| To speak and read another language well is to shatter the walls and boundaries that invisibly bind us within our cultural norms. |
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| More than a dozen years after participating in SYA in Spain, Melissa Bearns (left) returned for a three-day visit with her former host family. Here she sits with her host sister and mother, Nerea Osoro Meler and Maria Rosa Meler de Osoro, at Igual Igual, Nerea’s restaurant in Barcelona |
It had been 12 years since I walked from the subway to my Spanish family’s house, past the round amphitheater, around the park and through the front door. It was a route I took almost every single day of my life for nine months as I traveled to and from school in Barcelona, Spain, while a student at School Year Abroad (SYA) in my senior year.
Some things had changed. New construction has replaced many of the landmarks that were once familiar to me. My favorite drug store was gone and the subway map was different.
But as I knocked on the door and Mama Rosa greeted me with a wide smile, a hug and kisses, it felt like putting on my favorite pair of socks when my feet are cold: familiar, warm and comfortable.
In March, after a two-week vacation on the Island of Mallorca, I boarded a plane to Barcelona to visit my Spanish family. As I watched the ocean below me, my mind wandered like a slide show, scrolling through snapshots of my life that year.
1991. The Gulf War. The excitement in the air the year before Barcelona hosted the Olympics. A surprise field trip to a winery where the famous Catalonian champagne, Freixenet, is made. Gaudí architecture. Walking along Las Ramblas. Searching the city to find peanut butter. Seeing Picasso’s famous “Guernica.” Paella on Sundays.
In 1964, SYA had opened its doors with its first program in Barcelona. It now offers programs in Rennes, France, Beijing and Viterbo, Italy, for students studying classics. The Spain program has moved from Barcelona to Zaragoza.
SYA, originally chartered by Phillips Academy, Phillips Exeter Academy and St. Paul’s School, now has 26 member schools. Any junior or senior high school student who makes it through the rigorous admissions process can attend. Once overseas, students live with a host family and study both the language of the country and English.
The day I first left for Spain, I kissed my birth family goodbye, pressed my face to the window of the plane and watched New York City fall away beneath me. “I won’t be the same person the next time I see this skyline,” I thought as we broke through the clouds. And I wasn’t. By the time I returned, another culture had taken root in my soul and had woven new threads and patterns into the fabric of who I am.
“SYA gives students the opportunity to learn a culture from the inside, to master another language by living it outside the classroom,” says SYA Executive Director Woody Halsey, who runs the off-campus program. “Kids gain not only a knowledge of a new culture, but they learn so much about themselves and their own culture by viewing it from afar.”
It was during my year in Spain that I learned to assess cultures critically in the same way my English, history and philosophy classes at PA taught me to question what I hear, see and think. To speak and read another language well is to shatter the walls and boundaries that invisibly bind us within our cultural norms.
In Spain, people related to each other differently. Attitudes were more relaxed. Values were different, too, from the importance of one’s job to the role of family in daily life.
A case in point. On Mondays the school gave us money for lunches, and we took off each afternoon in small groups, combing the back streets of the city looking for authentic paella, the best tapas and cheap prices. When it was warm we lazed around at outdoor cafés, ending our meal with strong espresso so we could stay awake during our remaining classes.
On weeknights I chatted with Mama Rosa over dinner, telling her about my day and my typical teen-age problems. We watched “the A-Team” dubbed into Spanish, and I often asked her to translate what Mr. T had just said. Weekends were raucous and filled with laughter as we danced until dawn at the discotecas and sampled Barcelona’s rich nightlife: concerts, dives, plays and poetry readings—we tried it all.
Days and weeks passed. The classes were tough, but I did fewer hours of homework a night than back in the States and still learned more. Without realizing it, I settled into a life that incorporated siestas, long lunches and late dinners. I slowed down and lived more.
The lessons in the classroom took on meaning outside the walls of the school as I began to recognize the “dark humor” our literature teacher talked about in the jokes of my Spanish friends. For the first time in my life I went willingly to a museum, inspired by the passion of my art history teacher, Sr. Vilalta. I saw the struggle in the art, experienced the conflict and joy.
When I returned to the United States, people seemed pushy and stressed. I felt like a rubber band thrown into a world of people strung as tightly as piano wires. I was an outsider in my own country, watching what had been my life with a different set of lenses.
The most important lesson I learned is that our way is not the only way; often it’s not even the best way.
When I lived overseas, it seemed there was always enough time. I never wished for 28 hours in a day, and most things could wait until tomorrow. Downtime happened naturally over tapas, coffee or a beer—part of the pattern and swing of life there.
After spending two weeks in Spain last March, I was again reminded of what it feels like to be in a place where the quality of life is more important than a paycheck and not linked directly to the amount of money one makes. It’s an attitude, an approach to life where fun, friends and family are at the top of the list.
I still read books by Latin American and Spanish authors in Spanish. It’s helped my language skills stay strong, but that’s not the reason I sit with my dog-eared dictionary looking up words.
Since I left, the literature has served as a door through which I can return to the deep waters of the culture. The lilt of the language, the rhythm of the writing itself, allows me to immerse myself again in the feel of worlds where priorities are a little different. It reminds me to choose actively which way will be mine. |
Melissa Bearns is a journalist in Bend, Ore., where she spends her free time snowboarding and whitewater kayaking. Her stories have run in The Washington Post, Crain’s Chicago Business, Transworld Snowboard Life and other publications. |
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