Llevamos unos cuantos dias de mas calor en Amherst, el calor aqui es humedo y pegajoso, esta noche hay tambien tormenta. Durante varios dias no he podido escribir mucho, varias razones, la wifi va lenta, nosotros no paramos, el viernes trabajamos en la biblioteca en el “research project” que tenemos que hacer al final, hacia un frio increible, esta es una de las pegas que puedo poner a este viaje, el cambio de temperatura es exagerado, siempre tienen el aire acondicionado a tope, alli donde lo hay y he terminado por coger un buen resfriado que ya se me esta pasando pero que me ha tenido dos dias fuera de orbita.
El fin de semana muy entretenido, sabado visitamos el American Textile History Museum in Lowell, una de las ciudades que fue motor de la revolucion industrial y economica en este pais en el siglo XIX, con la posterior decadencia en el siglo XX. Aqui una foto que me ha tomado Alliaa en el museo. Hoy domingo hemos tenido una cena en la casa, han cocinado las compas de Africa, pero esto lo contare tomorrow (no hay letra egne).
On Thursdaymorning, Frank Couvares, gave a first lecture explaining HOW THEAmerican systemWORKS, and why it worked in the beginning. A few influential factors he mentioned are: 1st – good fortune, because when the colonists arrived to this country that has a lot of natural resources, such as space, (so that if there’s something you don’t like here you can move to somewhere else), water and wood. A 2nd factor was that there was no army to oppose to. The native indians didn’t have a proper army and they were many different tribes ……………………. And 3rd, It was decisive that the colonists were ruled and guided by people like Jefferson or James Madison, that knew the art of compromising very well, the art of making deals and forming coalitions, what we can call political “horse trading”. Madison wrote the federal papers in favour of the constitution. Like the federal paper n. 10.
The second part of the day was a lecture by Jean S. Forward, from the University of Massachusetts (they are just going to start with a Native American Institute).
She told us about the Native American Indians, that is, the people who lived in “Turtle Island” (that was the name Indians called North America). Traditional education in this culture was given by the “elders” (not necessarily the oldest but the most knowledgeable). She explained some characteristics of the Indian society: cyclical thinking (in contrast to our lineal thinking), landed on sharing and extended family. Though the presentation was a bit messy -partly because I did not get “the big picture” from the beginning and did not have enough background about this topic, and partly because all the names were strange to me and the lecturer talked too fast for me-, I got the main ideas. Here are some of the links to go on with the topic:
- Most of the indians in Boston are Mikmaq.
- The North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB) is an organization located in Massachusetts which provides assistance to American Indians, Native Canadians and other and other indigenous peoples of North America. She also talked about the Aquinnah and the Abenaki. Iroquois have a confederacy at nation level in which there are 5 nations. She went on talking about what has happened in the education level with these Indians and referred to the period in which the children were taken away from their families to Education boarding school. In present days she commented about the The Dine college experience.
Deer Island is connected to the indian history because during the winter of 1675-76 some 500 American Indians were held there and, without adequate food or shelter, many of them died. At the end she recommended a book called the People’s history of America by Howard Zinn and a children story Malian’s song by Marge Bruchac.
To finish that day we visited The Memorial Hall Museum in Old Deerfield, where you can see many objects that in fact are not too old, but for a nation with a short history they are old enough to keep in a museum. There belonged some to the newcomers and some to the indians. This is a curious picture of the daughter of the Reverend Williams. She was taken captive in 1704, on the raid of Deerfield and was adopted into a Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) family, where she remained for the rest of her life.
El tiempo sigue siendo bueno, no demasiado sol o calor. Hoy me he dado un buen paseo mañanero antes de ir al comedor del campus como de costumbre. Es uno de los momentos mejores del día, y de repente me he dado cuenta del poco estrés que soporto aquí, parece que fuera del campus todo el mundo se mueve en coche particular, no se ven apenas autobuses, pero enel campus apenas se ven coches solamente furgonetas de reparto y apenas hay plazas de aparcamiento, no es posible venir en coche, no sé como se moveran los estudiantes en un momento normal, supongo que viven en los “dormitories” del campo como hacemos nosotros aquí y todo está muy cerca. Una gran extensión de cesped y árboles con muchos años, ardillas que suben y bajan de los árboles y comparaba esta sensación con el campus universitario de Granada, siempre lleno de coches.
