Nos Vemos

Kelsey Dovico
Fulbright U.S. Student Program: Teaching Assistant
Madrid, Academic Year 2018-2019

Thank you to WMU Study Abroad for allowing me to share my Fulbright experience on this blog, and thank you, dear reader!
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On my way out
Next week is my last day at FSG and the conclusion of my Fulbright grant. This English teaching and intercultural education experience has been an intense period of personal and professional expansion, yet feeling as if it has passed in the blink of an eye. My heart swells with gratitude for the opportunity to have served the gitano community in Madrid through meaningful sociocultural engagement and for being so warmly embraced by the Fundacion.
This year I received an abundance of support for and validation of my teaching and intercultural efforts, and in turn I was able to provide a truly comprehensive English and intercultural program for our participants. More than half of my child and adolescent students have improved their English grades this year, several passing exams for the first time and some particularly dedicated students experiencing greater success outside of the English classroom with their fortified language skills. Two young gitana women passed their Bachillerato exams and will soon be off to college. My adult GRE-equivalent students recently had their English final, and all anticipate passing. The Fundacion employees with whom I led conversation groups exhibit greater confidence in speaking and relating to others in English, and have shown incredible effort and determination to continue learning. It was a profound honor to be welcomed into the arena of FSG’s sphere of influence in Spanish society and to uplift others as I have been lifted up.
To Fulbright España, the Embajada de los EEUU, and Fundacion Secretariado Gitano, thank you.

An Americana send-off
The Social Inclusion and Social Intervention departments invited me to lead a concluding intercultural program for FSG. “What Americana-themed activity to do with nearly 60 people?” I mused aloud. My bilingual coordinator and I tossed around a few rudimentary ideas. Then, her eyes lit up and she gasped.
“Tu bailes swing dance, si?”
Instantly I felt a strong connection to the idea. We decided upon a few key details and within the hour had an American Swing Dance Taller planned for my penultimate week at FSG. Nearly 50 of my students, co-workers, and jefes from Fulbright got a taste of my four years of swing dance experience with a presentation on its history and modern presence in the US, a few video examples from swing dance parties I’ve attended over the years, and a lesson in the basic steps of the Charleston, East Coast, and Lindy Hop styles. In a word, it was a blast. The whole group was intrigued by the presentation, asked fantastic questions, and showed such joyful effort and creativity in learning the dance steps.
After the presentation and dancing ended, the entire group surprised me with a beautiful year-end thank you/send off gifts. My little niñitos created small posters with phrases like “We will miss you” and “You are always welcome here” in Spanish and in English. The teenagers created a booklet signed with loving well-wishes and memories. The staff gave me a lovely scarf, a copy of Romancero Gitano (a crucial cultural anthology of gitano poetry and art) signed by everyone on the Vallecas team, and a beautiful display of photos from throughout the year.
But the most fulfilling moments from this day were the unique interactions I shared with individual people. I got warm, squeezy, grounding hugs from everyone. I was drawn in to the center of the impromptu Flamenco circle that broke out after we finished, encouraged by my gitana coworker Loli to follow her lead and supported by our students on the cajones. One of our precocious 7th graders who failed English last year excitedly announced to me that he passed with flying colors this time around. I introduced a few of my most beloved students to my Fulbright supervisors, and the lot of us shared fantastic conversation. One of the mischievously yet benevolently charismatic teenagers poured some water on my head and repeated the Eucharist prayer in Spanish (really just an excuse to start a water fight, which was hilarious). Moments like these are the memories that will keep the spark of this epic year alive in my heart.

Solidarity
As the leading gitano cultural resourced and education center in Spain and a gold standard of organizational prestige and influence in Europe, plenty of journalists, political figures, and community leaders have harshly criticized FSG for the fact that the director is not gitano. It’s a complicated issue. Wouldn’t having a gitano director make more “sense”? Does the fact that the director is not gitano compromise FSG’s cultural integrity?
Within the organization, the high regard for intercultural collaboration and the level of interpersonal and professional excellence cultivated within each department makes for a positively cooperative and productive team. Too, the board of trustees and most other high-ranking staff are themselves gitano, firmly securing the community’s own voice in the national leadership team. This is not to mention that the director is himself an excellent leader who has been employed at FSG for 25 years and seen the organization through immense expansion during his 15 (and counting!) years in leadership.
Given the observable successes of the intercultural workforce at FSG, it is clear that the Fundacion is in excellent hands. Too, we may further consider that the director’s leadership offers a powerful example of solidarity – a non-gitano Spaniard, educated, articulate, passionate, humble, offering a most public example of what true intercultural cooperation and allyship look like. I believe the sociocultural situation for gitanos in Spain will improve on a systemic level with an opening of a nation-wide conversation about the role of non-gitano Spaniards in supporting the Roma community in their ongoing efforts to be regarded as fundamentally equal to all other human beings. Having a non-gitano leader at the Fundacion Secretariado Gitano immediately opens this conversation for collective consideration. The challenges faced by marginalized communities cannot be solved within those communities alone – equality, equity, and dignity are the responsibility of all of us, together.

Packing Up
Reflecting on this Fulbright experience was made a bit surreal by re-reading my first few blog posts. How differently the year unfolded than I projected, and how wonderfully so! I got a chuckle re-reading my packing list, especially considering how much other stuff I’ve accumulated this year, and now consider with what I will be coming home…
• A more expansive understanding of Life as seen through the lens of Spanish culture – living at a more relaxed pace, prioritizing well-being and socializing as much as work and responsibility, allowing for greater flexibility with uncertainty
• Greater confidence and optimism about expressing myself, particularly en la tema of exercising boundaries in relationships
• New recipes, and better cooking skills
• Joyful friendships based on true mutuality and respect that have empowered me in ways I didn’t even know I wasn’t
• An awareness of who I am as a cultural being in a variety of different settings, and my strengths and limitations in this area of my identity
• A daily meditation practice
• A renewed comfort and confidence with showing and receiving physical affection (because Spaniards hug, kiss, and touch a great deal)
• The fulfillment of my life-long dream to visit Sicily and connect with the birthplace of my grandparents (me voy en una semanita!)
• And, through my daily yoga and meditation constitutionals through my neighborhood’s many parks and plazas, a growing desire to be of deeper service to the natural world.
Gratitude
Sometimes we must make our situation more comfortable before moving ahead. Sometimes we must make it more comfortable by moving ahead. Perhaps the most important personal growth I cultivated in my time abroad is the development of an internal comfort zone not dependent on external factors. One anchored by, as Mr. Rogers said, “a deep sense of who you are”. As I reflect on this transformational year of my life, I am left in awe of the people who have helped me create this self-knowing. Family, friends, mentors, teachers, counselors, neighbors, co-workers, supervisors, role models, brothers and sisters around the world: this victory and this experience is for you.

Thank you.