{"id":442,"date":"2012-07-20T22:08:16","date_gmt":"2012-07-20T22:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogsdev.dickinson.edu\/ideafund\/?p=442"},"modified":"2015-05-14T18:47:40","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T22:47:40","slug":"442","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/ideafund\/2012\/07\/20\/442\/","title":{"rendered":"Ideas from Abroad | Investing in Strangership"},"content":{"rendered":"
Welcome back! Now that a handful of our members have returned from abroad we’d like to share with you a series called, Ideas from Abroad.<\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n
Ideas from Abroad is a collection of snippets, moments, ideas, and reflections that find a home within each one of us as we explore both the world outside Dickinson and ourselves. These “ideas” and reflections find their source in an unexpected conversation, the research we pursue, impromptu travels, and a range of experiences we take on in our personal and academic adventures.<\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n
\"\"


International Studies & Sociology
S\u00e3o Paulo, Brasil
Spring 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

Missing Brazil<\/strong><\/h4>\n
By G. Tiarachristie<\/h5>\n
Some of the biggest things I miss from my time studying abroad in Brazil are conversations with my porteiros, or as most people acknowledged them, the guys that open and close the front gate of the apartment.<\/span><\/h5>\n
These free-spirited conversations with strangers on the street are very \u201cbrazilian\u201d. Besides the daily Bon Dia\u2019s and Tudo Bem\u2019s, and the awkward indirect reminders that I still didn\u2019t have the right to claim fluency to the Portuguese language, my porteiros welcomed me into their lives through conversation. To this day, I remember clearly their grins and wrinkles as they described to me the ball of laughter from tickle-wrestling with their kids, the joy of watching old pai try to remember the names of his 40 grandkids, or the sweet smell of mangoes, papayas, and guava wafting through the windows on summer nights in the Northeast (from where many of the blue collar workers in S\u00e3o Paulo had migrated).<\/span><\/h5>\n
From their friendliness, intimacy, sense of simplicity and happiness, I always seemed to learn life\u2019s most humanizing lessons.<\/span><\/h5>\n
S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil, is the largest city in South America: eleven million people eating, breathing, thinking, exchanging ideas, and bustling around a collective space. But it was the contrasts between the passing of hundreds of colorful figures on the streets, and these intimate conversations through the windowpane of the guard\u2019s box that made me realize: of the millions of people in this city, each individual has a Story.<\/span><\/h5>\n
Amid the street judgment of worth or invisibility with which we label them, each one is a daughter, a grandchild, a best friend, maybe sibling, and\/or mother. Each one has insecurities, problems in the family, bad days, and good nights. And each one has an experience from life to share, an important voice to be heard, and an opportunity to affect our lives. With this in mind, I ended up with dozens of really interesting, often times obscure, yet humbling experiences.<\/span><\/h5>\n
At Dickinson, I\u2019m usually spotted running around checking to-do-list boxes, putting the lives of dozens of students in danger as I speed-bike the awkward narrow ramp to D-walk from Britton plaza, with little mental space to think about chatting with passer-byers. But maybe ultimately, that\u2019s what Brasil taught me\u2014to live life at a slower, more reflective pace, and take time to converse with those you normally don\u2019t.<\/span><\/h5>\n

