I maneuvered my schedule so that I could spend my entire junior year in Geneva, Switzerland, where most of my classes were in French, and I was confronted with what it really means to live and breathe another language. The challenges I faced were met in intensity with the exhilarating thrill of the independence and sense of adventure that I felt being on my own in a beautiful place far away; it was intoxicating.
In college, my studies, travels and traditional definitions of success modeled by most of the adults I knew and parroted by my peers firmed up my goals to become a diplomat of some sort. I initially dreamed of working for the United Nations or something similar. After graduating in 2004, I continued to pursue opportunities to travel and work on my language skills, first spending a year working as an English teaching assistant in a French high school, then spending a year in Guinea (West Africa) as a teaching fellow in a teacher training institute.
That year in Guinea really changed my perspective and my life. I was sent there as an “expert,” but in fact, I was quite young, I did not know anything about the local context, I could not easily identify with my students’ backgrounds and struggles, and I was not experienced in the subject matter that I was assigned to teach. It was the first opportunity that I had to deeply question some of the ways in which our world works, including the ongoing power of colonization, the impact of resource extraction and the knowledge societies value and who we think holds it. In addition to diving into the deep questions, I had so much fun. I explored my surroundings on a bicycle, ate mangoes fresh off the trees and shared meals around one big bowl with my neighbors.