Tambien (ahora ya no tengo acentos) me he entretenido en tomar algunas fotos de las placas de los coches (y de algunos camiones) con el campus solitario antes de ir a desayunar. Por lo visto pueden poner lo que quieran en las placas de matricula como se ve en esta foto que he tomado de la placa delantera de uno.
Como no paran de repetir “this is a free country and you can do whatever you want as far as you respect the others”.
El tema del dia han sido los INDIOS (lo vere en el siguiente post) y por la tarde me he ido a mi cafeteria favorita (Coffe shop in Amherst) con un libro de “American History”, la gente suele estar alli leyendo o con el portatil, me pido un te, no tenian ni cerveza sin alcohol ni coca-cola y para mi sorpresa veo que tienen“tortas Ines Rosales“, desde luego Amherst in Massachusetts es el ultimo sitio donde me hubiese esperado encontrar una torta de Castilleja de la Cuesta en Sevilla .
Hoy nos hemos pasado todo el dia con los poetas del siglo XIX, Emerson, Wiltman y Emily Dickinson que nacio y murio en esta ciudad, Amherst. La tarde la hemos terminado en la casa-museo de esta leyendo poemas en el jardin. Despues me ha dado tiempo de nadar un buen rato en la piscina que como podeis ver en este link a la foto que hice hoy es tambien America.
Como siempre debate y la posibilidad de levantar la mano e intervenir o preguntar en cualquier momento. Esto hace la clase muy dinamica y permite que nos impliquemos todos. Joeng Sook estaba emocionada recitando en el jardin de E. Dickinson. She is so sweet! as Anathasios says.
The weather was perfect today, fresh but sunny and we could lay on the grass as you see in this picture.
A few links and some notes to finish soon this post and go to bed a bit earlier.
“A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, ……………………………………..Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world”. That is individualism.
And then Wiltmanwith “The song of myself”, mystical individualism that accepts no separation between the self and the universe.
“I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume, …..”
But he also wrote poems that expressed suffering and pain like this poem that you listen to by clicking on it “The artillery man vision.”
Emily Dickinson was a different story, she didn’t publish more that 10 poems in her life, but wrote about 1700 that were found and published when she died. She lived in Amherst and, as I said, we visited her house and read poems in her garden.
El segundo dia de actividad comenzo con el analisis de “the bill of rights”. No es mi intencion usar este blog solo como bloc de notas pero, de alguna forma uno de los objetivos es recordarme lo que he oido y discutido aqui.
So for this second day of work first I leave the video of Barack Obama because much of what he says has to do to what I have read and heard in this two last days.
And after lunch we went to Amherst Middle School to meet the moderator of the “Amherst town meeting”. It is not the same in all the states, but here in Massachussets they still have this system”. There is no mayor in Amherst.
The legislative body of the Town of Amherst is a Representative Town Meeting, consisting of 240 elected Town Meeting members, 24 from each of 10 precincts plus 14 ex officio members: the five members of the Select Board, the five members of the School Committee, the President of the Library Trustees, the Chair of the Finance Committee, the Moderator, and the Town Manager. The Annual Town Meeting usually begins in late April or early May.”
Despues de los dos primeros dias (Saturday and Sunday) que fueron una toma de contacto con el lugar y la gente (ya me conozco los nombres y los asocio con sus paises y mas o menos nos sabemos todos la vida y milagros mas relevantes de cada uno de nosotros), ya me siento como en casa, la piscina y el gym integrados en la vida diaria (ademas no hace falta pagarlos, solo ser un estudiante de este campus como somos, eso me parece una de las mejores cosas de las universidades de aqui) y ademas en el comedor del campus tienen mi te favorito (tetley), me parecio mas que un buen presagio.
