The Nature of Study Abroad—Translation

Studying abroad is really overwhelming in some ways. Not in the personal ways of moving yourself, missing people and things, or dealing with money and that. Those things are true, of course, but it can also be overwhelming to find yourself in such an international context so suddenly.

What I mean is this—a new student to an area instantly tries to get a sense of where they are, how things are different, and how people are different. Not only are you presented with opportunities to interact with residents of the country, but you make friends with, live with, and become close to many international students at the same time. Meanwhile, you try not to make comparisons between things here and at home. Yet comparison is essential. We are translating currency amounts, measuring cups for cooking, temperatures, the meanings of words, perceptions of local issues and histories, explanations for global issues, and more. As this creature gets larger, out of nowhere, this person finds themselves sitting at a crossroads of different peoples and human difference in general, I think. At times just as a spectator, and other times as a participant. You're translating all the time in your head, and here we're both still speaking English!

I sometimes feel it would be easier to ignore all of this and become numb to the differences, but that seems like cheating and missing out. I often feel like I'm witnessing some of the most basic and common, and at the very same time intricate and complex, issues. It can small... like "How many times must we talk about my accent? Or Obama?" In this way, you learn to accept that you're a foreigner, people are interested, and you must be able to laugh about being American.

But take race, for instance. One can assume that in a country that has as horrible a history of racial oppression as South Africa, this concept would be quite important. And in a nation where apartheid was ridded, it is fascinating to still be confronted daily with its effects, and its legacy in a post-apartheid society. How people talk about it, how South Africans my age reflect on growing up, and how tensions still exist today. How they say that Cape Town is the city obsessed with race. These conversations may seem quieted at times, but it truly is like a silent noise within the city, something that doesn't go away and cannot be ignored. Or so it feels like to me.

And at other times, it simply explodes. Like headlines in the papers about "racist" polticians, or a recent Facebook group that was created to defame the new white, female premier of this province. It was instantly flooded by university age students, white and black, with thousands of terrible comments flying back and forth. Some were intelligent, but the vast majority were uninformed, juvenile name-calling and racist shouting. It was the vocalization of some of this silent noise that happens in this country surrounding race. And it is overwhelming!

Then my comparisons come in. I find myself looking for ways to draw parallels to the US. Of course we talk about race, and of course it is still an issue. African-Americans are historically and still disadvantaged in our country, and there still exist tons of debates surrounding racism, institutionalized oppression, and political policy as well. But, what if this is what race relations looked like in the US after the civil rights movement, or what some of the political conversations sounded like when the US was a young democracy? Unsure, developing, and somewhat fragile. More palpable. I don't know. This is where I kind of come to a stop, and say that I'm not entirely sure what I'm saying. And I admit that I've gone through this post several times trying to make things more cohesive and organized.

Maybe that's the point though. They often are not cohesive or organized. As a study abroad student, the longer you are here, the longer your mind tries to digest these things, and make sense of them. I'm not done, but rather feeling in this moment a little overwhelmed with doing so much internal translation, and feeling so often like a foreigner. That is also one of the points of this post, then. However, the spectator role allows you to start to see the truth of human nature, in an international and cross-cultural way.

There is also a bit of deception involved in understanding study abroad. Students aren't just visiting, they spend several months building lives in a different country. You seek out and build meaningful friendships that have trust, reciprocity, and some semblance of meaning. At least that's what I've been trying to do. You spend lots of time making your bedroom habitable, finding a social circle, and when things become manageable and comfortable... you pick up and disappear. Of course that is difficult. You literally leave a void, and people must even delete you from their cell phones.

My recently habitable bedroom.

This prospect is what has me feeling very uncomfortable right now. The fleeting and inevitable nature of this process has me weary of reaching out, and of getting attached to people. It is probably because I've never been very good at losing friends, in fact I am particularly bad at it. Especially when they've made an impact on me. Granted, this could all be avoided if I put less thought into things and just had fun... and I do this too, but it is not really my nature. I begin to ask myself "Why am I trying to build this friendship? I leave in a month."

I also don't like the idea of being part of the "study abroad cycle", where you know people that know you will leave. I'm often in contact with people that meet study abroad students a lot, or what I have dubbed the "student abroad machine". They know you won't be friends soon, and they're used to knowing Americans and watching them leave. I just don't want to be another person that comes and goes, I suppose. Oh well, perhaps I am.

Relaxing with friends at Breede River.