Berkeley Abroad

As a regular part of the IAS newsletter, we include stories from Berkeley students who have traveled abroad in the previous year. In this issue, we feature reflections by Inga Wilder and Thomas Chupein. From their respective vantage points on three continents, each captures a dimension of the study abroad experience. Are you a Berkeley EAP alum? Please contact newsletter editor Nathan MacBrien at ucias@berkeley.edu with your contributions, letters, and suggestions. We want to hear from you! You can learn more about Berkeley Programs for Study Abroad and EAP by visiting the BPSA Web site: http://ias.berkeley.edu/bpsa/.

WHILE IN SOUTH AFRICA I was most intrigued by how people responded to me when they discovered that I was African American. Visually, I was indistinguishable from many other South Africans and I loved the freedom this afforded me. The paranoia of being singled out was not an issue because I looked so similar to other Africans. Kinky hair, brown skin, and mahogany eyes, all remnants of my African heritage, made me feel at home on the streets of Cape Town where

even the most indigenous Capetonian would not have been able to pick me out of a crowd. However, as I made local friends I began to realize that looks weren't everything. Although I looked South African, in many aspects I was different because I was American.

In the U.S. I have a dual identity. I am of African descent. I am American. Therefore I am African American. But in Africa I am black, not African (and even my "blackness" was debatable). Furthermore, in Africa I was first and foremost an American. The transition to being just American took a bit of getting used to because I identified with many of my South African counterparts and in a few instances I was seen as an outsider because of my nationality.

Being American in Africa comes with many superficial perks, but it does have its down sides, especially when you are not a Caucasian American. At times, I found myself fumbling around for reasons to explain why I didn't speak Xhosa, Tswana, Zulu, or any of the other numerous Bantu languages found in Southern Africa. Questions like "Why do you say you are African American when you don't have actual ties to Africa?" were common and difficult to answer. Initially I found it all a bit overwhelming, but then I learned to emphasize my similarities. As soon as I began to counterbalance differences with similarities, people became friendlier and eventually opened up to me more. Ultimately this made the transition of being in a new country a lot easier. The most important lesson I learned when I left South Africa is that it is easy to focus on the many ways in which people are different, but when people are given the opportunity to focus on the common aspects of being human, everything else is irrelevant.

I MISSED NOTHING HERE. I never do when I travel because very little changes back home in the same space of time that I undergo radical change. Half of the last six years of my life have been spent outside of the United States. This period and its experiences constitute the most meaningful and transformative period of my life. Now immersed in university as a re-entry student, I am well aware of the privilege I have to spend two years of my life at Berkeley. Ironically, this is why I chose to leave it-to take advantage of the coursework and professors one can only find at such an institution and to study language off campus where I should study it-in a country where people speak it. So, I spent this summer in Morelia, Mexico on the EAP Intensive Language and Society Program.

The program was doubly rewarding because I

took courses in Mexican literature, history and culture all while fine-tuning my Spanish and fulfilling my department's language requirement. The program was rigorous. I ended up writing eighteen essays in eight weeks and advanced my Spanish far more than I ever imagined. I came home not just feeling confident enough to take on a thesis topic in which I have to conduct research in Spanish, but much more knowledgeable about Mexican culture. The latter is the most salient

personal reward because I feel more connected to my neighbors here in San Francisco, among whom I have lived for nearly twenty years. I also became more intimate with my neighboring country, with which my own country's politics, economy and culture are inextricably linked. For example, I was able to be in Mexico and experience the highly contested 2006 presidential election, far more dramatic than the most over-the-top telenovela (and infinitely more engaging). My best decision: to run away from the California enclave other students created and wander around (easily) making new Mexican friends who remain so now. All that and a fantastic host family, amazing food, warm culture, rich history and beautiful cities and landscape. Who can ask for more?

UNIVERSITY MEDALIST LANE RETTIG IS A VETERAN OF THE STUDY-ABROAD EXPERIENCE. He first discovered Berkeley Programs for Study Abroad in 2003, when he traveled to London through summer session to study British theater. In his junior year, through EAP he joined an engineering program at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan. And even more ambitiously, he sojourned to China and Thailand (again through EAP), meeting

Lane Rettig and friends in Okinawa.

people from hill tribes with little access to technology, working at a

Thai orphanage, and teaching English and Internet skills to children.

The New Jersey native combines his enthusiasm for technology with a passion for world languages and cultures. By age 14, Rettig was already running a network of computer gaming sites. At UC Berkeley, he double-majored in computer science and Japanese, holding down a 3.96 grade point average. He mentored fifth graders. But his experiences outside the United States were crucial to inspiring him to use his passions to make a difference. His long-term goal is to bring Internet technologies to the developing world, and in pursuit of this goal he is working with UC Berkeley's Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions program to use cell phones as English-language learning tools. In 2006, Rettig landed Berkeley's most prestigious honor for a graduating senior: the University Medal.

At Commencement, Rettig gave an address and received a $2,500 scholarship.

As a delegate from UC Berkeley to the Japan-America Student Conference, Rettig visited Kyoto, Hiroshima, Okinawa, and Tokyo. His reflections on that venerable international-exchange program (Berkeley has participated since 1937) stand as an apt description of study abroad's highest goals: