Vinnie Rodriguez

In October of last semester 2009, I took advantage of another oppotrunity offered to me by one of the clubs at Wentworth. I am President of the Wentworth chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE, pronounced “SHPE”). The mission of SHPE is for the advancement of Latinos in STEM-related fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). However, it is open to all students interested in developing their professional networking skills and boosting their career in any major. We have students of all different countries and majors who participate in this organization/club. Not only is SHPE @ WIT a professional development organization where you can learn to network and attend conferences and get job offers, it is also a social network that allows a place of support for all students, and to just chill and meet new friends. I have made so many close relationships with friends here in this club, that I can see it will last forever. Hey, we’re college students, so we need to have fun too. We hold dances, food events, and an upcoming Fashion Show next year in the Fall 2010 for those of you coming to campus then, but we also go to regional and national conferences, and do things on campus to just get the members interacting and to feel like there is a community they can come to.

The national conference we attended this year was held in Washington, D.C. A member named Jose Arevalo accompanied me, and the school budget we receive helps fund the full cost of the conference including the flight, the food, registration for the conference and the only money you really need to focus on is what souvenirs to bring home. . Attending this conference were students from everywhere between California to Texas to Chicago to New York. Also in attendance were professionals who every day support students in finding jobs and boosting their academic experiences.Lastly, in attendance, were professionals like recruiters from more than 100 corporations and companies like Raytheon, GE, Toyota, Dow, Lockheed Martin, the Navy and much more who came specifically to the conference to meet the students and find talent to those with the spark in their eye whom they can offer employment or co-op opportunities. People from all different backgrounds, companies, regions, and fields come to this conference to build relationships, expand their network, and learn a few things along the way.

In the past, SHPE has gone to Philidelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, and most recently Washington, D.C. More than 3,000 students and professionals attend this event, and every time, dozens of students walk away with on-the-spot inerviews, job offers, and new friends and great memories. I myself had an on-the-spot interview after meeting with a recruiter from GE’s NBC Universal division. I also made very good connections with professionals from the national organization I can connect with as well as students from parts of the region I haven’t met before that I can hang out with back in Boston.

A typical [SHPE] Conference consists of academic competitions for all different types of STEM-related fields. The peak of the conference is the usual College/Career Fairs, featuring 100’s of different organizations and companies looking to recruit talent. Even Proctor & Gamble’s Pillsbury Doughboy is out looking for student professional talent!

The conference also had hospitality suites: sites where specific companies sponsor a room and offer food and just have candid conversations with students to pick their brains more and see which one is a better match for their company. The hospitality suites provide a new level of connecting with professionals, and you definitely have to be on your game here, because you wil lspend a lot more time talking with companies. We attended workshops on different topics and concepts related to various industry fields, finding employment, or on how to be a more effective leader; the great part about this is that many of the workshops were run by professionals of different potential companies, and students are strategic in sometimes attending certain workshops run by certain company representatives just to be able to get up, close and personal with them and start making a connection with them.

Going to the conference with Jose really allowed me to connect on a deeper level with my members. The conversations we had regarding life, embarking into the professional world, and our futures were invaluable. Just going out and exploring the city on downtime between workshops and breaks was inspirational, just thinking about the hitory of the country and how leadership all accumulates at this one concentrated point in D.C. We visited the National Archives, the Lincoln and Washington Memorials and the National Mall, Capitol Hill, the Vietnam War Memorial, and even the White House! This is typical in national conferences–down time when no workshops are scheduled and you can take advantage of exploring the the city.

One of the main things we learned from being at this conference was that, we noticed too many students were going to the conference and once in front of a professional, they would change their personality, interests, and everything about them that makes them stand out against competition, just so that they can try to create a false image of themselves they think they want the company to see, and resultantly, get nowhere with that and the representative loses interest. The biggest thing we learned is that, when either at a Wentworth-hosted career fair, or by one run by an academic organization you are a part of, always be yourself, which may be harder than you think. A representative may say, “we aren’t hiring anyone in your position, only computer majors” and then you say “yeah, I do computers too,” when you really know nothing on computers and major in civil engineering. Instead, you have to show them why your civil engineering major can help their company achieve the same goals that a computer engineering major can.

Another tip: you most likely won’t know what you want to do coming into this, so if that’s your case, make sure you focus on promoting your skills and talents, not just your experience (because you may hav none). By promoting your skills, you are showing the true you and that allows different companies to see what really makes you a strong candidate in different ways based on their measure, but applying the skills in different environments.

All of thse lessons learned occur because Wentworth gave me the opportunity to participate in this type of venue and see professional networking in a new way. At Wentworth, there’s a club for just about everything. There are professional and academic organizations run by students of all majors, like the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) who also attended a national conference. There’s also the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Civil Engineer Associations, IEEE (student-run), etc. Here at Wentworth you can have similar experience through just about any other similar club! Come and get involved!