In the Burgh<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Yesterday, I took a bus to Pittsburgh to visit my mom. And in a half-asleep mode wonking onto the 61B to get to my house from the bus station and struggling to slip my quarters into the machine, I asked the bus driver \u201cHiii, how are you today?\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n
And after a friendly \u201cfine thank you and you–good thanks!\u201d exchange, I reached a fork in my journey and thought, I could continue dragging my suitcase towards an empty seat in the middle of the bus, or apply a bit of the Brazilian culture that I was missing so much: street conversation.<\/span><\/h5>\n
\u201cMan! It\u2019s good to be back in the Burgh. I just got back from Brazil for 6 months\u2026 What\u2019d I miss??\u201d I said. Guess I had chosen the latter.<\/span><\/h5>\n
So it began. I listened and asked questions. From talking about the weekend and the heat wave,we talked about the recent massive transportation cuts. And I learned that she was one of the drivers laid off and rehired. I learned that the was union making decisions about their wages and benefits without including the drivers in the conversation. I learned that the new routes and hours tug and pull on low-income families and senior citizens, and how the actual users of public transportation lack a represented voice in the decision-making. In between sentences, she had to stop and check her schedule and watch to make sure that she arrived at every stop not too early and not too late.<\/span><\/h5>\n
As she multitasked the operation of the big machine, her speech of the transportation system, and her watch, she paused to friendly greet each individual passenger. I was admiring it all; to think that drivers are seen as invisible, uneducated, or deserving only minimum wage. Drivers aren\u2019t just drivers; they are guides, judges, advisors, care-takers\u2026 They have to watch the road, five mirrors, the time, the traffic, the pedestrians and other cars, the money machine, and let alone all the distractions behind them. It\u2019s more complicated than we imagine in the mechanized mindset in which we live.<\/span><\/h5>\n
She proceeded: \u201cBut you know, I\u2019m lucky. I had a driver that trained me that asked me:<\/span><\/h5>\n
\u2018Who is the most important person in your life right now?\u2019<\/span><\/h5>\n
\u201c\u2026And I answered \u2018God number one, then my kids, my mom?’.<\/span>
\n\u201cBut he asked again \u2018No no, no, who is the most important person in your life?\u2019<\/span>
\n\u201cI was so confused, so I tried, \u2018Um\u2026 I don\u2019t know, my myself?\u2019<\/span>
\n\u201cAnd he said again, \u2018No no, think about it, Who is driving this bus right now?…\u2019<\/span>
\n\u201c\u2018… \u2026 You\u2026?\u2019<\/span>
\n\u201c\u2018And who is the most important person in your life?…\u2019<\/span>
\n\u201c\u2018\u2026”<\/span>
\n\u201c\u2018At any moment, I can crash this bus into those cars. I could go drive all 51 of these passengers, these kids getting to school, seniors getting to the grocery store, that are sitting behind us, off a cliff. So who\u2019s the most important person in your life? Don\u2019t you let anyone tell you that you are not important\u2019.\u201dAnd even in her empowering speech for driver\u2019s rights, she brought up: \u201cBut it\u2019s not just about us. It\u2019s the passengers too! It\u2019s you guys too! The fare keeps getting higher and higher\u2026 And yeah there are those youngins that like to sneak the bus-pass between each other or have photocopies. But really, just be honest with me if you can\u2019t pay! Just be honest, I\u2019ll let you pass.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n
Just as we both realized the extent that we were enjoying each other\u2019s company, I had to break the news that my stop was the next: around the corner in front of the bridal shop.<\/span><\/h5>\n
\u201cOh I love driving by here, this is one of my favorite stops,\u201d she shared, \u201cI have two daughters, they\u2019re twenty one and twenty two, but I\u2019ve never been married! Looking through those big windows with the really pretty brides\u2019 dresses makes me happy and dream that maybe, one day.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n
I thanked her for such a wonderful conversation, and we shared names.<\/span><\/h5>\n
\u201cElbone. Nice to meet you.\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n
We shook hands and exchanged a final smile\u2026 As I stepped off the bus, I looked back and turned to her and said, \u201cThank you… for being the most important person in my life…\u201d<\/span><\/h5>\n

Turning Right at the Fork<\/strong><\/h4>\n
I didn\u2019t want this to be just another \u201cdrivers-are-people-too\u201d piece about the invisible hands in society. I wanted this story to give an example of the beauty and power of conversation, exploring, being curious, listening, building these street friendships: investing in \u201cStranger-ship\u201d\u2026 Because these experiences with strangers that walk into your day, knowing that you may or may never meet again, enable us to share, grow, expand our understanding of reality, breed new ideas and tools, and remind us of our human collectivity–these are what really sustain us.<\/span><\/h5>\n
To think I almost turned left to sit in silence on that bus…<\/span><\/h5>\n
When we see everyone as deserving of our time and ears, our days suddenly become much more significant. So when you find yourself at that fork, challenge yourself, live life more slowly, let go of your fear of vulnerability, and be a little more brazilian. \ud83d\ude09<\/span><\/h5>\n
You\u2019ll be surprised.<\/span><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome back! Now that a handful of our members have returned from abroad we’d like to share with you a series called, Ideas from Abroad. Ideas from Abroad is a collection of snippets, moments, ideas, and reflections that find a… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":880,"featured_media":4701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11655,90237],"tags":[66880],"class_list":["post-442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","category-summer-program","tag-ideas-from-abroad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/ideafund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/ideafund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/ideafund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/ideafund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/880"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/ideafund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/ideafund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/ideafund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/ideafund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/ideafund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/ideafund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}