WorldTeach volunteers are an invaluable source of support for one another, and each of our groups forms a tight-knit family in-country as they experience the highs and lows of their volunteer teaching experience together. The end of a year of service is full of tearful goodbyes both with host communities and with fellow volunteers. This year's group of volunteers in Namibia shares their yearbook with us below-- a reflection of their time together and a compilation of the rewards and memories of a year spent living, working, serving, and making friends in a no-longer-foreign land.
We are now accepting applications for our semester program in Namibia, departing this June. Apply today to be part of the 2011 WorldTeach Namibia family!
Part of living immersed in another culture involves celebrating local holidays, which are both a great opportunity to experience new traditions and often an opportunity to travel around the country or region since school is on holiday! Below, WorldTeach Ecuador volunteer Krishna Surasi writes about his celebration of Dia de los Difuntos, his introduction of Halloween to his students, and a trip to the city of Cuenca.
"To celebrate Halloween and the Ecuadorian Día de los Difuntos, I had a party in both of my classes last Thursday. Like Americans who wear costumes and go trick-or-treating for Halloween just because that's that people do, Ecuadorians participate in Día de los Difuntos traditions that many people don't really have explanations for anymore. There are some traditional food items like colada morada (hot fruit drink) and guagua de pan (translation: bread baby), but also some odd, non-food pageantry.
For instance, someone in my first class was voted to be "Mr. Wooden Spoon" and another "Mr. Clay". The former brought a variety of wooden spoons into class that he handed out to all of the students and the latter brought tiny clay pots in for everyone. When I asked the students what the hell was going on, I received a variety of explanations, the most plausible being that colada morada is traditionally made in clay pots and stirred with wooden spoons.
My colada morada, guagua de pan, and various presents my class gave me.
I had fun ridiculing my students about their traditions that were bizarre from a foreign perspective until they asked me why people dress up in costumes for Halloween in the United States. The best answer I could come up with was that it gives young women an excuse to dress indiscriminately, and it is so awesome that no one really asks questions about why we do it anymore. I told my first class to wear costumes for bonus points, but sure enough I was the only schmuck who wore a costume to the party.
All in all the day was filled with holiday pageantry and I am glad that I was able to share a little bit of my Halloween traditions with my class as well as experience what they like to do at this time of year.
Cuenca
Día de los Difuntos is a national holiday here in Ecuador, so I did not have classes on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. I decided to go with some of the other WorldTeach volunteers from Ambato to the third largest city in Ecaudor, Cuenca. Cuenca is a seven hour bus ride from Ambato and they happen to celebrate their independence day during the time we had off.
Cuenca is known for its colonial architecture, and I was impressed with how good looking the city is. I don't know enough about architecture to describe its style, but there were cobblestone roads, tiled roofs, and huge churches.
View from our fabulous hostel in Cuenca
The festivities in Cuenca were pretty fun. Street vendors were everywhere during the day and especially at night, selling things like meat on sticks, banana chips, and candy apples. There were bands playing music in the street, and one night we stopped by a group of drummers and danced for a bit. It was in this drum circle that a friend of mine commented that one of the young Ecuadorians jumping around looked like me. I took a picture with him, so I'll let you decide if he is really my brother from an Ecua-mother.
The most impressive part of the Fiestas de Cuenca were by far the fireworks. I knew well before I came to Cuenca that Ecuadorians love fireworks. Ecuadorians will use any excuse to shoot off fireworks and they have woken me up many a non-holiday night. The firework display in the main plaza of Cuenca were set up on a tall, wooden tower.
When I first laid eyes on the tower I was almost certain that it would not be used for the fireworks display because it was so close to the people and it looked very wobbly. Well, Ecuador didn't disappoint this time, because fireworks did shoot from the tower and it was equal parts impressive and terrifying. There were arms on the tower that were on hinges that spun around disconcertingly fast— powered, of course, by fireworks. Then sparks shot out from all over the place and the tower straight looked like it was about to explode. Fireworks then proceeded to actually shoot into the sky from the tower and explode like a traditional American display.
Things got awesome when one of the regular fireworks hit a tree (we were in the middle of the city plaza, after all) and it caught on fire. The finale was a spinning crown-like firework that shot into the sky and sprayed sparks everywhere. Sparks rained on the crowd, the tower itself caught on fire, and the maintenance crew came to disassemble the deathtrap. I don't think I've ever been that close to fireworks before, so it will definitely go down as one of my most memorable fireworks experiences.