I am a member of the Multicultural Student Association on campus, and have been so pumped at how much of a wonderful year we have had! A week ago, we attended the Chinese New Year celebration in Chinatown Boston, to get a glimpse at traditional Chinese customs. Our tour guide was our President Rebecca Chu. I learned so much from this experience.

We first started out going to Chou Chow City, a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. Here’s a few quick lessons about dim sum, very popularly and typically eaten for breakfast (even though we ate for lunch). It is eaten by not only Chinese, but Vietnamese and other countries have their own variations as well.

We then spent a lot of the time walking around Chinatown engaging in the festivities. We saw many of the famous dragon dances along the way, where performers would stop by the doors of each apartment and local business storefront, knock on the door and dance to musical drums and instruments at their doorstep.

They would also occasionally throw firecrackers in the midst of their performance. Why? The significance of the firecrackes has a traditional origin. It’s meant to rid of the bad luck/energy from last year to create a more positive new year. Check out the video on the left to see the firework spectacular. Check the video on the right to hear from MSA’s President about the meaning of the fireworks. Click any of the videos below to enlarge it.

Although the food in Chinatown is considered by those who know real Chinese food by no terms “real” Chinese food, we still had a taste and a tip on the significance of all of the food eaten, the way the food eaten reflects the culture and how it should taste. Going to Chinatown put us out of our daily American zone and allowed me to really feel the pride of diversity and interculturalism with my peers and in my region, and how all cultures from all backgrounds can come together on the same day to celebrate a common interest–the New Year. Check out this video, which our Treasurer Dyna caught was significant, showing the dynamic contrasts between metropolitan Boston and traditional Chinatown, but at the same time showing the beauty of the two living together in the same space and how different societies can survive and be able to celebrate their difference with pride!

Being at Wentworth has given me opportunities like these to explore new things (of course, out of the budget of the organization), connect with friends new and old alike, and discover new ways of seeing life in a way that is beyond my textbooks.

Let’s take a break from Peru for a minute and flash back to another grand opportunity Wentworth granted me in October last year (2009).

I attended my second We Are Boston event, held at the Hynes Convention Center, with 5 international students: one from Burma, one Venezuela, one Iran, one a country in Africa (I don’t remember the name), and one Italy.

The We Are Boston event is and event run by the Office of New Bostonians in the City of Boston to recognize and honor the efforts made by immigrants from all different countries who have spent their current lives in Boston impacting their communities and those of others. It was great because we had the opportunity to network with business, college, and community leaders, including Mayor Menino.

The event started with a networking social and silent auction in one venue that included a light reception and various cultural musical performances by afro and Latino bands. Then, everyone moved into the main grand ballroom area into their reserved tables and the program continued from there. There was a Chinese dragon performance, and actually a Peruvian folkloric dance performance called Huayno, which I didn’t even recognize at the time because I didn’t even have plans to go to Peru yet. Check them out on video below.

Yo Yo Ma then capped off the night by delivering an unforgettable performance and inspiring speech; he was honored that night for all of the efforts he has done, initially in New York when he resided there, but then in Boston, his real self-proclaimed home away from China. It was a true culmination of diversity and interculturalism. It was a great experience.Hear his words and music below

Wentworth Institute of Technology President Zorica Pantic is and has been part of the Board that puts this event together for a few years, so Wentworth Is always highly represented here. I attended last year and remember speaking to her there. That’s one thing I really enjoy about being a Wentworth student: that any student at any given venue can meet the President and have a candid, casual conversation with her. Below you can see all of us with the President in the middle.

One of our students, Francesco Tena, spoke in front of this huge crowd of over 800 professionals to honor high school students with scholarships for doing great things in their school community. I think this was a great opportunity to expose some of those international students who have never had experience networking in this type of venue. We were all invited by Jeanmarie Ambrose, the International Student Services advisor of Wentworth.

I think it was great that they opened up this opportunity to international students, because it gives them a feel for networking in an American environment. Thanks to the opportunity by Wentworth to send me to this event that I wouldn’t have been able to afford from money out of my own pocket, I was able to comfortably approach the President afterwards and offer suggestions for next year when they send international students to this event. The suggestion is that next year Wentworth do a pre-event workshop on networking in the American business realm, that way international students can further expand their knowledge of American networking by practicing those networking skills at the event.

December 29-30, 2010: After another amazing breakfast and lunch in Lima, we caught the 4 pm bus to Chachapoyas, the capital district of the Amazonas region, which is another region outside of the Lima provincial area. We had to be prepared for a 23-hour bus ride, so we went shopping at the Metro, the Peruvian version of Wal-Mart.

I learned that, even though the exchange rate at the time was 2.80 Peruvian soles to 1 U.S. dollar, many things were still very cheap. I was upset when I saw the same exact sleeping bag I bought in Wal-Mart for US$30 for only about 8 soles in Metro. We stocked up on food for the long trip and also took a tour around the area/neighborhood, split up into “cuadras”, or specific blocks. We stood in Cuadra 2 Torre Junin.

