One undisclosed perk (among others) of a Fulbright scholarship to the Middle East is the opportunity to meet your fellow regional Fulbright fellows in a pan-Middle East/North Africa research conference. Well, two conferences actually. U.S. Department of State and IIE divides the MENA folk in half, dispatching a group to Tunis and a group to Amman. Fortunately, the Jordanian Fulbrighters all had the chance to travel to Tunisia (which I will call "little Europe" compared to Jordan), and likewise with the Tunis folk to Jordan.
It was a particularly good opportunity for me to socialize among, learn from, and network with the other regional Fulbright groups, seeing as I missed the pre-grant orientation session in DC for a summer immersion program in Irbid. The three-day conference hosted speakers and divided us up into presentation panels by research topic, enabling an exposition and (occassionally heated) discussion of our projects. Some travel time was built in as well, so outside of the quaint beachside Sidi Bou Said host town and nearby capital Tunis, many of us traveled North and South to take in as much of the Tunisian experience as possible. Not to mention our opportunity to wine and dine with the US Ambassador to Tunis at a reception at his private residence.
I am reluctant to go into heavy detail about the conference (mostly because it was so long ago, whoops), but here are some take-away thoughts:
-The people your US tax dollars have sent over here are brilliant and intellectually/culturally diverse.
-The range of projects wowed me: even in only half the MENA Fulbright pool gathered in Tunis, we had everything from a materials science masters student making construction-quality concrete from reused Moroccan mine waste ('slag') to a contemporary theater writer/director/researcher in Damascus.
-Friendships made over weekend conferences have an amazing ability to endure beyond their contextual limits (more on that in the next post as well)
Thanks Tunis, thanks Fulbright. But note to self, learn French.
*also, more pictures of this and Tim's visit available on Fbook for the friendly...
1 comment:
On your note to learn french, I remember hearing that it was the 2nd most common language in the UN from a girl in one of my classes at UVA (her reason for taking the course)...I guess that extends to the rest of the international community. Lucky you, j'aime beaucoup le francais! :)
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