By: Julie
Kaufman, Administrative Assistant, President's Office-Royal
Oak/Southfield Campus
For eighteen years, Oakland Community College (OCC) has had an exchange program with the educational system in Oaxaca, Mexico. Annually, delegations of administrators/faculty and students from OCC spend a week in Oaxaca and administrators/faculty and students from Oaxaca visit OCC.
The last visit of administrators/faculty occurred the week of October 12, 2009. This delegation was interested in recycling and emergency services training. Doug Riddering, the OCC coordinator of this program, arranged for the delegation to visit the South Oakland County Regional Recycling Authority (SOCRRA), the Pontiac Water Treatment Plant, the Orion Garbage Dump, the Troy Police Department, and the Southfield Fire Station. The group also visited Greenfield Village, the Ford Rouge Assembly Plant, and most of Oakland Community College’s sites including, and of particular interest, the Combined Regional Emergency Services Training (CREST) center located at the Auburn Hills Campus.
My husband, Don, and I had the privilege of being host to one of the visitors, Dilip Verma. This is the second time that we’ve had someone from this exchange program stay with us and both the people were wonderful and gracious guests.
The first person, Francisco Elfego Hernandez Cruz, is a biology teacher who doesn’t speak any English. At times this was challenging but not as difficult as I thought it would be and, by using an email translator, we still keep in touch.
Our last visitor, Dilip, has a very interesting and multicultural background; his father is from India, his mother is French Czech, he was raised in England, and then moved to Oaxaca 18 years ago after meeting his wife while on a vacation to Mexico. His parents currently live in Italy and his sister and her husband in Norway. He and his wife (also a teacher) have two boys and, while Dilip was staying with us, they found out they’re expecting a baby girl in February. Dilip has a degree in Astrophysics from the University of Manchester and a postgraduate certification in Education from the University of Leeds. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in educational technology offered by the Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico and the University of British Columbia, Canada. Dilip is the director of the School of Languages at Universidad Regional del Sureste and also teaches ESL courses at his university and at the local hospital.
My husband and I have found these experiences to be very enriching. Because Dilip speaks English, we learned a lot more this time about Mexico’s culture and economy. For example, while I knew wages in Mexico were generally lower than in the U.S., I also thought (falsely) that the cost of living was lower, e.g., food, housing and gasoline cost about the same as here. The impression I had from the news was that all of Mexico was under the tyranny of drug lords, however, this is only in a few areas and Oaxaca is far removed from these problems. I knew that Mexico had a national health care system, however, I didn’t know that there are very few other government-run social programs; there is nothing like social security and educational retirement packages often consist of a modest lump-sum payment. The aged rely heavily on their children to take care of them. I was surprised when Dilip commented on how good the roads were in Michigan but then understood when he explained that their streets are in terrible condition and they do not have freeway systems. Dilip drives a 1972 Volkswagen Beatle and his wife, who transports the children quite a distance to school each day, a later model VW Jetta. I was also surprised to learn that things like electronics that we can buy are much less expensive because of tariffs. We also have a wider selection of goods, such as clothing, to choose from; however, the soft goods they make are often handmade, intricate and of very good quality. Francisco and Dilip brought us beautiful gifts that were made in Oaxaca.
Oaxaca is both a state and city in Mexico (like New York, NY). The state is located in the south-eastern region of Mexico and the city and municipality, where our visitors live, is located in the central valley region of the state, in the foothills of the Sierra Madre. The city has a mild climate year-round and the landscape is beautiful. It relies heavily on tourism, which is based on its large number of colonial-era structures, the native Zapotec and Mixtec cultures and archeological sites. Dilip and his family live in a rural area of Oaxaca in a nice adobe home that requires no heating or cooling system. It’s up on a hill with a view of their garden of fruit trees, mountains and a valley below. Living in the country, Dilip’s family mostly cooks in and his boy’s favorite foods are burgers and pizza.
Over the years, an abundance of information has been shared between Oakland Community College and the Oaxacan educational system. Don and I feel honored to have hosted two really wonderful people; it truly was a worthwhile and stirring experience.