We got onto the Movil Tours tour bus to Chachapoyas. The bus ride felt so long, I must have fell asleep at least five times and still didn’t arrive yet. Actually, it’s because it wasn’t the 23 hours we expected. It actually ended up lasting a few hours longer. However, it was worth it. I saw so much of Peru on the way. We traveled 1,183 kilometers, or in U.S. terms 735 miles, which is the same distance from New York to Chicago, or from Miami to Dominican Republic.

On the way through the outer parts of the city, I especially got to see a lot of the poorer areas, and this made me wonder. Why is it that we have to travel through all of the poorer, more desolate areas? Maybe these poorer areas just happen to be geographically in the same direction, but what if the President of Peru’s house was in that direction, do you think we would cut through his property? I highly doubt it. It made me think about how people who live in these areas have historically had their communities intervened and interrupted by foreigners and/or people of higher power. The Aztecs felt this when the Spanish built Mexico City on top of their ancient metropolis Teotihuacan. The Native Americans experienced this when the British invaded their lands. When I lived in the Bronx ghettos as a kid, I lived right across the street from the Yankee Stadium that is highly visited by fans from all over the world and of all socioeconomic classes, but I have never been to a game. So, even though it was in my geographic region, it wasn’t a part of my community. Till this day I have never attended a single game there, but I could hear the #4 train swoosh by every 15 minutes, preventing me from my sleep. But now that I am in Boston in a better socioeconomic condition and with all of the opportunities and resources offered to me by the privilege of college, I can choose to avoid the fire trucks that, similar to the #4 Bronx train, siren their way out of the fire station adjacent to our campus by choosing a dorm where that noise is not so pressing. However, to those without the choice, like those who belong to the poorer Peruvian communities to which I refer, the choice to preserve their community is limited.I thought about suburbs, and questioned whether I ever saw in the suburbs one of these big buses I was riding in–nope, couldn’t think of an example. It’s similar with dumps. Why are dumps built in towns that are poorer? I saw a lot of accumulated trash heaps and dumps in those areas and agricultural sites around which we drove that had houses stuck together with clay. What does this say about the poorer people’s voice and right to privacy if a huge bus can cut right through their neighborhoods? Did they allow this? If not, were they ever even communicated about it?

Once we finally entered into the Amazonas region, I really began to see nothing but preciousness as we headed into the rainforest. The power of it’s silence from inside the bus spoke novels to me . It told me how something so natural, so real in essence, can be so hidden. How have I never been exposed to this natural beauty that provides the water to the rivers to the water-bottling factories that make the water I drink everyday? How do I truly make sense of the human relationship with this Amazonian unknown, when technology is very different, then what I understand? Take a ride with me below.

For more videos on the bus ride, visit my YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/123vinnier

Day 2: we woke up and had breakfast made by Claudia’s grandmother. It was very light and simple because, like other Latin American countries, lunch is the most important meal.

The house was big, which fit many generations of the family. The grandfather lived there too, and he was a well-known folklore music pan-flute player in the country. He makes the pan flute from bamboo and wood that he has to get directly from the rainforest, and to make one is a several month process. He was a very funny and engaging guy, always seeing the positivity in things and always joking around.

In the house you will find some unique things you can’t find in the U.S., but that are characteristic of Peru. All of the outlets require 220-240 V plugs, so if you directly connect an American plug (which is 100-120 V), it will fry your electronic device.  So, we used converter for everything–cameras, laptops, bettery chargers, etc.–until we found out last day in Lima that actually some of our electronics (like the Lenovo laptops Wentworth gives us) can be plugged into any outlet with a voltage of 100-240 V, so didn’t need the converter!

We later ate an amazing lunch before we headed to visit Luis “Lucho” Chavez, a literature professor at BU, who is “Chirimotino” (from Chirimoto, the village where we were heading to do work) and very passionate about developing his village. Here’s the amazing grand lunch I previously explained. The dish I refer to in the video I later learned is called Lomo Saltado–probably my most favorite meal in Lima.

At the meeting, we had very deep, passionate discussions around the importance of economic development in the region, what does Chirimoto bring to the Peru socioeconomically, how to enable community to develop economy, political issues and factors that may be obstacles towards economic development and how to relinquish that, and opportunities and areas for growth for the village. This really pumped me up.

After our meeting, we the boys headed out to the nearby parks. At one park, a local passed us and mumbled repeatedly “yo no robo” (I don’t steal), and I initially didn’t understand. We thought he was a drunk local actually tricking us to calm down so that he can steal from us, but once he got closer, we found out that he was actually upset we were taking pictures in the park. His reasoning came out of pride and protection of his community. He said we could have been anyone–tourists, reporters, developers, etc. and could potentially do anything with those photos, when we return to our home country. that could exploit, offend, or harm their community and he did not agree. In addition, he repeated that they wouldn’t rob us, rather they recycle bottles, so we should respect their actions in that sense and their sincerity by stopping the photo-shooting, so we honored that wish and left. What he said really resonated with me. Taking one picture of anywhere you travel means you are taking away with you that piece of community from the people that live there; especially since you don’t even belong to that community, you have really no validity in taking that digital representation of what means home to them–if they don’t allow you to. That’s why when traveling, it’s always recommended to ask the person from that area for permission to take a photo, because taking it might be against their opinion. This is always a touchy issue and lesson to learn about traveling and engaging with different communities–make sure that whatever photo you take has meaning to it, otherwise, why ar you taking the photo in the first place?

