Colombia

Buenas noches!!!!!; Good Night!!!!!; Bonne Nuit!!!!; ليلة سعيدة; добраніч!!!!


There are many things I consider invaluable in this interchange and academic process at Saint John's University. The opportunity to share the same space, the same room or the same place in the dining hall with people from four different continents (America, Asia, Europe and Africa) is striking. I endorse all the Fulbrighters -at the same time partners and colleagues-, who share this idea about the cultural experience we are witnessing (perhaps all the 39 Fulbrighters). I am speechless trying to express how diverse is the world, and how rich it is in all the senses of the word. A feeling that New York reinforces everyday. However, there is one thing that I want to highlight related to our home places and our cultural backgrounds. It is obvious that we have countless cultural differences between each other and different viewpoints on the same topic. I have had the opportunity to talk about some interesting topics to my classmates, and even when those are not considered a taboo, is remarkable how different my classmates perceive them: the marriage is one of them. I'm bringing this idea to play into the context of the academic program because many of us come from countries where the rule or the norm is a penetrating internal violence as well as countless political conflicts. And in my opinion the daily violence, each expression of criminality and many of the armed conflicts registered in the world, rest upon an impossibility to understand the viewpoint of others, showing a completely lack of comprehension, even in the most basic and superfluous things… Therefore, I think comprehension is one of the things we need in order to solve many problems that we consider relevant and critical. And as Fulbrighters we can show others how to start, sharing for example, five minutes of our time in the dinner, and explaining others how true and legitimate are own our ideas and personal reflections (that's one of my dreams).