From Trenches to Bridges 2015

For one week, 300 exchange students from France, Germany, and Switzerland all got together to talk about world peace and intercultural learning on the centennial anniversary of World War I. Because Alsace has done it's fair share of border hopping, was the center of combat in WWI, and is home to both the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, it was the obvious place to host a forum about war and peace. 

I haven't written much about my region, yet, but it's incredibly important to me and my exchange experience as a whole. Almost everyone on exchange develops a particular fondness for their host community, but I wasn't expecting to feel genuinely connected to my region. Now that I'm here though, I almost can't help it. Sometimes, I just feel this overwhelming admiration for where I live, for its culture, for its language, for its history. I like to think that I wouldn't feel that way about anywhere else in France. During the forum, whenever someone mentioned how beautiful Strasbourg was or how much they liked Alsace, I found that I had this sense of pride; I really live here. I don't think I realized it until now.

We officially began the forum on Sunday night at the Mimram Bridge, which connects France and Germany. All 300 exchange students and our host families, representing 45 countries, crossed it together as a symbol of global community. This sounds really touchy-feely, and it was. At first, I didn't even want to go to a youth forum about world peace; talking about unattainable goals or having that warm and fuzzy community feeling doesn't interest me. Overall, though, it was actually a really incredible experience. So, yeah, we're a group-hugging global community at AFS, but I guess I can get behind it. 

The first of many group photos in foggy Strasbourg weather.

Dancers wearing traditional Alsatian clothing

After we crossed the bridge, there was a giant party with traditional Alsatian food, music, and speeches about Alsace's historical influence. This region has a really complex history of nationality. It was French until 1871 when it was ceded to Germany after the Franco-Prussian War. The French retook it, however, during WWI (this was partly because the occupation of the Vosges Mountains was extremely beneficial for military strategy). During WWII Germany captured it again, and then proceeded to lose it promptly following the end of the war.

Monday morning started bright and early at the Council of Europe. As it was the official start of forum, we heard speeches from the president of AFS France and the French representative at the Council of Europe. Mostly, we talked about the history of AFS as an organization and its connection to World War I.

Flags at the Council of Europe with a replica of the same model ambulance used by AFSers in WWI. 

Inside of the Council of Europe

During the beginning of WWI, the USA was adamant that it did not want to be involved in the war. People referred to it as the "European War" and didn't want to become a part of it. However, many young Americans wanted to get involved somehow. The American Field Service started as just this--a small group of men who wanted to make a difference in the war. They joined the French as ambulance drivers for wounded soldiers, first in the center of France, and later on the front lines. At the start of WWII AFS was revived to do the same work, and afterwards, the survivors got together to talk about how to prevent a third world war. They settled on the idea that the only way to ensure peace is to ensure education and empathy through cultural exchange. Thus, AFS in its current form was born: an exchange program for secondary school students.

Oh, hey Caroline.

Group photos seriously take forever. Gathering 300 people in one spot is not an easy task. 

You can see here there's still barbed wire
and a protective lookout, both from 1915.

This is the communication trench,
originally, this would have been about
2 or 3 meters deeper.

Keeping with the whole WWI theme, we spent Tuesday at the Hartmannswillerkopf Memorial. I love history, so I found this to be particularly cool. We took a guided tour of the battlefield where we had the opportunity to literally walk through the trenches. Throughout the past hundred years, they've been filled in with earth, so now they're more like well worn hiking trails. However, you can still see the stone sides of them, some with writing that the soldiers carved in, bullet holes, and lookout points. We walked through the French trenches, and then across the no man's land and into the German ones. Our guide told us about how each time Alsace was retaken, some Alsatians would relocate in order to remain French or German. Thus, Alsatians lived and still live on both sides of the border, which meant that in wartime, they were often killing their own friends and family on the other side. Knowing that, the trenches suddenly became a bit eerier.

Thankfully, I had a chance to study WWI in depth this past year at school, and I definitely think I got way more out of the experience than some of my peers because of it (shoutout to Sensei and Ms. Berry--thanks for making me read All Quiet on the Western Front). 

Seeing the battlefield, in a weird way, made me a bit homesick. I knew that my dad would absolutely love this; he's a huge history buff. There are so many things like this when you're on exchange--so much melancholy about experiencing new things and feeling like there's no way to share them. In a way, it feels selfish to do a year completely for myself to experience new things. I always have this mental debate: I know that spending time missing home is a waste of my opportunity to be here, but on the other hand, it's impossible to be positive all the time. After all, we have to experience negative emotion to appreciate positive emotion. Where is the balance between validating one's feelings whilst ensuring that it doesn't become self pity?