This video was shown at an alumni donor appreciation event, showing them all the great things students are doing on campus. I was one of those students they highlighted. They focused primarily on my co-op in the community center I had at the time, and about the impact I was making through that co-op. This is important for any prospective students to know what you can make out of your co-op experience, and the opportunities at Wentworth. Speaking of opportunities, in this video, you will learn about the tons of opportunities offered to you by the Center for Community & Learning Partnerships (CLP). You can do community work studies, Alternative Spring Breaks, Voluntary Income Tax Returns, Community Co-op’s, and much more. What I like about the office is that if you don’t see an opportunity you want, you can make it happen. To access more information, click here or o go to www.wit.edu/clp to see all of their programs.

Hello everyone and happy new semester, Valentine’s Day and President’s Day. It’s been a while since I submitted my last post. From here on, I will be submitting blogs from my experiences in Peru. The focus of my month-long project visit was to aid a Wentworth professor in an economic development plan with the community in a village there. This basically means that day by day, the professor and I would talk to people in the community, learn about the issues they are having, what they aspire to acheive, revive and improve in their community and being that tool/resource (and if we cannot be that resource, we could find the appropriate resource) to enable them to facilitate those goals they have. We were accompanied by four other students: three more from Wentworth and one from MIT. Of the three other Wentworth students, two are civil engineering juniors named Jose “Tito” Arevalo and Starling Espaillat who’s focus was to design a sand filter for the water in used in the community, and the third is Eric Danforth, a junior in Architecture who’s focus was on renovating the “Casa del Colibri” (Hummingbird House) community center in the village.

I have practically not slept since before Christmas due to all of the partying of the holidays during vacation and lack of sleep Saturday night because I missed the last commuter rail from Boston finishing up some emails for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) at my school, to make sure they are set up and can transition smoothly while I’m gone for those six weeks in Peru. I got to East Boston at 3:30 in the morning and slept until 5:30 a.m. when I headed to the airport. After going through security and check-in, I passed out at the Gate waiting for the connecting flight to Miami. The flight left at 8:30 a.m. and after a long layover, boarded the 5-hour afternoon flight to Lima.

I particularly enjoyed this flight, despite the length, because I sat next to a Peruvian woman and we ended up talking the whole flightdown. We talked a lot about cultural differences in Peru and the U.S. and comparing those differences to other traveling experiences we have each had. It was a great orientation to Peru before even arriving. I learned about how Peruvians use the language (we spoke Spanish the whole way through), similarities and contrasts to cultures we have each been exposed to (i.e. Bolivia, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico), immigration and emigration patterns of populations like the Japanese in Peru, and different approaches to tourism that aren’t so exploitive of a country’s culture. We talked about the importance of bilingualism when raising children in the U.S., and I explained how my just learning Spanish is very reflective of my generation of Latinos that don’t speak Spanish as much anymore. She explained to me how unique Peruvian culture is in that it is so diverse compared to other Latin American countries, which largely due to its broad range of climates.

Lima is a coastal desert, yet Chirimoto, where I am going to spend most of my time and where the economic development project is focused, is a mix of the Amazon rainforest and the mountains of the Amazon. Closer to the Andes mountains of Peru, it gets very cold and it snows in other parts of the coast there are beaches where people surf. She stated that  geography determines a lot about the culture. She was familiar with Chachapoyas, which is the closest well-known area to Chirimoto (it’s the capital of the Amazonas department, which is in Peruvian terms like a State) and after I asked “what is typical Peruvian food like?”, she supported her former statement by saying that it depends on the region we’re talking about. She said ceviche–a South American dish usually consisting of shrimp or other sorts of seafood–is the most popular dish of Lima, which makes sense due to its coastal orientation on a map. She stated that rather than that, in Chirimoto and Chachapoyas, and I am more likely to find plantains and yucca, which makes sense because of these greens grow in moist, dense areas like the rainforest. She lastly gave me recommendations on fun and authentic places to visit and things to do during my week-long pre-Chirimoto stay in Lima. We exchanged contact phone numbers and Facebooks and exited the plane.

While waiting for a few hours after getting through customs for Claudia, an MIT senior in Environmental Engineering that will be focusing on proposing systems for more healthy and efficient sewage systems in the village, the Wentworth students, professor and I went to grab a bite. Take a look at our arrival

I tried a Peruvian empanada de queso (cheese empanada) that tasted very good.

We took two taxis to Claudia’s grandmother’s house (yes, folks, that means she’s Peruvian-American) because our luggage combined could not fit in one, as you can tell below.

