COURTESY OF FRAN TAFFER ON TOP OF THE WORLD Fran Taffer spent the fall of her junior year in the Himalayas

During our junior year, my friends and I traveled the world; we were among the nearly 20% of University of Michigan students who leave Ann Arbor to study abroad. We lived in flats in London with college friends, stayed in dorms in China with native students, rented apartments in Florence and lived with "home-stay" families in Chile. I spent my fall semester living in Nepal, a tiny developing country nestled in the Himalayas of Central Asia.

As an anthropology major, I wanted to develop knowledge of a foreign culture beyond what the classroom could offer. While I lived in Kathmandu, I took classes in Nepali language, religion, politics and ecology from native teachers. The material I learned in class was inseparable from my daily life. Wherever I went, I was encouraged to practice my Nepali. I lived with a wonderful home-stay family with whom I celebrated Hindu festivals. My classmates and I took field trips to some of the holiest Hindu and Buddhist temples in the world and visited important political institutions.

Living in Nepal was the most challenging four months I had ever experienced. I fell in love with the Nepali people and with the raw beauty of life and scenery that engulfed me. As everything I had understood in life rearranged itself — or disappeared before me — I felt myself alive as never before. I saw a woman carry 200 lbs. of water on her back, in a jug held in place by a strap around her forehead. I saw a man spend a full day prostrating himself before a temple. I lived with people who will eat rice and lentils twice a day their whole lives.

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My afternoons and weekends were spent exploring Kathmandu. One Saturday I sat by the bank of the holy Bagmati River, amid the ancient temples of Pashupatinath, watching a cremation ceremony. Across the water, four men dressed in white danced, moaning and wailing in song, around a lifeless body. As the body burned and turned to ash, it was swept up by the river. The gray ash mixed with the orange flowers and bowls of red powder that had been placed as offerings to the water. Naked children laughed and splashed nearby, jumping from the rocks along the shore. Brightly clothed women came to collect the water for daily cleaning and cooking. I sat transfixed by the scene along the river, as a cycle of life unfolded before me.

The greatest thing about Nepal, I found, is its people. I was amazed by the number of Nepalis who appreciate the preciousness of each moment. Their smiles, laughter and generosity evoked reciprocal impulses in me. My journal from those months records my search to understand their happiness and my constant questions as to why I, with all the luxuries and resources these people do not have, am not always as satisfied.

My semester in Nepal changed me deeply. When I returned to America, I saw our culture with new eyes. I now appreciate each hot shower and load of machine-washed laundry. I notice each ambulance, library and day-care center — common conveniences in our society that I often took for granted. I consider each conversation I have as a way to learn. I am more conscious of the power of a smile.

When I returned to classes last spring, my study of anthropology became more intense. Nepal is a country in which religion is inseparable from daily life, where most people have arranged marriages and live in joint households, and where the products and ideas of Western society have only recently begun to be felt. Not only do I better understand these cultural forces individually, but I also realize how they are linked to most other aspects of society. I have a greater appreciation for how a culture shapes the choices its people make.

Although the experiences of my friends were completely different from mine, there is a common knowledge that we share. It is the knowledge of another place, of another life we have lived. Study-abroad programs are a special opportunity: there are few other times in life when travel and study can so easily come together. My semester in Nepal will always be one of my most cherished college memories.

Source: TIME/The Princeton Review's The Best College For You 2001

Way to Go!

Francis bacon wrote, "travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education." It looks as if many U.S. undergraduates agree.

• Some 114,000 American students — almost 10% of B.A. candidates — study abroad each year.
• Students abroad tend to study the humanities and social sciences (35%) or business management (16%). Only 8% go to foreign countries to study a language.
• Most students go for a semester or the summer; fewer than 10% spend an academic year abroad.
• As Buffy the Vampire Slayer says in her movie, "All I want to do is graduate from high school, move to Europe, marry Christian Slater and die." That may not be every woman's dream, but females do outnumber males, roughly 74,000 to 40,000, in overseas-study programs.
• The Top Five favorite destinations are Britain, Spain, Italy, France and Mexico.
• Latin America is getting hot! One in every seven students goes south of the border to study. The Top Five destinations are Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Chile and Brazil.
• The institutions that send the greatest number of students are Michigan State; the University of Texas, Austin; the University of Pennsylvania; the University of Arizona; and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

  Source: "Open Doors 1998-99: Report on International Educational Exchange"
  

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