What an honor it is to be a Fulbright Scholar (or so everyone keeps telling me...); I have the opportunity to be immersed in an entirely new city with its own people, food and drink, customs, art, modes of transportation, tendencies of public protest, smells, idioms...well, you get the picture: everything is new! I will also have the responsibility, challenge and pleasure of teaching the English language and aspects of US culture to Argentine university students for approximately 12 hours each week when classes start in a couple weeks. 12 hours per week!: I know you're likely thinking, wow, that's great! She's got so much time on her hands to just enjoy living life there in Argentina! And, in a sense, you're absolutely right. I will have the rest of my week to be involved in Resistencia's community, and several rural surrounding communities, in whatever ways I might choose to participate. Already I have made connections with friends at a local church and have invitations to visit two local high schools to observe their classes (maybe be involved in their classroom or extracurricular activities in some way?). Herein enters my dilemma for the day/week/maybe the whole time I'm here...
Resistencia and the Chaco province in which it lies are unique compared to many of Argentina's other provinces because there is a significant number of indigenous people that live in or near the city. These tribes include the Toba, Wichí, and Guaraní among many others. In a post-lunch conversation today, we (one of the guys I live with, Hannah [ETA in Corrientes], and I) got to the subject that I might volunteer in some form at a community center or school primarily populated by one of these groups in a rural area just outside Resistencia. I also briefly shared the community project I had originally proposed in my Fulbright application: Focused on organized recreation and/or sporting activities, I foresaw myself being involved in a community program of some sort that would facilitate participation especially among youth and adolescent girls. Further, if possible, it was my hope that these young girls might even have the experience of participating in a non-traditional sport like basketball (which is non-traditional relative to both their culture and their gender). Eventually to loosely connect these ideas of the Chaco province's cultural diversity and my proposed community involvement, I reached a point in the discussion where I recognized:
-many of these indigenous cultures do not recognize sports in the same way that American and Argentine cultures do
-that the idea of "gifting" (i.e. if I would approach one of these societies with a soccer ball or basketball for them to keep) is something extremely foreign to their concept of interaction
-without similar motives for recreation and/or physical activity and its benefits, physically, mentally and socially, my ambitions for this type of project might prove futile in the context of these community where I might interact
...these, among several other cultural "what ifs?" were racing through my brain as the conversation progressed.
And thus, I feel ideologically stuck between a rock and a hard place right now. Granted, all the information I have laid out above is from the perspective of the gentleman that I live with; I have yet to experience any of these communities in person and make my own observations about what may or may not be feasible and culturally sensitive. Of course, we (Fulbright recipients) were told numerous, numerous times prior to this (by previous Fulbright recipients) that our research and project ideas might change once we got into our cities and gained a more informed perspective of how we might want to be involved. And certainly, I have not lost all hope in learning from the cultural exchanges that I will have nor in the ambitions, especially as they relate to empowering women, for my originally proposed project. I guess today's conversation was just the first time that I've had to think seriously about how and why I might alter my original proposal to maintain the Fulbright program's boasted reputation of cultural exchange and understanding (and, of course, to demonstrate my own conviction to these ideals that I believe to be worthy). Sorry if I seem to be a Debbie Downer about all of this...thanks for letting me vent on something that hasn't really even happened yet. :)
A quick run-down of today's events to come tomorrow...
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