On Monday we had our first lecture at 8.30 about “<!–[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]–><!–[if gte mso 9]> <![endif]–> American Democracy: Continuing Debates over Rights and Obligations“. Frank Couvares told us about “How it all started” the first people that came to America and the reasons they had to come to New England: to get ahead (economical reasons), to be left alone (political reason) and to be perfect (religious reason)…………..American society was diverse almost from the beginning and there were so many different groups that tolerance and individual liberty was inevitable, and that is the basics of the Constitution.
The second session on Monday was about the education system in our countries with all the contrasts. Later we got the library card and had a quick visit around it physically and virtually. After that I really needed to go for a swim, Suha (from Israel) came with me and then also Hisato (Japan, obvious, isn’t it?) and David (New Zealand). We had a long swim, the American flag looking at us from the ceiling.
It has taken me some time to get used to the difference in time here, in fact I still get up at 5 everyday, y la verdad que no esta mal (no puedo usar acentos) levantarse a las 5 y darse un paseillo por Amherst (do not pronounce the “h”), el campus universitario es verde verde y amplio como se ve en esta foto
y da gusto darse una vuelta antes de ir a desayunar.
No he tenido mucho tiempo para escribir pero ademas la wifi en la habitacion va muy lenta y eso me obliga a bajar a la sala de ordenadores donde lo unico malo es que me entretengo with the people.
Estoy pasandolo estupendamente por ahora. Los americanos me han sorprendido por su amabilidad y naturalidad. Ya me lo habian contado pero hasta que no lo ves no te lo crees, esa actitud cercana me recuerda a Bernie Dodge que es el americano de quien mas referencia tengo.
As to the group of fulbrighters here, everybody is very peculiar and with a lot of things to tell and share, so I can’t think of a better way to spend this summer. We have been here just for three days and it seems that we know each other for at least a week or two. Jeong Soo (from South Korea) already calls me “my old sister”, Dorothee has become the Japanese reporter of the group (though she is from Democratic Congo) and so on.
I insert here a picture of the group, with formal clothes on Sunday, on our second day here. We are uploading all the pictures at picasa and I can’t imagine how many shots we will have at the end of this wonderful program. There are only a few albums up to now (we are 29) and we’ve been here only for 3 days !!
Falta menos de una semana para que vuele a USA. Todavía me quedan detalles que ultimar, cosas que rematar para que se quede todo hecho en el instituto, archivos en el portátil que organizar ypequeños detalles de última hora. He tenido mucha suerte al ser invitada por la Embajada de Estados Unidos en España para formar parte de un grupo de profesores de inglés de secundaria de muchos países del mundo que vamos a participar en un seminario sobre civilización y cultura norteamericana.
Así que lo 1º es dar las “Gracias” a todos los que lo han hecho posible, empezando por los colegas de la Delegación de Granada y la Consejería de Andalucía que tuvieron el detalle de proponer mi nombre (entre otros) y a las personas de la Embajada que me eligieron y que han estado facilitando todo lo referente al viaje. I’m very very lucky!
Lo 2º es comenzar este blog que va a servir un poco para todo: difusión del programa, baúl de recuerdos de lo que viva y vea, espacio de contacto con mi gente, y quién sabe qué más. Decir que, como acostumbro a hacer en mi otros espacios, voy a usar ambas lenguas, y un poco de “Spanglish” .
I’ve never been in “The States” before and my knowledge of this country is very little. Or perhaps I think I know less than I actually do. In the following two months I’ll have the opportunity to check that and learn a lot more. Today I was remembering that I never drankCoca- Cola until I was 20 or so. That was a way of expressing my political views and my rejection of what “Coca-Cola” meant. For me Coca- Cola represented the American way of life and capitalism. I don’t remember why I started drinking coke, but since then it is one of my favourite drinks. Then, I love many American singers, film starts and writers. Of course, I saw lots of “Westerns” on TV when I was a child and my favourite TV series were and have almost always been American, but if I had to complete a test about American geography, history or literature I’m sure I would fail.
Next Friday (June 20th) I’ll be flying to Bradley International Airport, then, someone from ITD will take me and other participants in the summer seminar to Amherst College, in Amherst, Massachusetts, where we will spend most of the first 4 weeks. After those 4 weeks we will travel to many places in the country. The program looks ………..!! I have no words I only hope to have some free time to do many other things.
I only hope to have some free time to do many other things.