Once we got to the house, we immediately rested. Arrival at house from airport: click to here my thoughts.

As I approached the end of the semester,  just the thought of going back to the U.S. gave me a strong slap of culture shock that was unbearable. And it all came together at our last lab group in Ocotepec. Ocotepec is an autonomous town in the municipality of Cuernavaca. It has historically been able to keep many of its traditions since ancient times.

We started talking openly about whatever was on our minds. The only pressing thing on my mind was this certainty of returning to the U.S. once May 15 arrived. All I could think about was what I was going to do when I got back, would I change, would anything else change, and who will care about what I have to share when I return. I pondered over what I was really coming back to: stress, an environmentally ignorant lifestyle, too busy trying to get a career that I lose sight of family and friends, TV Dinners and microwave foods that have little nutritional value but are quick and cheap, snowstorms, Noreasters and schizophrenic weather, and little practice of my Spanish.

Another big issue I had was how I was going to leverage my experience from Mexico when back home in the U.S. to Wentworth in a way that brings change on campus. But I had nothing. I actually began to develop a strong disgust and dislike for my home country because of the new perspective I had of it from the outside. Sometime when you’re in the midst of something, you never really truly get to see what it is until you pull yourself away from it and look at it from the outside. I didn’t want to come back to the U.S. because I became so absorbed by the culture in Mexico. I saw something pure, something balanced and humbling. I felt happy, where in the U.S. I always felt as though there was another hole to fill. It was almost as if the glass was half empty in the U.S., but in Mexico the glass was half full. Actually, the glass was complete. I had been taking full time courses, doing an amazing internship and my own independent research, challenging myself every day in different ways, yet enjoying those challenges as well as the unique and significant recreational and educational experiences I was having.

When back in the U.S., I instantly felt left out. My friend picked me up from the airport in May and the first thing we talked about was Mexican narcotraffic. She said something that to me seemed so ignorant and I got really upset. We started to argue, and I realized that I had some work to do. When I got home, another issue came up about border issues between Mexico the U.S. A family member with which I discussed this told me that it’s the Mexicans’ fault if they get deported because they shoudn’t have been here in the first place. Now, I know everyone is entitled to their opinion, and who’s to say my opinion is the right way, but it still infuriated me, so I began to argue with him in reaction to my sensitivity to the culture. But at that point, I had to rethink the situation.

I realized that the only thing that has really channged while I was gone was me, not the family and friends that I left and then returned to. Just because  changed, I shouldn’t expect everybody else to have changed with me. Yet, this was diffcult because I wanted people to change with me–I wanted people to see the changes  I have seen and experienced. But because no one saw those changes, I felt isolated and alone. I felt as though there was no one to talk to here in the U.S., because I knew no one truly recognized the significance and intensity of my experience but the people I met over in Mexico. For a few months, it  felt hopeless.

One thing that was very difficult for me was trying to implement a system based off of the environmental issues I studied and experienced in Mexico. It’s interesing how in the U.S. we have all of these crazy corporate programs to save the environment, yet so many of our people ignore it. Then we pride ourselves on how cool and large scale our programs are and mention other countries that need to follow our lead because they are so far behind. Wrong. I have seen how in actuality Mexican people are way advanced in their preservation of the environment, and they do it in such a simple, not-high-tech nor flashy way. I’ve visited Mexican houses where old used soda and water bottles are used as an energy source for the whole house. Every Mexican house I visited had a compost and many had dry toilets. I’ve visited Mexican families that store, filter and retain the water from rain for use around the entire house. I’ve seen even on an extreme, Mexicans who filer even their own urine to pure clean water for daily household use. Sounds barbaric, but believe me, it’s on the contrary–it’s smart. It’s simple. It’s cheap. It’s efficient. And helps the environment. I had been struggling because as much as the U.S. had been trying to preserve the environment, we are very bad at doing so. I sat at home and have seen on many campuses recycle bins in the residence halls, but no one uses it properly. In the paper recycle bin, I have found food, cardboard, electronics, etc. Even if I tried to recycle, finding a place to dispose of my old clothes or electronics is difficult because I have to travel very far to a remote site that recycles the plastics and other unique materials that you can’t simply put in the blue or green bins on campuses. Every time I ate a banana, I felt guilty because there wasn’t anywhere to put it in a compost. Even if  I did have a compost, where in the cement-blocked city of Boston am I going to find a place to dump out the compost? Or to recycle?

