By Candice Brooks
Senior Autumn Sanders and Junior Carmel Pryor are among the growing number of minorities taking advantage of studying abroad. They embarked on a journey halfway around the globe amid the U.S. conflict with Iraq to expand their worldview. Both women lived with the Villamarin family in Pamplona, Spain. However, as can be imagined, they each had their own unique perspective of an unforgettable experience.
Sanders, an online journalism major, studied abroad during winter quarter and critically observed the media. Pryor, studying international business and management information systems, went abroad spring to add to her growing international awareness.
Why Go Abroad?
Many students at Ohio University are home-grown talent. Some have never even been out of the state. Sanders and Pryor were motivated to step out of their comfort zones and make the trek to Spain far from their homes in Ohio.
Autumn Sanders
I knew I wanted to devote more time to the language so I could get to know it better and be more comfortable using it. I knew I wasn't disciplined enough to do it here, but that I'd have no choice to do it there, so I chose to go. The benefits to my career have yet to be seen, but I think it will make me more valuable in newsrooms that serve a Spanish-speaking population.
Carmel Pryor
Since my freshman year, I had the desire to study abroad, mostly because I had the opportunity to live abroad while in high school and I was anxious to have that type of experience again. My mother works as a civilian for the United States Air Force and during my junior year in high school she was assigned to live at the Air Force base in Izmir, Turkey. So, I was there with my mother for one year and that type of eye-opening experience was so unforgettable that I made it an important goal to have it once again while in college.
Of course, once I made the decision to become an International Business major, another sign that I desired to travel, it only made sense to look for a study abroad program and the one to Pamplona, Spain just fit.
Family Bonding
Meeting new people and certainly living with perfect strangers can raise apprehension levels. Sanders and Pryor soon felt the comfort of home through the hospitality of their host family. They found out that any initial fears they may have had about being accepted as an African-American subsided as they got to know the Vallamarins.
Autumn Sanders
I loved my host family. I think I had the best family in the program. We would sit and talk after dinner and they were always pleasant and included me in family gatherings. I never had any problems and they're probably what I miss the most about Spain.
Carmel Pryor
My family was great! They did everything to ensure that I felt comfortable around them and that "su casa es mi casa." During the war, things were a little unsettling for me in the household, because while we ate at the dinner table, we watched the news. The media in Spain, I quickly learned, is not censored! It was no holds barred when showing dead bodies in the street, wounded women and children etc. That was something that I never got used to and that I would say was the most different from the United States because it was the most jarring!
A Rich History
Sanders appreciated the deep and rich history of Spain. From her new perspective, the United States seemed to be a mere teenager.
When I think of my trip, one of the things that stands out the most is the history. Some of Pamplona's streets are older than the United States. We just don't have that long of a history here. Compared to Spain, we're only teenagers. We visited castles and galleries. We learned about the people and the architectural history.
My host parents own a house in the country just outside Pamplona and I went to visit it one afternoon. The house was built in the 1750s and is typical of the houses in that region. It had three floors and the first floor was used to store the cattle and horses. The family lived on the second floor and the third floor was used to store grain and food. All of that was done for insulation. The heat from the animals would rise to the second floor and the food stored on the third floor would act as insulation.
Emersed in Beauty
Pryor spent her time abroad exploring not just the city of Pamplona, but various areas in Spain. She was fortunate enough to get a breath-taking glance of the natural beauty of Spain while backpacking on the Pyrenees Mountains.
I was getting ready to hike the Pyrenees Mountains that are at the Spain-France border! These mountains, at first glance, just absolutely took my breath away. The peaks were covered with snow. Yet, at the bottom, where this medieval town was located, was lush with green everywhere! Through these mountains is also the largest river in Spain - the Ebro with other countless rivers running through them. I was amazed at the sight and frightened of the journey ahead. I mean, what kind of hiking were they planning on doing? I was soon going to find out.
We began our first hike at about 3:30 p.m. We all realized quickly that we were not prepared at all. We only had tennis shoes and spring jackets! We had to layer socks and shirts in order to be prepared for the cold rain. Along our journey we saw a herd of cattle that was being moved. These had to be the biggest cows I had ever seen and the first time that I was close enough to them to be able to touch them. The terrain by mountains is ridiculously rocky!!! So, it was difficult to walk over rocks in the rain with tennis shoes on that hardly had traction, but we marched on. It was amazing to see the different shades of green in this land - from a spring green by the river, to the dark forest green in the woods of the mountain. We hiked for about five hours. When we got to the end of the trail, there was a stunning waterfall. I had always been in love with the look of waterfalls, but now I was even more in love with the sound! It is very comforting and serene. It's really hard to describe it, but it was also raining at the time when we finally saw the waterfall, so there was water falling from the sky and from a steep and rocky cliff. It was wonderful. Trust me. There were more than just a few times that I thanked God for this beauty.
