Portland with the Humphrey Scholars

Katie D.

May 24, 2009 - 11:00 AM

This blog requires some background information before going into my travel story.

First, I work for the American English Institute at the University of Oregon (please see my previous blogs on the subject). I work as a tutor and activities coordinator for international students who have come to Oregon to learn English.

Sometimes, instead of individual students coming for a term or a year to learn English, groups of students come from a university to learn English together. These students are often here for a shorter period of time, and pay an extra amount of money to have activities and trips planned and facilitated for them. I am a Lead Activities Coordinator with these special groups. We take them to Portland, the coast, the mountains, and Crater Lake.

The Humphrey scholars come to the United States on a kind of reverse Fulbright program. They are mid-level professionals in developing countries who do advanced research at a prestigious university for a year through a program in the State Department, which pays for their studies here. But some don't have the level of English required for this kind of long-term study to be conducted in English. So they come to us first.

Right now we have nine Humphrey Scholars, who are here from Africa, South America, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia. Their professional areas include road construction, drug prevention, women's health, telecommunications, and service programs for disabled peoples. They are a fascinating group. To make matters even more interesting, two of our Humphrey Scholars are blind. Brigitte from the Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), and Svetlana from Russia are both blind. This has meant some adjustment to our programs, and some crash courses in disabilities services. Brigitte, who has only recently lost her sight, needs a sighted guide any time she is not on the floor of her dorm room.

I work out with Brigitte twice a week and get meals with her four times a week. This is in addition to providing general support for the Humphreys: when they arrived I did airport pickups, set them up in their dorm rooms, helped them get ID cards and email addresses and bank accounts.

All this will inevitably lead to a more detailed blog for another day. But with that background information in place, I'll move on to our day-long trip to Portland with the Humphrey's yesterday.

It could not possibly have been a better day. The weather was perfect. There were two other Activities Coordinators with me, which made it easy to keep track of everyone and not worry about losing anyone in Portland.

We went to the rhododendron gardens, which I had never seen before and were incredibly beautiful. We spent an hour there, looking at the flowers, the waterfalls, the ducks and geese, and the little kids playing with the ducks and geese. I was guiding Brigitte, so we touched the flowers and trees, and I had a great time trying to explain the difference between a duck and a goose to someone who has never heard a goose honk before. She has a great sense of humor and was endlessly entertained by my description of how ducks go "bottoms up" to eat off the bottom of a pond. I had borrowed a video camera for the day at Brigitte's request. She was so excited, and now she will be able to show her friends and family back home the places she went (think about it: this way she can at least hear what people are saying, and that way interact a bit with what they are seeing).

Then we went to Pioneer Square for food and sightseeing. Gabriela from Uruguay found a place for sushi, which she was extremely excited about. She lives almost exclusively on sushi and yogurt. Svetlana was particularly excited about the candy store in Pioneer Place (the mall). I got permission from the teller to have her try candy, which was so fun! She said she wanted to try something "interesting," so I gave her a Sour Patch Kid (even though I heard my mother's voice warning against giving an adult such gross candy), and she really liked it (ha!). She got $20 worth of chocolate and sour candy. That woman has quite the sweet tooth.

Then we went to Powell's bookstore, and the Humphreys loved it. Several said they would be coming back to Portland just to buy more books and gifts there. They all laughed when I told them I hoped Heaven would look like that, but a couple agreed with me anyway. Svetlana and I found an audio recording of Brave New World and talked about our mutual love for depressing dystopian novels. Then, in an effort to make a massive bookstore more entertaining for two women who couldn't see it, I took them to the children's section and read aloud some of the most important books of my childhood. If we'd had the time I would have read a whole novel, but I told them they were hearing essential pieces of American culture. I read Dr. Seuss's Fox in Socks (I had forgotten how difficult this was to read), Eric Carl's The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight, Moon, and everyone's favorite Where the Wild Things Are. Two amazing things came out of this: first, I got to read some of these old favorites again, and second, they told me I could be an audio book reader, which is just about the nicest thing I could think of anyone saying to me.

We finished our day at the Portland Saturday Market, eating ice cream, drinking lemonade, listening to the live music, walking on the waterfront, and doing some shopping. Although I spent some time with the other Humphreys, I again was serving as a guide for Brigitte and Svetlana. I had them feel an assortment of carnivorous plants, as well as insect sculptures made out of scrap metal kitchen implements. We looked for earrings for Brigitte, and found a beautiful stained glass hanging with a seashell embedded in it as a gift for one of Svetlana's teachers.

Then we packed the twelve passenger van and headed home.

I hope I am doing this trip justice in written form. I can only add that this was the most fun I have ever had in Portland, and I have lots of amazing memories of Portland. I love seeing the city through the eyes of foreigners, and hearing them talk about how it is different than places they are familiar with. I also found myself truly loving the mind game of turning Portland into an audio and tactile experience. I walked around Portland describing what I was seeing, trying to be as expressive as possible while also being limited to the vocabulary of English language learners. Svetlana would ask for "interesting" things, so I would look around and try to imagine what would be most interesting to someone who could not see.

Aside from all this, being with the Humphreys is a real treat. They are an amazing group, who are excited to be here and are so patient with us in our mistakes (we were comically lost trying to find the Rhododendron Gardens. We also got on the wrong bus once, but figured this out quickly). It has been an incredible privilege to work with them, and I am looking forward to continuing this job into the summer. In late June twenty more Humphreys will be arriving. While this feels a bit like a logistical nightmare, I am also extremely excited about the possibilities for more time spent with these amazing international students.