Ministerio de Fe

Chile. Venezuela. United States. Peru. Mexico. Dominican Republic. Haiti. Japan. China. El Salvador. Brazil. Spain. Argentina. All of these countries are represented in my church in Valparaíso. It is a Protestant Christian church that truly makes me feel right at home. It has been a wonderful way to make Chilean friends and always have people …

Food Talk

My arrival in September was not my first time in India. I had the opportunity to join Dr. Annie Dandavati of the Political Science Department and fellow Hope student Tristan Tobias (‘19)  at the Global Liberal Arts Alliance (GLAA) Conference in Pune this summer for a week. I knew the traffic, busyness, and smells enough …

Nature at Home

Today I’m sharing a piece written by my good friend Will Lake who’s also here at the Oregon Extension. Earlier in the semester we read Annie Dillard, a nature writer, and were asked to copy her style of writing and observation. We each trundled outside and found a spot to sit as still as possible …

What to Say, What to Keep

When the voices of friends and family ring through my ear over phone call conversations that fit into the narrow space we have between time differences, I am often at a loss of what I want to sound like. I love being here and I could go on for hours about my sweet and welcoming …

A Moment Here

I have an overwhelming desire to take people to Jaipur and give them my eyes to see it through. At first, any city in India can seem overwhelming. There are a lot of people and there is a long line of smells and noises to digest in each direction one turns. Whenever I try to …

Self-Care

I wake with a foot planted on me. I am immediately angry. So is the owner of the foot. Who’s to blame: me for sleeping on a trail or them for stepping on a sleeping body?   I narrowly avoided the above situation. We had just come back from caves filled with tragic stories of …

Market Days

No matter where you go in Cape Town, you can always count on being able to find a good market. There are lots scattered throughout the city, whether they are food markets, craft markets, or markets with both! Each weekend in Cape Town, I try to make it to one in order to scope out some …

Daily Life in Freiburg

Week two in Freiburg provided me with the opportunity to finally immerse myself in the daily life of this city. Though we did have two hours of German per day, our only other class was an “Integrative Seminar” course, which has mainly been giving us informative background on the EU and its current state. This …

Coming Home?

To fully understand where you are going, I think you have to understand where you are coming from. Study abroad for many of my peers is a new and exciting experience unlike anything they have ever done before. For me? Not so much. See, I lived in Prague, Czech Republic, from when I was 8 …

A Typical Week in Singapore

Whenever someone asks me, “What do you think of Singapore so far?”, I’m never quite sure what to answer. Even though I’ve been here almost a month, the experience so far was basically a surface-level, touristy view of Singapore (hence the Singaporientation blog) and settling into the daily cycle of classes, eating, and studying. Sorry, doesn’t …