It has come to my attention that I arrived in my new host country in a state of complete and utter naivety. I had been so focused on the whole "returning to Spain" part of my program that I totally sidestepped the whole "moving to Hungary" part... oops... But better late than never, right? And what better day to reflect on the history of Hungary than on today, October 23, 2016: the 60th anniversary of Hungarian independence from Russia!
0 Comments
Throughout the past 13 months, I have been faced time and time again with the uncomfortable truth that I -- as a cis, white, upper-middle class American citizen -- have a LOT of privilege in this world. As someone who is training to study systems of oppression professionally, reflecting on this privilege is something that I do on daily basis. Recently, I had one episode in particular that really struck me as being a very fruitful opportunity for reflection.
I've been in Hungary less than a week and the differences between it and Spain are already palpable in my daily routine. Despite the fact that I was already familiar with Spanish culture when I moved to Granada last year, I can't help but feel more at home, culturally speaking, here in Budapest.
I am currently sitting in the Malaga airport. It’s already been 3 hours and I still have 7 hours to go before my plane takes off, which will be the first of 3 planes that I have to take in order to arrive at my destination for a grand total of 27 hours straight in airports / airplanes. Yippee! But at least they have a 24 hour Starbucks here (you here that, Philadelphia Airport? THEY HAVE SOMETHING OPEN FOR 24 HOURS! IN SPAIN! GET ON THEIR LEVEL!). Sitting here is bringing back so many memories of the last time I spent the night in an airport…. It was in fact this airport and it was 4 years ago when I was on my way back to the States after studying abroad in Granada. I can’t help but think of how different the circumstances are between these two trips, even though they both included panicked rushes to catch my bus at the VERY LAST MOMENT (what can I say? I’ve never been good about abiding by a fixed schedule).
This is the third time I’ve left Spain to go back to the States. The two previous times were after studying abroad and the departure marked a very definitive “leaving” of Spain to “return home” to the States. Those experiences have been filtered through feelings of resignation and sadness at the conclusion of a chapter and I remember clearly thinking, “I need to take this all in! I need to savor every last moment!” while I packed all my belongings into a collection of suitcases (I won’t admit to how many there were). County fairs are one my favorite things in the entire world. I love everything about them: the tackiness, the ridiculous outfits, the extreme food, and of course the sense of exhilaration that you feel when you get strapped into one of those rides that you know wasn’t attached soundly to the ground even just a few days prior. I love it all!
I will back in the States in less than a week and I have been struggling to discern my feelings about my impending return. Of course, on one hand I am extremely excited to come home. As much as I love Spain, I am still very aware of the fact that I do not really belong here and it will a huge relief to be back in my own country, to speak my own language, to eat my familiar food, and to see my friends and family again. On the other hand, coming home means this year has officially come to an end. Yes, I will be coming back to Spain in just a few weeks and, yes, I will be coming back to my own apartment and, yes, I even have one last school presentation to do when I come back so I realize that this ending will be just about as drawn out as it possibly could but nonetheless this departure feels like it is signaling the end of a very significant chapter.
Confronting this end has created a hailstorm of emotions in its own right, but the element that my mind has fixated on is how am I going to answer the question: so, how was it? How can I possibly describe the experience that this year has been? Of course, no one can succinctly and thoroughly describe a year in their life. That's ridiculous. And no one should be expected to attempt to do so. But nonetheless I need a quick blurb to provide whenever a polite family friend or genuinely interested loved one asks, "how was it?". Well. It's finally happened. After all the big talk of how much I love living abroad, the reality of living in other country, in another culture, has finally caught up with me.
I've written before about my struggles to find the happy medium between truly embracing the Spanish lifestyle and engaging fully in graduate school. This internal conflict is nothing new. But now, with the end of the academic year so close within grasp, I finally lost it. When living your life in a language that is not your native language, sometimes even the smallest tasks take on huge significance as they serve as markers of your increasing level of comfort and ability to express yourself in this new language. For me, some of the biggest moments (besides the obvious attending graduate school in Spanish) included: signing a contact for an apartment, dealing with the government office in order to obtain residency, negotiating a cellphone plan, opening a bank account, taking a pilates class, speaking with a bank representative on the phone, dealing with the local police to file a police report and sending an urgent letter from the post office. But as big as these moments were for me at the time, they were blown out of the water by what went down last Friday.
This year marked my second year in Spain for Semana Santa aka Holy Week, which marks the week leading up to Easter. As a Catholic country, Spain obviously takes Easter and Holy Week very seriously so there are a number of religious ceremonies held throughout the week. It also serves as the spring break equivalent for most students since there are no classes that week so it's a huge time for traveling both within Spain and within Europe in general.
With the way schedules happened to line up, Semana Santa was deemed the most convenient time for my friends to visit. The fact that they were coming during this week was particularly fortuitous because none of us had ever experienced Semana Santa in Granada before! When we were studying here in 2012, this particular group of friends had spent the week traveling in Italy and I had spent in Madrid and Bilbao. So while I was been able to get a sense of this Spanish tradition, I always felt a little guilty that I had never experienced the Granada version because southern Spain is especially renowned for their fesitivities. Well, now was my chance! There are few people in your life with whom you can go weeks, months, and maybe even years without speaking and then just slide back into a comfortable, familiar rhythm when you are back together as if no time had passed at all. For me, one of those groups (I suspect) will always be my group of friends from studying abroad in Granada. Our group was made up of six of us, each from different universities, different parts of the States, studying different things and in different phases of our lives. We were brought together solely by circumstance: we all happened to be studying abroad in the same program in Granada, Spain in the spring of 2012. And while that semester abroad was instrumental in each of our lives for distinct reasons, we all fell in love with Granada and we did it together.
|
Categories
All
Meet the Author:Graduate student of GEMMA Eramus Mundus Master's Degree in Women's and Gender Studies. Currently living in Budapest, Hungary. Originally from the American midwest. Archives
October 2016
|