By Brian Barkley
They say that when you go anywhere you’re representing your home town. Particularly, they say that when you go on Study Abroad you’re representing Kalamazoo College, Michigan, and the entire USA. They say that people remember everything you do can and will be expected out of future participants – it almost sounds like they’re reading you your Miranda rights.
(I will take the time to point out that the thing that I like the most about the French language is that it has the word “on” which translates to “somebody” or “anyone.” If English had such a word I would not have just used the awkward “they” and “you” phrasing usually found in post-game interviews with sports stars. There’s a certain fluidity that English lacks from time to time. But I digress)
However what they sometimes fail to mention is that this concept resides on a two-way street. That is, the locals often expect you to share similarities with whatever is in the news about the USA. For example, American bankers and investors were not received with as much fanfare as they had been getting in recent years.
This year we were lucky enough to go abroad at a time where everybody had a new hope for the States. George W. Bush had given the USA a bad name, and Barack Obama, well-recognized as Jesus himself descending from the heavens, had come to clean it up.
The idea was simple: Barack would clean up Washington and give the rest of the world a fighting chance. Yes, everybody wanted to talk to him (I’m sure that somebody near by can tell you which was the first country he talked to on his first day, and which countries were miffed because he only gave them three minutes of his day). Strangely, although the whole economic crisis was a buzz-kill for the entire world, it only seemed to solidify the idea that America was going to change its ways and adopt a style more helpful to everybody else.
We arrived when Obamania re-tied its shoelaces and went for the last sprint, and we left when he broke out his magic wand. The past was a long distance away, and the only thing anybody could see was the sun rising just beyond his outstretched arm. Even with all the bad in the world, I can’t imagine a more positive time.
I can’t imagine going abroad over the past seven or eight years and being George W. Bush reincarnate. I can’t imagine going abroad next year and having to explain to my host family that Obama never had a magic wand; he was just holding a pen the whole time.
I’m not an economist, but I think that it will take a long time before this recession of monumental proportions is gone. And when a country finally finds a way to triumph over its current relative poverty it will be alone in its spoils, no matter what the fair trade agreements or the EU tries to do to save each and every sinking ship in the world. In short, if the USA is supposed to save the world, then it could take a damn long time. I can’t imagine going abroad in ten years and having to explain to my host family that the help is on the way, still in transit.
I am required to act intelligently when I wear my baseball uniform and represent Kalamazoo College. However, I thought that other people – Obama, Bush, Madoff, Gates, Blagovich, etc – were wearing jerseys with “Barkley” on their backs.
;)
;)