After a few months, I began to use this energy in a positive way, however. I knew that just because I was the only one who had this experiences, doesn’t mean that it was a bad thing. It’s a good thing because it means I have a special unique trait that can really have a significant impact on others if used. As I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs, the best way I can “help” is to simply share my experiences with others. I now have the power to do that. And the power behind this newfound wisdom is tremendous. Part of a requirement of one of the scholarships I received was to do a Follow-on Project that would encourage people to study abroad and share my experiences. So I chose as my Follow-On Project to form a Gobal Ambassadors program across the Colleges of the Fenway consortium where a mixture of students from all different schools in the consortium come together to work on helping other students go abroad and teaching and sharing with them our experiences. The Global Ambassadors group is functioning under the COF Global Education Opportunities Center in the Colleges of the Fenway. In November, we assisted in a week-long International Education Week packed with events to encourage students to study abroad and to learn about international students and education. The International Student Services Center at Wentworth launched the week off with the largest event of the week–an international student event that featured tables of different countries manned by Wentworth students from different countries from Saudi Arabia to Italy to Venezuela. They all had food, music and even the opportunity for attendees like me to wear some of the traditional clothin representative of that culture! It was so much fun, and it was so packed in there, I have never seen the room so full with people dying to come and explore the roots of the international students.

{Pictures coming soon)

Since my return, I can’t even think the same anymore. My whole mentality has changed. When I’m washing dishes, I used to be careless about he use of the water, but now I am more consious about the environmental effects on my Mexican counterparts, so I now close the faucet while washing the dishes. In my car, I would change up my musical repertoire by blasting Mexican banda music that I downloaded when I was down in Mexico. I can now think in Spanish, which was my goal before going to Mexico. I also looked at the Spanish language differently because I now saw dramatic differences in the way it had been used by different countries. For example, Dominicans and Salvadorans have a completely different use of the language. I looked at T.V. differently and how it portrayed Mexicans. I looked at indigenous and ancient cultures in a much more respectful and inspired way. Having this mind-breaking experience in Mexico even had me thinking differently about non-Mexican-related things. I took an ethics class over the summer, and having this vast knowledge from Mexico really helped me in the heated debates we had and in the engaging essays I wrote. I started to look at American issues discussed in that class differently. Even the topics in my business classes I saw differently. I looked at American eating in a different way, and made different choices in the food I shopped. I made different choices in the clothes, electronics I shopped. Most importantly, becaue of the strong focus on community first and individual second, I really began to rethink about my family values and cherish the little things that made up the great experiences I had with my family and friends. Going to Mexico made me feel more complete. And it’s because I feel I have a bigger portion of the world within me.

I’m in the “Ruta” (Mexican local bus) on the way to class from my homestay, and everyone around me I see has a mask on: the bus driver, the passengers, the children. I get off at my stop and as I walk to Casa Verde, where I have classes through Augsburg College, and I see the kind, friendly people I see in the community on a regular basis covering their mouths with doctor’s masks. I see the local store owners on the streets covering their masks. On the Ruta, or in the supermarket, when someone sneezes, everyone runs away from the person that sneezed because they’re worried they will get infected. There was no immediate cure, so the only logical response by the Mexican government to stop the spreading was by closing all schools, museums, public offices, public transportation, and airports. Soon, no one was allowed to leave the country, but it was too late. People were infected in Europe, Central Asia, the Mediterranean and Middle East, Africa, all the Americas in the Western hemisphere, and Northeast, South, and Southeast Asia. Eventually, after hitting Australia, the Pacific, and the Caribbean, people around every single part of the world were dying from this pandemic disease. Mexico was on quarantine. Sound like a scary movie? That’s what it felt like to me, because I was in Mexico observing all this devastation since it started in Mexico while I was still taking classes there. Everyone was panicking, and scared that they will be the next one to die because thousands of people in Mexico were already dying. The entire country of Mexico consequently became quarantined. No one could enter and no one could leave.

I witnessed supply of facial masks, or “cubrebocas” in Spanish, became so low when my urban homestay family told me how difficult it was for them to find them because they were sold out everywhere. We went to a supermarket and a few stores, and in the pharmacy section, you would see big signs that said “no cubrebocas”, and lines of people frustratingly asking for them. The poor, sick and old would become ill or die, and the rich would live (the President didn’t show any sign of the sickness). I was a bit upset with my college because even though my school protected us by buying 300 mouth covers for us 23 students and half a dozen staff, my homestay family was struggling to find even one. When I confronted the program about this, they thanked me for the suggestion because they didn’t even consider this, and gave me some for my homestay family. However, I didn’t even use one mask the entire time I was over there. Why? Because at the end of the day, all of this stuff about swine flu was an exaggeration, and there was a lot of speculation amongst the Mexican people that the flu wasn’t as serious as people made it seem, but rather something else more profound was happening.

The swine flu became the major issue of debate and discussion down where I stayed. There was a lot of speculation amongst many of the Mexicans to whom I talked that said that the explosion of this issue has a lot to do with the upcoming elections at the time. People all over Mexico were running for government positions, so some say that this was an attempt by the government to make the flu seem bigger and more threatening, so that they can come in with the cure and be favored by the population, thus winning votes for their political party. And that may have some truth because there is a history behind that. When we visited the rural plantations in the beginning of the semester, a few farmers told us some of the support that they were getting from the government. However, they get this support with their return guarantee that they will vote for the political party in power. I was told that’s the main reason the party does it. Elections were coming up soon for state officials, and hence there was speculation that when the H1N1 outbreak started, the political parties in control (including the President) exaggerated it to make the impact apparently worse than it actually was, so that they can come in with the antidote quickly and win votes from the people who saw they protected them.

