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Our Uruguayan friends came to study in US, were our neighbors for four years and recently returned to their country. They saw this movie and insisted that I should see it too. It is a video with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s presentation at TED.
She is sharing her stories but manages, as good tellers do, to tell the stories of many people. Among them, she is telling of the lessons learned while being an international student in US, where “international” is mostly developing countries and where “learning” is not limited to what is thought in classes.
I’ve been living for some years now in the international community of Orchard Downs in Champaign-Urbana campus in US and her stories resonated so much with me. It is true that we, as outsiders, are often expected to fit the given stereotype but is nonetheless true that we bring here our own single story version of the others. In time though, we get to share and live new stories together and the one story becomes many stories and many friends. As a proof for this I have my dear friends, who are getting ready for summer in Montevideo but long for the colorful fall of Illinois, that think of their Romanian friend when they hear Chimamanda Adichie speak.
There is something else that, I suspect will get sooner or later into Adichie’s work (if is not there already). Once you know multiple stories and connect in a meaningful way with the other … you cannot accept one story versions anymore. The hard part though is that people around you will continue to be happy with what they know: the single true story.
The majority of he Romanians laws that I read have a destructive nature…I am not a law expert though, so it might be just my limited experience talking here but I feel like in Romania the laws are given to stop or prevent, usually bad things (like corruption, anti-social activities s.o.) from happening. Very little attention is given to the constructive part of the law, on building up valid solutions to existing and future problems. Of course, for emergency situations the emergency first aid laws are good solutions. However, for problems that are hunting us for years now…those kind laws are useless.
Just to give you an example, to get a glimpse of how Romanian politician’s mind work. Weddings are celebrated with big fast in Romania like in many places on this planet. The Roma community however managed to make many people angry because of the way they celebrate them. In neighborhoods of Communist block of flats they bring their celebration in the streets, they build temporary tents on public spaces to have their receptions there and have high voltage music until late at night.(all this information I got from different article in Romania newspapers during the last year) So we might say there is a problem. What does the bright Romanian politicians do? Make up a law that, they are going give their final vote for today, that says that “parties and weddings in tents or close by buildings where people live ” is not allowed (source). Of course there are some laws already in place that penalize this kind of disturbance in the public life…but it does not matter: here comes a new one! A better one? Don’t think so.
Not thinking about why those people are celebrating the weddings there, what community spaces do they have as alternatives, what are the meanings of this ceremony for the community…we (almost) have a new destructive law. Can anybody tell me what good is this law going to bring? Probably some money to some local budgets from fines…That’s how big the picture of taking care of communities is for Romanian politicians.
She’s 3.
Today, after working for awhile on my laptop I left it and went to prepare dinner. She sat close to it and when I turned she started keyboarding. I heard it and I turn right away.
“What are you doing?” I asked her.
“Nothing” she said but knew that she was not supposed to do that.
“I told you that you are not allowed to play with the laptop”
“But I don’t have one to play with” she said
“Why do you need one to play with?”
And calm as she always seems said:
“Because I need it in preschool”.
To a 3 year old it makes perfect sense that if I need a laptop for my school and work she needs one for her school too.
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