Learning Amid Conflict
For Sanders and Pryor, seeing historical world events from another perspective was eye-opening, magnifying the feeling of being foreign.
Autumn Sanders
I was in Spain during the time just before the war. I flew back to the States on March 19, which was the day the U.S. started bombing Iraq. I was never scared because I was an American, although people did like to ask the American students what we thought about the conflict and whether or not we should go to war. There were a lot of protests in the country and the people had a lot to say about Aznar and the political situation. I think that at one time, more than 80 percent of Spaniards were against the war, even though their leader supported Bush the whole time.
There were times when I was ashamed to be from the United States. A group of us went to see a movie titled "September 11." It was a series of 11 short films, each 11 minutes long from 11 different countries. The U.S. entry was directed by Sean Penn and the countries represented included France, Iran, Burkina Faso, Israel and Japan. Each film handled the topic in a different way. Some were set on the day of the attacks, some a year or a few months later. What I came away with was that each country has faced its own Sept. 11 and ours is no more or less tragic than anyone else's. In the film from the United Kingdom, a Chilean refugee is writing a letter to express his sympathy/empathy for the victims of the attacks. In it, he talks about Sept. 11, 1973, in Chile when the U.S. government helped to overthrow their democratically-elected socialist leader. In his place, we helped to install Pinochet, a dictator. In that instance, we had helped to cause their Sept. 11 and the threat of war signified our doing the same thing to another country.
We left that movie realizing that we'd probably never see or hear about that film in the United States and Americans are probably the people who need to see it the most. Not all of the films chastised the United States for its actions, but all of them forced me to think about who I am as an American and the global impact, positive and negative, of our actions and decisions.
Carmel Pryor
I was in Spain during the war in Iraq. My plane actually landed in Spain only one day after the war had officially begun; therefore, I was very nervous. Still, I was sure that because I was in Spain, an ally of the United States, I wouldn't be confronted with blatant anti-American sentiments. And, I was right. I never once felt uncomfortable as a foreigner, but there was a very interesting incident that made the experience of living during wartime very, very real.
After getting a bite to eat in one of the many cafes along the streets we saw the BIGGEST PROTEST EVER! There had to be at least 1000 people in a plaza called Plaza del Sol, which is the major plaza in Madrid. There were helicopters above to make sure things wouldn't get out of hand. There were people, young and old, wearing signs that said "No a la guerra" (No to the war) and "Bush y Aznar: asesinos" (Bush and Aznar: murderers). So here we are, in a protest, probably the only Americans in sight at a war protest in Spain. After we get a few, "Why the hell are you here?" looks, we leave. But, not five minutes later do we see police in full riot gear with rubber bullet guns in their hands waiting for something to happen. Then the police start sprinting towards the crowd and we see a bunch of people run for their lives in our direction. Then we hear the rubber bullets flying! It was the scariest thing ever!
It was great to be overseas when something so historical was happening. To see from Spain's point of view is interesting and to watch the news and read the papers (all media) is a great experience overseas because their interpretation has quite a slant to it. Like in the United States, there are papers that have obvious liberal slants and then conservative slants to them, but their media seems to be more "real" in that they show more gore (blood and guts). It can be disturbing. Ninety-two percent of Spaniards are against the war without U.N backing and still 62 percent of them are against the war even with U.N backing. Muy interesante!
Getting the Global View
Many students study abroad for individual reasons - adding something to a resume or immersion in a language for fluency. But, perhaps the greatest benefit is a new understanding of a people and place different from what you've known. Many students leave learning more than they expected, and mostly outside the classroom.
Autumn Sanders
I think studying in Spain made me appreciate home, but also cemented my view that there's more to life than Ohio. I was a little apprehensive at first. I wasn't sure how my being a black woman would be received by my host family and the people I encountered. Most of the discussions that I had about race or ethnicity took place with the other members of my group.
Carmel Pryor
I am excited that I accomplished this goal of mine to study abroad because I think that no one should miss the opportunity to be taken out of their comfortable surroundings and be placed into a different culture. There are so many ways that studying abroad can change someone, but most of all it opens the mind.
Candice Brooks is a student writer with University Communications and Marketing.
