I was recently described as a Third Culture Kid. If you are not familiar with this concept, it consists of a bundle of stereotypes attributed to people who, having grown up in different countries and under the influence of distinct cultures, develop a somewhat confused cultural identity, a bilingual internal voice, severe anxiety over the word ‘home’ and 31 other characteristics that BuzzFeed dwindled down quite effectively. Today, I’m less than a week away from leaving one of my homes and adding yet another ‘home address’ to my repertoire. This time in Bangalore, India. If you know me really well, you already know my story and are already anticipating a Latin-Indian accent in my English upon my return; but for those of you who don’t, read on.
I’m a die-hard Ecuadorian who unfortunately only got to live in Ecuador for three years before moving to the Dominican Republic. I picked up my first Spanglish words in Santo Domingo and learned to sing, hand on heart, my first national anthem. I thought myself an authentic Dominican to the amusement of my parents, until Peru, and its Inca mambo came into my life making Lima my new home, altering my Spanish accent and conditioning my taste buds to Peruvian cuisine – pretty much ruining my life forever because nothing will ever taste as good. When I turned 18, I gave up my summers and moved to Canada to pursue International Development Studies in the University of Toronto. IDS changed my life. It has shaped and given direction to the experiences, thoughts and questions that came up while growing up in Latin America, and now, it’s giving me the opportunity to travel to India as part of my IDS co-op placement. This will be the farthest I’ve ever been from home, but I think I can get used to it. Especially if ’home’ comes to me for New Year’s (mamajiii).
In case you’re curious about my internship; I will be working for the Centre for Internet and Society, a research institute based in Bangalore. I will be Research Assistant for a project called Citizen Action in Network Societies funded by Hivos Knowledge Programme. The project aims to create a framework to understand the role of citizens in emerging network societies and the way in which technology creates new conditions, actors and catalysts of social change (!!! I drooled when I first read the job description) I find it extremely exciting! I can list a bunch of reasons why, but mainly because it touches on citizenship, identity and political action; issues that have deeply affected my research interests over the last few years and have also reinforced my commitment to work towards change and social justice in Latin America. Honestly, I can’t wait to be there and be faced with new challenges all around, and just learn. A lot.
So, nada! Time to leave home again. Oddly enough, this is the first time since I left Ecuador that I will stay in the same country for one whole year. I’m curious to see how that goes. I will update this blog as much as possible to keep family, friends and whoever’s curious in the loop. Expect stories, pictures, fun facts, videos, and just about anything to shut Joshua Gisby up whenever he dares to insult my tiny fingers for not keeping in touch. Y ya! Off to Bangalore then!! Manden vibras!