However, this exaggeration spread all over the world. When hundreds of people were dying, it was traced to the swine flu. But then reports started coming out, saying that the flu is actually a very preventable and treatable disease. The masks everyone were wearing in Mexico and even in countries like the U.S. weren’t even recommended by the CDC, because it can spread the virus quicker or make others more vulnerable to the virus. Dr. Laurene Mascola, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s director of acute communicable disease control, stated that “masks may give people a false sense of security,” and associate professor of medicine at the USC Keck School of Medicine Dr. Paul Holtom stressed that masks should not replace other standard precautions. Masks may benefit people in close contact with infected persons but it was unknown whether they prevented swine flu infection. According to mask manufacturer 3M, masks will filter out particles in industrial settings, but “there are no established exposure limits for biological agents such as swine flu virus. What was suggested for those who couldn’t get the vaccine was very simple treatment that proved very effective to preventing the disease: thorough and frequent hand-washing, a balanced diet with fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and lean protein, sufficient sleep, regular exercise, and avoiding crowds.

So, was it that big a deal? No—or at least not in the city where I stayed (Cuernavaca). Out of all of the cases reported in Mexico, the main place affected was Mexico City, which is about an hour and a half away from us, and because it was being contained, not many people in the city of Cuernavaca were catching the virus. I think at some point only one case of swine flu was reported in Cuernavaca. Even though my homestay family received mouth covers, they never ended up using them and never got sick. What about the people who were dying? It was reported that a lot of the people who were dying did not undergo proper care for themselves, but many died because of other complications they already had in their system that weakened with the swine flu, which killed them. I never wore a mask once while I was over in Cuernavaca, and I was in the midst of all this spook of the horrid swine flu, but I took care of myself. However, my family and friends had no more of an idea of what was going on down here other than what the media said, which was that Mexico was infected, and thus I must be infected too. So, I began receiving calls, emails, and Facebook messages from home, and had to calm everyone down. I had to explain that where I was things weren’t as bad as they saw in the media. Most of the media in Mexico is controlled by the government, so there are only a few sources that have information not as biased, but since the majority of the media is controlled by the government, that raised more speculation that that was a medium by which the government could spread the exaggeration. Why? Because then the more people that knew about it, the more leverage the Mexican government had to advocate for financial support to thwart the virus. But Mexican locals tell me that the Mexican government has taken advantage of foreign aid and corruptly pocketed a chunk of the money. So, in short it is said that the Mexican government exploded the true situation of swine flu to exploit it for money.

It was difficult enough for Mexico to deal with swine flu, but the country was having a much more difficult time because it had to juggle other issues simultaneously. The same day the swine flu was announced a pandemic and Mexico City reached the thousands in the death toll, an earthquake broke loose. Just recently before, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama took separate visits to Mexico to talk about the increased narco-traffic on the U.S. Border at a level never reached before. Mexico was in a paranoiac stage. Even today, the swine flu has become a huge issue in the U.S. We have become so obsessed with the hand sanitizers and oversterilization of germs that it makes it more difficult for us to adapt without those external products temporarily protecting us. And I came back from all of that madness perfectly fine. So, what do you think is the reality of the swine flu?

When Americans think Spring Break, they think the Caribbean, or in Mexico Cancun, or Cabos San Lucas. Some even think Acapulco, and that’s what I considered when I began discussions with other students in the Mexico program on where to spend my full week of vacation during Semana Santa. Semana Santa, in English “Holy Week”, is a week-long period that occurs the last week of lent, and the week before Easter. This is a national vacation, and is common in many South American, Central American, and certain Caribbean countries.  We finally had, after long weeks of hard work and embracing culture shock, a break from April 4-13, 2009 and therefore a lot of time to make it worth it. A few of my friends from the program–Katelyn, Ty, and Bridget–had already been researching various destinations in Mexico to spend the vacation, and when I hopped into the group, we settled on Acapulco because of the rates we found. Through kayak.com it cost us only $200 total to stay in the Malibu hotel in Acapulco on the main strip called Calle La Costera Miguel Aleman the entire week, which was an amazing deal, compared to U.S. hotels that cost that same amount per day for a hotel reservation. Below is the street we were on.

Acapulco is about a 4-hour bus ride from Cuernavaca, so just as long as it takes to get to get to New York from Boston. April is the perfect time to go on vacation, because the season of January-May is the dry season, so it’s just sun and heat all day every day, perfect beach weather. Acapulco was hot, though–very hot. When we arrived to the hotel, we realized how good of a choice we made, and immediately went to the beach-side pool below, which was beautiful, and had an 80’s theme to it.

