The new Humphrey Scholars arrive!

Katie D.

June 21, 2009 - 4:00 PM

It has been a whirlwind week. I am in Eugene this summer, working with the American English Institute (AEI) as a tutor and activities coordinator for international students who study English at the University of Oregon. (Please see my previous blogs on this topic: ) The Humphrey Scholars Program is similar to the Fullbright program in some ways: tparticipants are mid-level professionals from developing countries, adults who are studying English at the University of Oregon before continuing to other universities to do advanced research in their professional areas. They are in a variety of fields: public policy, health care, technology, education, law, management, and others. Ten Humphrey scholars have been here since April, and I have been working with them this whole time, doing trips and activities and serving as a sighted guide for the two blind women in the group.

So my summer job is a continuation of this old job. Other groups study at the AEI also, but my first week of summer has been consumed by Humphrey activities. That means airport pickups, settling them in dorms, orientation, campus tours, meetings, banking, shopping trips, and a tour of Eugene. All in the course of four days.

Today was my first day off since they began to arrive. I worked about thirty-five hours in those four days, and this day off has felt like a miracle. The logistics that go into all of this are just incredible. I am learning so many amazing skills from my work here.

My favorite part of the Humphrey program is that these people are all so interesting. They are already established in their professions: they come from developing nations and are driven and intelligent. They want to hear about some of my favorite aspects of Eugene and the US: the infrastructure, the human rights groups, NGOs, health care initiatives and problems, and education. And from them I can hear stories about incredible work being done in these countries: work in women's health, drug abuse prevention, telecommunications integration, education, health policy, and ecojournalism. They come from all over the world: from Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. Central and South America and Africa.

Imagine all these perspectives coming together. And they all stop and listen to me as I show them around campus or explain some aspect of American culture. It boggles the mind. There is so much to say and so much to hear. Every time I speak to one of them it seems I discover a whole new facet of a topic I thought we had already exhausted. And it is a constant and exciting challenge to have something to offer them: I can show them my city, and I can listen to their English and help move a conversation along. One of our scholars is learning English as a fifth language. Just imagine. And she's not even a communications professional, she's a communicable diseases pathologist.

Finally, in a miraculous coincidence, the gentleman from Chile is from my study abroad location, a small city in southern Chile. Not only that, but he works at the University, and has worked with the oldest daughter in my Chilean host family. Small world.

I hope this job sounds as exciting to you as it does to me. For me it just seems like a miracle, some dream job I've landed for the summer. Whenever there's some less exciting administrative chore or some minor catastrophe to clear up, I always just think about the next cool activity. Picking them up from the airport, individually or in small groups, was an inconvenience that kept me up until 3 am. But I got to be the first Eugenian (is that what we are?) to welcome them here, to drive them to campus and help them set up their dorm rooms, dial in the phone card numbers so they could call their families back home.

While a trip to the Saturday Market with fifteen adult foreigners in tow might be a little more exciting, these airport pickups are extremely important to me. I was welcomed when I traveled abroad. I learned quickly how to take care of myself: how to navigate and plan and be flexible and resolve minor disasters. But I will never forget how wonderful it was that my first experiences abroad were with kind strangers and welcoming hosts.

I hope that is who I am during these excursions. The welcoming American, ready to hear their stories and share my own during their brief stay at the UO.