Goodbye, Humphreys.

Katie D.

July 25, 2009 - 1:30 PM

I'm sure that all you faithful readers have noticed the amount of time I've spent writing about the Humphrey Fellows at the University of Oregon. Being with them for the summer, making friends with all these amazing adults, and getting to travel and study and joke with them, has been the most amazing experience. I've written about them so much because work with them has been rather consuming for the past four months.

And now I've said goodbye.

I'm traveling for the next three weeks, and when I get back to Oregon most of the Fellows will be gone. They're moving on to their next universities, to do high-level research in their areas of professional interest. This is the part of the program that they really came here for: the part they'll be able to take back with them to their countries and apply to make a difference. They're going on to MIT, to the University of Minnesota, to Penn State, to Johns Hopkins, and to American University, taking with them their English skills gained at the University of Oregon, and with the four months of memories of our time together.

I hate goodbyes.

We all got together at McMenamin's, one of my favorite Eugene restaurants. About twenty of them showed up to see me off, which was truly miraculous seeing as their homework load recently has been rather overwhelming. We sat around eating amazing burgers and talking: reminiscing about activities and group trips, talking about classes, and asking each other questions. They wanted to hear all about my upcoming trip home to see my family, and wanted to talk about their plans as well. Some gave me small gifts, and everyone was wonderfully kind and supportive of me. We worked out two pre-planned vacations for me: the first to South America where I will visit Gabriela One in Uruguay and then Gabriela Two in Brazil before returning to my study abroad home in Chile to visit a third Humphrey Scholar. The second trip is Africa: First the Ivory Coast to visit Brigitte, then Ghana to visit Esther, then Guinea for Mr. Diawara. All the Africans present warned me that once I visited Africa I would never want to come home.

I have a wild dream of traveling all over the world, visiting these wonderful people I have come to know. I would love to go to Burma, and Nepal, to visit the South Koreans, and then to the Middle East to Iraq and Afghanistan. I know next to nothing about Eastern Europe, but I now have friends in Kazakhstan and Montenegro. I could visit Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Who knows if any of these wild plans will come true. But while I was saying goodbye to Brigitte and Svetlana, I made myself a promise that I will see them again. They are too precious to me to let go of forever. Those two women have become close friends of mine, and have led me to a whole new understanding of the world. Because both are blind, I worked with them more than with the other Humphrey Fellows. I find myself walking into new places and imagining what would be the best thing to describe to them, or what part of the decoration would be the best to have them feel. When I hear music I wonder if they would like it. There are dozens of inside jokes which can send me into fits of uncontrolled, solitary giggles.

Somehow I'll make it to the Ivory Coast to visit Brigitte someday. She can be the one who shows me around, for a change. She says that her village is very beautiful, and that the people there are extremely friendly. I would love to see her in her home, in her comfort zone. Maybe I would be allowed to go and watch her in court. We could joke and laugh and I could meet her friends and family.

Then I could go to Russia, to the middle of Siberia in the city of Novosibirsk to visit my dear friend Svetlana. We can have adventures together and she can teach me more Russian. We could discuss novels by Dostoevsky and I would learn Braille.

I can't imagine a life path that will not someday lead me back to these people. They are my friends, some of the most interesting and exciting people I have ever met. I hope that I meant as much to them as they have meant to me. I have learned so much about them and would love to learn more. They are involved in some of my favorite areas: social work, social justice, medicine, rights for the disabled, development, the environment and in women and children's health. These are people dedicated to making important differences in our world.

It has been a pleasure and an honor to work with you, Humphrey Fellows. Best of luck in your next universities experiences, and I hope that you find people there who care as deeply about you as I do. I hope to hear great things from you in the future, and that you find great success in all things.

I'll be thinking of you all, always.