Shabana is love, Shabana is life.

Life has a way of giving you things just at the perfect moment to appreciate them, and the next day, I had the opportunity to hear Shabana Basij-Rasikh speak at the University of Strasbourg. She was absolutely brilliant, and, in a way, answered all of the angsty and existential questions I'd been asking myself. We heard a lot of speeches that week, but this was definitely the most important. Maybe the most important speech I've ever heard.

Shabana was born in Afghanistan and raised under the Taliban regime. As a young girl, going to school was illegal, and so her parents sent her to a secret school. Until age thirteen, she was educated in someone's living room. She and her sisters would carry their books in grocery bags, and take different routes every day so that the Taliban wouldn't see a pattern in their movement. They took immense precautions because they couldn't afford not to--going to school was punishable by death for both them and their parents. Shabana resented this at times, and questioned why it was worth it to be educated if it was such a daily struggle. Her father was adamant about her schooling, and would tell her that even if he had to sell his own blood to pay her school fees, he would do it.

At age thirteen, when the Taliban's ban on girls' education was lifted, Shabana went to a public school, wore a school uniform, and learned in an actual classroom for the first time. All of her classmates, however, were six years older than her. They had all stopped their schooling when the Taliban came, and now at age eighteen, they were in the seventh grade. Shabana also went on exchange to the USA at age fifteen, and focused a lot on how it shaped her life. She spoke about the struggle of being the sole representation of one's country and how one's actions really do affect people's perceptions of said country. I've definitely sensed this pressure since I've gotten here. When people ask me questions about America, I have to reflect carefully before I respond. It's both challenging and crucial to be truthful, and I doubt myself too often, worrying that I'll give the wrong answer. After all, America is massive and I've only lived in one very small part of it. How can I tell someone what it's like to live in America? She told us a story about a time when she gave a presentation about Afghani culture to her class. The first question she was asked was, "Do you know Bin Laden?" How can the truth ever compete with stereotypes?

Shabana was one of the 10% of literate women in Afghanistan, and one of the 6% of women with an undergraduate degree (she returned to America to attend Middlebury College). After she graduated, she could have easily found a job in the USA, but Shabana returned to Afghanistan to begin a secondary girl's school. The way that she spoke about her moral obligation to her country fascinated me. Is feeling a moral obligation to one's nation the same as patriotism? Or, as a citizen of a developed first world country, do I have the same moral obligation as she does? I don't know, but I should probably figure that out soon.

If you want to hear her story first hand, you can check out her TED Talk here. Honestly, it isn't nearly as good as the speech she gave last week, but it's still incredible and I highly recommend it:

Shabana's incredible honesty definitely resonated with me. In the middle of her talk, she just flat out asked us, "Why are you here?" And honestly, I didn't have an answer. But I want to have one, and I'm going to keep looking for it. Why am I on exchange? What does that accomplish? It started with just becoming bilingual, but it has to be more than that now, and I can't quite put my finger on it. So few people have the opportunity that I've been given: 12 years of guaranteed schooling. Education may be a right, but I have the privilege, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with it.

We wrapped up the week at the European Parliament, which was astounding (although not as astounding as Shabana, unfortunately). For one thing, it's absolutely massive. It's usually only open to the public one day a year as well, so we were given some special treatment. 
I was stupefied by seeing translators in action. Not only the ability to translate precise and specific language, but also to translate it rapidly in real time was so impressive. Honestly, it would be so stressful. That job is definitely not in my future.

I basically spent the entire time pinching myself. I sat in the same seat as a world leader. We presented an actual peace treaty to the Parliament. We actually watched people sign papers and make decisions as if they were important. My nerdy self had a field day. And then, suddenly, everything was suddenly over. 

Heaps of people were crying at the end of this week because they had made such incredible friends. For so many people, this week was literally life changing. I wouldn't really say that about my experience, but it at least made me slightly less confused about what I want to do in life, and gave me more drive to pursue whatever it is. I will say, though, that I'm different now than I was last Sunday. Maybe not a lot, but different all the same.

You see, that's the incredible thing about being on exchange. Your entire life becomes devoted to celebrating the impermanence of everything and everyone around you; we were 300 people from 45 different countries but we are no longer a "we." I will probably only see a few of them again. And, in eight months, when my exchange is finished, it may be the same with my friends in France. When I left America, I was afraid of impermanence. I thought of it as a pressure to experience as much a possible, as a deadline, or as cloud looming over me, but now impermanence seems to be more of an inevitable state of being. I've always embodied it and always will. 

Within it, I think, I've found a sense of self.