22.33

On this week's episode, we interview a Fulbright Public Policy Fellow working in Ukraine

The American Music Abroad band tours in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

Another installment of crazy food stories features stories from around the world.

Promotional clip for the 2nd season of 22.33, a podcast of international exchange stories brought to you by the Collaboratory, an office in the Burea of Educational and Cultural Affairs, part of the U.S. Department of State.

In this week's episode, we interview a Fulbright Scholar from Togo who is at the University of Michigan, Flint conducting research on deconstructing ethnicity in African literature.

Life in Slovakia as a Fulbright English Language Teaching Assistant was often similar to what she was used to in the United States... but always just a little different, and often in humorous ways.

The main story follows Gretchen Sanders from small-town Georgia to India and traces how her new life in a completely foreign culture helped her see her situation as an American even clearer, and how becoming closer to American colleagues helped her learn much more about her own country.  The short second story is a slice of surreality from former Yugoslavia and what happens when you get what you ask for…literally.

All your life was spent moving further and further from home, from a village to a bigger village, to a city, and finally abroad, in your quest for a better education. But, now, living half a world away in Michigan, you find that the sacrifices and distances are taking their toll, that for the first time you are truly struggling. So you do something that is at once the hardest and simplest thing to do, you ask for help.

Recorded live at the Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) Conference in Washington D.C.

As a vocal trio, working without instruments and often singing in a language foreign to your audience, you're worried about how deeply you could resonate. But years and many foreign tours later, you know that not only were your initial worries unwarranted, if anything, you underestimated the power of music to connect.