Behind the hotel was the Tobasco beach, which stretched across the various hotels on the same street. It was an open access beach to everyone, even the dozens of locals who walk around the beach trying to sell you anything from food (which sometimes is better and always cheaper than that of the nearby restaurants) to toys and artifacts to even haircuts!? There, I went for the first time ever parasailing (in Spanish, called “paracaidas”) with my girlfriend, and I initially thought it was going to be scary, but it was exhilirating.

I was very aware, however, that I was with three other “gringos” on our Spring Break. Although we were gringo Americans, we didn’t want to give in to Acapulco’s American-friendly culture.  Everything was catered to us in an easier fashion because we were American, but we didn’t want to accept that privelege, as many Americans do. For example, every restaurant we went to, the waiters would offer us English versions of the menu. But we told them no, that we would much rather prefer Spanish menus, even though it would take us twice the amount of time to decipher the menus to order an item because we asked then what everything in the menu means. It was amazing how the locals who work in Acapuico are so used to serving foreigners in English, that for example in the restaurant in our hotel shown below, the waiter was stuttering because he was so in awe that we spoke to him in Spanish, that he would revert back and forth between English and Spanish. I think in a sense it was a strange honor to him that we made the effort to speak to him in Spanish because most foreigners like us Americans just come to the area to use the resources of the beach, cheap rates for drinks and hotel covers, or in other harsh words exploit the resources of the area and not having to lift a finger. There was a travel group of young students that one of my friends noticed checking into a hotel that had everything paid for, had a guide that would translate for them to English, they would live together speaking English, and all they had to worry about was enjoying themselves as long as they could, even at the costly clean-up expense of the hotel. They learn nothing about Mexico other than what clubs and beaches it offers, and how cheap the food is there, most being convenient American food. I didn’t want that in my vacation, because I felt that way we never progress as global neighbors. Yes, we employ a lot of Mexicans in the process, but the cultural implications are dramatic. The industry of tourism, where Mexico gets a large chunk of its foreign income, becomes heavily dependent on American dollars, so has to adapt the customs of its society in a more American way to satisfy people who don’t even live there.

When with my American friends, we did some typical tourist stuff and got to see some of the sites and sights of Acapulco below.

The above frame is a photo of Acapulco in the 1930’s and the below frame is a photo of Acapulco after 2000. Drastic change

Note: the picture of the house after the picture of me and my friends is supposed to be a house of Sylvester Stallone.

The above pictures are of “las clavadistas” (in English, the cliffdivers), who jump off the rock in this part of Acapulco called La Quebrada.

It was a perfect blend and could not have been any better. I took advantage of all aspects of the experience–and not just the really U.S.-foreigner tourist parts with my American friends. I went to the tourist beaches (like the one in my hotel), pools, the beach in Pie de La Cuesta, but also the beaches with Mexicans for Mexicans who don’t want to be in such a touristy area, like the Revolcadero and Puerto Marques. I really got to see a bit of a glimpse or a Mexican twist to the experience I was fortunate to have, rather than being blinded by the financially rich tourist environment. This was a new definition of rich, as in rich cultural experience.

Pie De La Cuesta: a more tranquil, quiet beach near Acapulco, away from all of the tourist higy-rise hotels and filled more with cabanas and local shops and restaurants. I went with my Mexican girlfriend.

Here is the Revolcadero, a popular spot for Mexican vacationers to spend the day; I visited it with my homestay family, who also came to Acapulco spend their vacation. It is very well maintained, and very crowded, and was very interesting seeing how a Mexican relaxes on a vacation.

On another day with my homestay family in Acapulco, went to Puerto Marques, also home to many locals, yet filled with a lot more trash, and the tide from the water would move up so much, it would reach the tables, forcing people to continue to keep moving everything back further and further after having their stuff wet. So, instead of moving up, Arturo and Aldo stayed on the sand and had a sand fight. Meanwhile, homestay brother Marlon took me for my first ever ride in a jet ski. It was scary at first, but later very uplifting.

I also got to experience different nightlife. We had been to various sports bars and salsa and reggaeton clubs that attract all types of tourism. We also went to a high-end club that, although it was the best dance night I have ever had, I didn’t support the culture of the exclusive and selective club and probably wouldn’t do it again. I noticed that my friend Katelyn with blue eyes and red hair tall and was let in with her boyfriend, who looks like a rich Mexican from Mexico City, but I was not allowed in until later when she from the inside told the bouncers a lie that my girlfriend was already inside and was waiting for me to pay for her. I also felt discriminated when we went to Old Acapulco where the locals live and they haggled my white friends all around a store we visited there, but did not really pursue me, assuming because of my skin complexion and latino features, I wouldn’t have as much money as they do. I wasn’t discriminated as badly as Ty, who because of the way he dressed, walked, and acted, seemed almost feminine for the guys who worked at the store, and they started calling him names. He received the same attention at the beach, where they flashed even once a toy penis to him, calling him gay; this shows how gay rights wasn’t well received here in Mexico. My friend Ty isn’t  gay, though.

I appreciated the experience, however, because it has given me an inside view of the effects of tourim in a foreign country.