The University of Idaho and the International Studies Abroad programs offer once-in-a-life-time opportunities for students to learn and grow while being immersed in a different culture.“Everyone should study abroad,” Sarah Lorber, UI senior and global ambassador for ISA, said. “It is not that hard to do, it is the most amazing experience and you can get credits for a life experience, not just for studying.”
She said getting started is the hardest part with all the applications and paperwork to fill out, but once you sit down and just get it done, everything else falls into place.
Lorber said she took an extensive summer-month program in Buenos Aires, Argentina, through UI and ISA in order to receive credits toward her Spanish minor, but the experience was so much more than a college study trip. She attended a Spanish class for five hours a day, and participated in organized cultural activities with the program to learn more about the Argentinean culture.
One of the most memorable parts of her trip was staying with her host family, she said.
“Living with my host family was awesome,” she said. “I had a really cool family with two little boys, and I got to go to their soccer practices and hang out. I brought the boys Dr. Seuss books because they were learning English, and they kept asking me what certain words meant, but some of them don’t mean anything because it’s Dr. Seuss, so I had to explain to them that they were made up English words, which was highly complicated. My host mom was a baker and she baked out of their kitchen, so I would meet all these people who were coming to get cakes, dulce de leche and all sorts of things from her.”
Lorber said her favorite treat that her host mom made and would send to school with her was alfajores, which is a cookie filled with thick dulce de leche. Some might be covered in chocolate or have nuts on the inside, and that’s what they would eat in the afternoon while they were having tea, she said.
She said the feeling of community in such a big city was a different experience for her in terms of the culture.
“It was so different to be around people who just loved to be around each other,” Lorber said. “They would have people over every night if they could, and they would have big family dinners every night no matter when people were getting home.”
Something she had to adjust to were the mealtimes in Argentina, she said. Breakfast would be a cup of chocolate milk or hot chocolate, then she would go to school and have her lunch. In the afternoon after school, the family would have a cookie with coffee or tea, and that would tide them over until dinner around 9 p.m., she said.
“They would eat so late at night. Argentineans don’t eat until 10 or 11 at night, and the clubs don’t open till three in the morning,” Lorber said. “They drink something called yerba (herb) mate all day long, and it is like a bitter green tea. I’m assuming that it curbed hunger and it is highly caffeinated.”
She said as part of the program they would have break out sessions to talk and drink yerba mates with the locals from the college.
She still keeps in contact with three or four friends from Buenos Aires and with many of her friends she met through ISA, she said.
“We all have Facebook, and we Skype and write letters, which is really fun because people don’t really do that anymore,” Lorber said.
The most amazing place she visited while on her trip was Iguazu Falls, which is on the border of Argentina and Brazil, and is one of the largest waterfalls in the world, she said.
“It is just the most amazing thing,” she said. “You walk out to this ‘Garganta del Diablo’ (Devil’s Throat) is what they call it, and you literally walk out on the sketchiest bridge and stand at the beginning of this huge waterfall. It is the coolest thing I have ever done. There is a point where you can see Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina from where you are standing.”
Lorber said after her experience abroad, she wanted to be an advocate for ISA to encourage others to do the same. She will be going on another ISA trip to Peru this summer.
Emily Vaartstra can be reached at [email protected]