Each year, more than 1,300 people from other countries come here to study as Fulbright scholars, and they are among the most brilliant and promising students in the world. The Fulbright program is sponsored by the U.S. State Department and was established in the aftermath of World War II with no less a noble and idealistic goal than furthering international understanding. Those involved with the program still hope that students will not only take home new skills and knowledge, but that they will also help build good will between our countries.
My family and I had the honor of hosting several Fulbright students for dinner last week. It was our second year taking part in a program run by the Institute of International Education that brings Fulbrighters to New York for a weekend. While they're here, they visit local schools, sightsee and ride the subway, but they also get to have dinner with a local family. Hosts may request students from certain countries or certain fields; we asked to be paired with students from Africa, if for no other reason than to meet with real people from a part of the world that we know so little about. We hoped to dispel whatever stereotypes they might hold about Americans, and we hoped they would help us see past the stories about hunger and war that dominate our image of Africa.
Our guests, Godfrey from Tanzania and Andre from Mali, arrived together with smiles and hearty greetings. Our kids were so excited about the evening that each had invited a friend over. "You guys are celebrities," I told our African guests while introducing the four eager boys at our dinner table.
We got out our globe and let them show us where their countries are located, and they reminded us that the African continent is larger than North America and comprised of more than 50 nations. Andre impressed us with his knowledge of many languages - including French, Russian, Polish, German and several African tongues, while Godfrey answered my 9-year-old's question about why so many of the fastest runners in the world come from Africa. "In some places, children have to walk 5 or 6 miles to school," he explained. They learn to run in order to speed their way.
They also told us that young Africans idolize American culture, and that Africans are taking special pride in the achievements of black Americans like Condoleeza Rice and Barack Obama. We explained in turn that while most Americans don't know much about Africa, there are many small ways in which African culture has seeped into our own melting pot - right down to the copy of Chinua Achebe's novel, "Things Fall Apart," on our own bookshelf.
Eventually the children wandered away from the dinner table, and we turned our conversation to more serious matters, everything from politics to racism to poverty. Both of our guests are here studying education, one at the State University of New York in Buffalo, and the other at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. One of the most interesting points they made was that children in their countries work very hard in school because they know that only the very best and smartest will be allowed to continue with their studies. Seats at institutes for higher education are extremely limited, and competition for them is fierce.
Here, kids take those opportunities for granted; certainly my boys require a great deal of nagging just to do their homework, but they assume, like many of their peers, that one day they will go to college. Then again, my children and their friends have a much more global outlook than previous generations. Even when we plan family vacations, they ask innocently whether we can go to places like China or Egypt.
Considering that as a family, we haven't even made it to Yellowstone yet, we probably won't end up going quite that far away. But I always add that maybe they'll get to some of those places on their own when they're older. And I fully expect that after last week's dinner, they'll be adding Mali and Tanzania to the list of countries they want to visit.
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For more information about the Fulbright program, visit http://exchanges.state.gov/education/fulbright/ or click on "Fulbright program" at http://www.iie.org/.
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If you have a question, comment or a story to share, e-mail bharpaz@ap.org.
Copyrights
BETH J. HARPAZ. Connecting to Africa - over dinner. Copyright 2007 AP Features.
