A reflection on friendship

Photography by Kelsey Cappeta

So these are 4 of the 5 girls in Coruña, and missing out one boy, James. Every time I look at pictures like these I can't help but note the diversity of our group. We've talked about this a lot between us, and even though it's sometimes a strange combination, I love it. So let me give you the quick run down of everyone here. I probably should have done this earlier in the year, but at least I now know everyone well, and can give a good description.

So let's start with the most important, me! Just kidding, and hopefully everyone who's reading this knows about me (creepers can press that red X button right now). So, I am half Chinese, half Swedish and hailing from the great state of Connecticut. I went to public school all my life until HC, where I study Psychology and will be adding Spanish as a second major next year.

Second in our "beauty pageant" picture is Nora. She's our midwest gal from Evanston, IL right outside of Chicago. Like me, her major is Psychology, but she also has a peace and conflicts concentration. We both took Social Psychology last semester, so it was really good to get to know her while trying to understand what was going on in that class. We also wrote two 20 page papers together in spanish. Now if that's not teamwork, I don't know what is! I don't think she's done that much traveling in the past (besides going from Chicago to Worcester) and you can already tell how much more independent she's become from this experience. She's also writing a blog about her year here.

Next we have Elena here! Elena actually lives legitimately across the street from me, and living with families with young children we're able to share and understand stories. She's also usually my Sunday lunch date, like today! She's from Westchester, NY and is a born and bread Italian. Her parents both immigrated from Calabria, and she speak Italian fluently. It's fun listening to her talk about the giant quantities of food that her mom makes for every dinner, and stories of her summers in Italy. Her childhood was also really different from mine given that she's the youngest of three, with two older brothers who are 20 and 16 years older than her. She already has 7 nieces and nephews!

The last girl in our picture taken in Pontevedra is Arinelli, from Lawrence, MA aka The Mini Dominican Republic. She's told us that all of the signs in Lawrence are in Spanish, there were less than 15 white people in her high school, and that basically everyone there is Dominican. Both of her parents were born in the Domincan Republic, therefore Spanish was her first language and what she speaks at home. She also spends most of her summers hanging out at the beach at her house in DR. Although she might not have the same language issues as the rest of us, she's dealing with a whole other challenge, because she's the only one here with a boyfriend. Even though Ari and I had a Spanish class together first semester of freshman year, we never hung out or talked to each other about anything other than class. We now marvel at the fact that I've had her phone number in my contacts for the past 2 years though, yet never got to know each other.

Kelsey is our athlete! She's from New Hampshire, and joined one of the (surprisingly) very few female soccer teams in Coruña. She's one of five kids, which obviously leads to a very different childhood than mine with just one little brother. She's also very independent and a traveling extraordinaire. We took colloquial Spanish together, and I was able to see what a true planner and perfect student is like. I should probably never leave her side, and just do everything that she does when it comes to school. She's always on top of her work, and plans everything out perfectly. I mean, that sounds just like me, right?

Last, but never least, we have James! Or as we affectionately call him, Jaime. Or Jaims. James is from Lon Gisland. By that I mean Long Island. He's the one guy here, so we have to give him some credit for constantly being around all of this estrogen. James' family is full blown Croatian. Like they've spent a good amount of their summers in the little village that his family is from. He also has a good amount of stories such as ham legs hanging in the basement, singing in a croatian rock band, and playing special hand games.




Well the point of this post was to note at our diversity, and the unfortunate fact that had we all been at Holy Cross this year, most of us probably would not have been friends. I only met James once in my two years at HC, and that was after we found out that we were going to Coruña together. Elena and I had talked before since she knew my best friend Claire, but in the end we had different groups of friends. Truer words have never been said before when it comes to Arinelli, who's group of friends consists of almost all Dominicans. It's unfortunate that for all of those barriers preventing people from becoming close to people outside of their friend groups, you really do have to isolate them. I noticed this when I went to Appalachia last year for spring break, and I'm noting it again here. Everyone is so fixed in there ways at Holy Cross, that it's only when things get shaken up, and you're forced to get to know people that close bonds can really be made.
Now I know that this sounds really dramatic, but I am just so happy with the relationships that I've made this year. It's given me an opportunity to meet new people, listen to new stories, and learn about so many new cultures. After constantly spending so much time together here, it'll be interesting to see how it'll be at Holy Cross next year, when we're back with our friends from freshman and sophomore year. I'm positive that these bonds and friendships won't just disappear, but given that we'll have more than 5 other people that know our language and want to hang out with us, things will be different!
I hope everyone has enjoyed learning about the crew over here in Coruña! One last thing, a shoutout to my mom: may your lucky fleece blanket work it's magical packer powers tonight, and:

Go Pack Go!!!!!