What's in a Word?

">interesting article lists 20 words which are virtually untranslatable into the English language. As I learn more and more advanced Spanish I've realized just how many words there are that don't have an exact translation to anything in English. Its fascinating how by giving something its own unique word, there is a whole concrete concept which is created for speakers of that language that those speaking other languages do not possess. For example, the Japanese word wabi-sabi meaning: "a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay". A beautiful concept that is summed up by one word in Japanese, but takes a sentence or more in English to express.

Other words are clearly developed to fit something that is culturally significant, such as the Pascuense (from Easter Island) notion of tingo: "the act of taking objects one desires from the house of a friend by gradually borrowing all of them". If I had to guess, I'd say this act is fairly common on Easter Island, or at least common enough to warrant its own word. But not so much in English-speaking countries (I have to admit I don't really get it....wouldn't someone notice if their friend happened to have more than half of the things they own?)

Other words capture universal human emotion, but in a way which we cannot in the English language.  The Portuguese word saudade expresses "the feeling of longing for something or someone that you love and which is lost".

I think my favorite may have the be the German word torschlusspanik-- meaning "the fear of diminishing opportunities as one ages". I may still be young, but I'm already starting to feel a little torschlusspanik. Plus its fun to say.

Language shapes the way people experience the world and the way they have the opportunity to express themselves. I often wish I had the European experience of being able to grow up learning many different languages (and also to solidify learning with nearby travels the way Europeans can). Just one more reason to make sure American kids are getting the chance to learn foreign languages at a young age!

An Intersection between Psychology and Development

This super-interesting video is based on Jeremy Rifkin's book The Empathetic Civilization. The basic argument is that humans are hardwired to experience empathy, and that this emotion has evolved to include more and more "others"-- and that there is no reason we can't continue expanding our concept of those who deserve empathy to all of humanity, and beyond. Plus, the animation is really awesome.





(From a Peace of Conflict)

I'm baaaaack!

After an extended absence in the world of bloggers (seven months goes by quite quickly—yikes!) I’m prepared to make my (triumphant?) return to this blog. Graduate school for International Development Studies in Washington D.C. isn’t quite as interesting as world travel, so I’ll forgive my readers if some of you decide to no longer follow me. However, despite my hectic schedule of graduate school classes and searching for internships, I do still have an interesting thought or two that crosses my mind that I’d like to share with you here. So if you will allow me, I’ll make my return by sharing with you all this amazing video on The Girl Effect. This video made me cry the first time I watched it-- mostly with the feeling "if only it were that simple". It's clearly not this simple. But it's still a great video.




One of the latest trends in international development is focusing on girls and women as the vehicle of change in society. Not only are girls 50% of the population, they often are the most marginalized and also tend to be the ones who pass on values and a healthy upbringing to their children. That is, when they have more power to keep their kids healthy and in school, it benefits all of society. Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn talked about this and many other issues related to gender and development in their recent (amazing) book called  Half the Sky.

Home Sweet Home

Sorry I haven't updated recently, the last two weeks or so in India were just mass chaos trying to get everything we needed to complete finished before we left. But I succeeded in finishing all of the projects! James and I built two bookshelves from scratch, painted them, catalogued over 1,000 books for the library, made library cards for all of the students at St. Mary's and teachers, and arranged all of the books in the library space they gave us. So now St. Mary's has a real, workable library, complete with a laptop (I donated my old Villanova one), scanner, and barcodes on the books. The headmistress says she will give the kids a "reading period" every day to take out a book and read it, and all of the 7th graders and up can borrow books whenever they'd like. I am such a huge book-nerd and I think that this is awesome-- kids who had probably never in their lives read a book for fun will now get to take one out every week if they want! Yayyy.

Besides this project I also wrote a health play for the elementary school kids and had one of my Indian friends translate it to Tamil. Then some of the boys we were living with acted out the play, and afterwords all of the kids practiced washing their hands with the hand-soap the program got for them. I bought 10 big bottles of soap, so hopefully it will last them a while. We also bought and organized a much needed first-aid kit for the elementary school.

The last day in India came all too soon. There was a bit of a flurry of activity at the end when we thought our flight might actually be canceled because of the volcanic ash over Europe (bizarre!) but it turned out James and my flight was ok because our layover was in Dubai, not Europe. Our friend and co-intern Sarah was flying British Airways and her flight was actually delayed/canceled until May 1.

It was so hard to say goodbye to everyone at SAMSSS and the schools where we worked. I feel like even though I was there only two months that I have known all of them much longer. Especially the four boys who lived at SAMSSS-- I started calling them my "thambys" (younger brothers in Tamil) and I was their "akka" (older sister). We gave each other parting gifts and we exchange emails every day, but still it feels kind of heart-breaking to be so far away from people I care about so much. Its hard to think of them sleeping on the floor, eating rice every day, and sweating without air-conditioner in the 100 + degree heat of India while I am living up life here in America. If only life were fair for everyone.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Vacation

This past weekend all of the interns here had a little break for the Easter vacation, so we went on an adventure! Our first stop was Mumbai (Bombay) the site of the recent Slumdog Millionare movie. I wasn’t expecting it to be like this, but it actually does somewhat represent the way the city is portrayed in the movie. There are huge modern malls that rival any mall in America (in fact we saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D there) right next to shantytown slums where people dressed in rags are practically starving to death. We ate a meal in the Taj Hotel (one of the most famous hotels in the world—but at $800 a night we definitely were not going to be checking in!—and saw the Gates of India.


One night we saw that there was an artsy documentary on poor rural farmers being shown nearby so we showed up for that. It turns out there was a famous Bollywood director there (I never would have known!) and a bunch of elite well-educated Mumbai-ites. The film talked about how hard life was for rural people and how debt is causing them to commit suicide in record numbers. James and I kind of just looked at each other as the rich Indians around us gasped in shock throughout the movie expressed how moved and surprised they were during the discussion afterwards. Could these people really not know what is going on right outside of their doors? Literally a few hours on all sides of Mumbai there are rural people living this way—and people who lived in India their whole lives did not realize until they saw this movie? After spending just a little over a month in rural Tamil Nadu it seemed that us Americans were way more informed about the rural poor of India than some people who had grown up in Mumbai. It was a crazy experience and left me with a sour feeling. It made me think of Americans and how a lot of us do not understand poverty in our own country as well.

Overall Mumbai was not my favorite, because the stark contrast between the rich and the poor just made me feel too guilty to actually have clothes on my back and food in my stomach.Next we headed to Goa, which is a stretch of about 2 ½ hours of just gorgeousss beaches, as far as the eye can see. The whole place does not feel like India at all, it has a more laid-back, less-chaotic, almost Latin American feel to it. The random Indian cows hanging out on the beach definitely helped us remember where we were though. We rented a beach hut on the beach for $8 a day and kicked back and enjoyed ourselves for a while. It might have been the first time since arriving in India that I actually felt completely and utterly relaxed. $2 Daquiris in a beach hut next to softly rolling waves will do that to you. It was a terrific retreat from the frenetic and overwhelming chaos that is the rest of India.