper, waving in my face.

“Your autograph!” they’d demand. I’d comply, and they’d make off with their new bounty.

When I first boarded a plane to Germany, where I spent 10 months as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant at Realschule Stadtmitte in Mülheim an der Ruhr, I wanted to learn more about this country that stands among Europe’s largest receivers of migrants, who spill across its borders from almost every corner of the globe. But what I really wanted to learn, I now realize, was a bit more selfish. I wanted to learn what it is about Germany that attracts a migrant like me, a black man from the American South.

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Foreign Fulbright

Working on Latin American Integration

September 3, 2015

Nicolas Albertoni Gomez, 2014-2015, Uruguay, participating in the Washington, DC Fulbright Enrichment Seminar community service day

Before starting my Master of Latin American Studies program (with a concentration in Political Economy) at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service on a Fulbright grant, I worked as a researcher and professor in the Department of International Business and Integration at the Universidad Católica del Uruguay. My intention with my Fulbright grant is to contribute to my country through academia, and as a policy maker. My research specifically focuses on Latin American Economic and Trade Integration and convergence opportunities between the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) and the Pacific Alliance. My country, Uruguay, is a member of Mercosur, and I hope that my research will potentially be useful for Uruguayan policy makers in developing a strong trade and economic partnership with the Pacific Alliance.

Beyond my graduate studies, I am currently the president of the Political Economy Group at Georgetown. I have also participated with a group from a local parish called Contemplative Leadership in Action, a two-year faith formation and leadership development program rooted in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, in which I’ve shared my culture and several of my community service experiences that I participated back in Latin America. Recently, I was selected as an Institute for the Study of Diplomacy Graduate Fellow for 2015-16, for my research project on ”Trade, Economic and Political Diplomacy in Latin America: Between Protectionism and Openness.”

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U.S. Fulbright

Finding Our Voices in South Africa

September 1, 2015

Kimberly Burge, 2009-2010, South Africa (second from right), with some of the “Born Frees,” giving a public reading at the writing club they formed in Gugulethu, South Africa

To me, writing is me.

It is me listening

To what I have to say,

To what I want to say,

To what my heart says.

– Gugu, age 16

I was not your typical Fulbrighter. I came to the program at the age of 40, after building a career in nonprofit communications, which had taken me to Africa for the first time in 2002 on a three-week trip that flew by. I fell in love with the places I visited, especially with South Africa. Years earlier, the country had played a pivotal role in educating me about social justice and activism through South Africa’s struggle against apartheid (its state-sanctioned racial segregation). While working, I also attended graduate school part-time, earning a master of fine arts in nonfiction writing. As I finished my degree, I wanted a new challenge, time to devote to writing in my own voice, maybe a chance to live abroad. A friend had just received a Fulbright Study/Research grant to translate poetry in Lithuania. I began to explore the program’s options.

It dawned on me then: Bold moves are not limited to one’s twenties.

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Foreign Fulbright

Passport to the World

August 27, 2015

Christelle Mputu, 2014-2016, Democratic Republic of the Congo (second from left), presenting with some fellow volunteers at St. Cloud State University’s “Passport to the World” event

I am Christelle Mputu, a Fulbright Student from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I am currently pursuing a Master of Science program in Applied Economics from August 2014 to May 2016 at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota.

St. Cloud State University has many international students from a very broad number of countries, ranging from Latin America to Africa, Asia and Europe. Each year, it organizes a great event called “Passport to the World.” This event is free and open to the public, and showcases up to 28 cultures through performances and hands-on activities. Displays of cultural artifacts and song and dance performances from all over the world are showcased.

“Passport to the World” allows people from the city of Saint Cloud, especially youth from different schools, to have a better understanding of different countries and cultures: figuring out which continent is such or such country in, what makes a country different from another, what is its culture, which languages are spoken, their indigenous fauna and flora, etc. My observation from this event was that people tended to learn more by seeing and “experiencing” a country – even if that country is in fact presented only in a booth!

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