Check out this video I took of the end of the fireworks display. I can't figure out how to change the video to play vertically, so you're just going to have to tilt your head."
Our WorldTeach volunteers around the globe have experienced surprisingly cordial receptions and heartwarming generosity from their host communities, and Bangladesh is no different. Below, WorldTeach volunteer Michelle Kaczmarek writes about Bangladesh's own brand of "southern hospitality."
Something I am still figuring out, but have already reaped the benefits of is this notion of Bangladeshi hospitality. While I have yet to prove whether or not this is country specific or may just be a characteristic of this general region of the world, it has become something that not only has made me feel at home but has really appreciate the country that I decided to spend a year in.
Perhaps it could even be an attribute of countries in general who have yet to adapt to the cold shoulder of capitalism, however, I like to think it is a trait that is particularly Joy Bangla. As I have become closer to the people in this country and have started to enmesh myself in the local scene a.k.a. venture outside the walls of my apartment and make friends1, I still can not hide my surprise at the treatment I have received by people who most of the time barely know me and yet feel inclined to treat me as family.
It started with an Iftar meal with some shop owners at Mimi Mart. Then it continued with our Bangla tutor, Facebook, chats about family and cooking lessons (although this one might not really count because she was on our payroll). Later it escalated with a trip to Silhet and Srimangal where our tour guide not only befriended us (to the point that he later travelled from this faraway province to visit us for the day down in Chittagong and maybe, maybe looked into some job prospects after it all), but a university employee's family also took us in and served us an entire Eid meal. It may have been hard to draw the line there, but at least the intentions seemed to be in the right place. Probably, most memorably, I remember the glow of local charm because of another Eid invite from our favorite waiter from our favorite local restaurant. Now, this most definitely is something that would not occur in the states. No matter how many times my family went to Casa di Pizza and ordered from Mary, we never visited her home. And even though our local sushi friends may notice when the absent member of the family (that would be me) is home for break, they have yet to cook us a Japanese feast in their home.
See, this invite, mind you it came from some one we first knew because he waited our table, not only was for dinner, but it came to include an entire day out in his village. He had his brother-in-law pick us up at our house and he drove us to their village that was more than an hour away. He then preceded to introduce us to his entire family, not to mention the rest of the village. We had tea, superb meeshti, fresh fruit, and some of the most amazing pasta with tomatoes and a secret ingredient that I will guess at: ketchup (they did know we were Americans). We were given a tour of his house, his father's house, and all of the family quarters. Then, after all of this we visited the homes of his childhood friends where we received more tea and food, and then were invited to come back any time, only this time as their guests -- this was an offer that took place within minutes of meeting us. And, they were serious, this wasn't just the American formality of politeness, because Bangladeshis rarely do this, at least to my knowledge. They seem to always mean what they say, which sometimes can cause complications because when we don't do this, they really can't understand. At this point, we haven't even hit lunch yet. After all of this running around, they took us to visit the beach and pointed out the shipyards and explained the planting process for rice. Only after this and a photo shoot did they take us back to lunch which was really too much. Daal, chicken, veggies and a lesson in how to properly eat with our hands. But that wasn't the end, because then we went on an excursion to a local Hindu temples and we arrived home at dark -- at last.
[photo courtesy of Jess Barrow]
Currently, I am contemplating the ways to repay these effortless welcomes, and coming up with nada. One of the woman at the university who cooked a feast a weekend or two ago and then lent us her in-house tailor for our saris and shalway kami comes around every now and again to say hello; (before this feast I had yet to meet her) but besides inviting her to come share tea with us or asking her how work is going, I'm not quite sure how to go about reciprocating the filling kindness she has showered upon us. Our waiter who just this last week organized a doi phuchka field trip definitely deserves a home cooked meal, but I am pretty sure nothing coming out of my oven can compare to anything that was on the table in his village. Do we invite his whole family, or just his wife and him, the baby, the grandfather? And even though I extended an invite to Chittagong to just about every house that opened its doors to me in Dhaka, its just an encouragement and hopeful invitation at this point. We don't have a spare pillow let alone a bed, or food.
WorldTeach has recently opened its newest summer program in Bangladesh, focused on teaching the arts. It departs in late May 2011-- check it out!
