Vermont Communities Touching the World

October 3, 2003

The following article appeared in the Brattleboro Reformer on October 6, 2003. We are grateful to the editors for granting us permission to publish it in its entirety on our website.

Photo of Kira Lallas.
Kira Lallas performing Translations of Xhosa at S.I.T.
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Value of Study Abroad Clear to S.I.T. Program's Graduates

By MICHAEL NEARY
Special to the Reformer

BRATTLEBORO -- When Kira Lallas performed "Translations of Xhosa" Friday night at the School for International Training, she sounded a note at the end that had played like a drum beat throughout the evening: the sensation of returning from a journey.

The performance followed a celebration -- by the Experiment in International Living -- for returning teachers and students in the area who'd participated the Experiment's international summer program.

But for Lallas, who dramatized her semester-long 2001 S.I.T. study-abroad experience in Cape Town, South Africa, the return was more of a crash.

"The heart of the world has been cracked open and my heart has grown invincible!" she cheered near the end of the performance. "And then I came home and fell apart."

S.I.T. and the Experiment celebrated a trio of events Friday: Lallas' hit play, the return of students and teachers in the Experiment's international summer program, and plans to renovate a building to be used for classrooms and conference space.

Lallas, who performed with Uzo Aduba, seemed to take the form of little girls or politically savvy women as she unraveled her months in South Africa. Much of the drama is filled with an anguish that her friend's advice -- to stay until things change -- will never come true. But it does, shockingly, in several ways. Things change for the better when little girls who'd hit Lallas' character give her gifts. And near the end of the play a woman tells her, "I hope you go back and tell them in America how we women do democracy in South Africa."

Lallas' play has toured in various parts of the country, and it has won glowing reviews.

Before her performance, two students, a principal and a librarian talked about their experiences just weeks ago in the summer study-abroad program conducted by the Experiment in International Living, the organization that established the foundation for S.I.T. The two organizations currently form parts of the umbrella group World Learning.

As the four talked about their experiences in a spacious barn recently purchased by S.I.T., they frequently touched on what they described as a heightened need for Americans to learn about other countries. Bruce Garrow, the principal of Newfane Elementary School, said this need wasn't altogether new.

"I'm an older Experimenter ... and my father was in the Second World War," said Garrow, who went to Japan this summer. "Listening to the subtle and not-so-subtle (criticism) of Japan, it was a real challenge to go to Japan."

Elizabeth Bissell, the Newfane Elementary School librarian, also went to Japan over the summer -- and also came back with revised impressions of the culture there.

"You've been told about the Japanese being a little reserved?" she asked. Then after a pause she said, "No."

She proceeded to tell about a time when she wore a skirt to meditation that she slowly realized was too short for the occasion. Her friend gestured wildly to her about the skirt, she said, as they rode along in the car.

"She's looking at me with a concerned face and trying to communicate with me about my clothing," explained Bissell. Eventually -- when it became clear that no other clothing was in easy reach -- Bissell's friend switched outfits with her.

Brendan Scherer, a Brattleboro Union High School student who visited the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, also came back excited -- and surprised. He was amazed, he said, at how deeply and how soon the wedge between Protestant and Catholic culture developed. He described a 9-year-old in Belfast who refused to play Gaelic football.

"He wouldn't play Gaelic football because it was an act he thought only Catholic children would do," said Scherer.

Introducing the trio was Emily Zak, a Vermont resident who went to Thailand in 1997. Zak mentioned, in addition to her thoughts about the country, their impressions -- or lack of impressions -- of Vermont. She praised the state's residents for their projects abroad and noted the irony connected to Vermont's international work.

"This tiny state that nobody has ever heard of," she said, has sent people to various parts of the world. "When you travel in Thailand and say Vermont," she continued, "they say, 'Is that anywhere near New York?'"

The purpose of the Experiment's summer program is both to immerse American teachers and students in the lifestyles of other countries and then to weave those experiences into the classrooms of local schools, according to Anthony Allen, the director of the Experiment in International Living. He stressed that home stays and other raw experiences of the countries were essential to the program.

Nita and Steve Lowey at the announcement of The Lowey Center for World Learning

"It's challenging, it's uncomfortable, it's awkward -- and we need it more than ever," he said.

In Vermont, he said, the program is funded in part by the Freeman Foundation.

S.I.T. officials plan to renovate the recently purchased barn -- where the presentations (but not the play) took place -- with help from a gift from Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., and Steve Lowey, a former chairman of the World Learning board of trustees. It will be called The Lowey Center for World Learning.

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