Schoolboys Abroad in Spain: Then and Now
Michael Sheehan ES'65
(Reprinted from SYA's 40th Anniversary Commemorative, 2005)
The first blip on my radar was an email appearing in my inbox: A planned celebration of the 40th anniversary of School Year Abroad. My initial reaction was not a lack of interest, but rather a certain disinterest. I had been a participant in 1964-1965 in the first year of the program — then called Schoolboys Abroad — but memories of my year in Barcelona had dimmed with the passage of four decades and the general commotion of life and career. Contact among the 11 of us who shared that first-year experience has been sparse ... A gathering in Washington, DC on the occasion of our 25th anniversary (my first contact with any classmate for 25 years), I remember as a cordial but not overly moving experience. And in each issue of the School Year Abroad Newsletter, there has rarely been any news reported under the heading "Spain '65."
All of which is to say that I’m not sure exactly why I decided to travel to Spain for the 40th anniversary observance. But decide I did, and armed with my journal from 1964-64 — coverless, dog-eared, and long-unread — and a virgin notebook for new jottings, I headed tentatively for a city I hadn’t been in for 40 years to visit with people I hadn’t seen in 15 years. Now, one month later, I am still pulsing with energy from the experience. I attribute that adrenalin-like rush to three stimuli: rediscovering a lost love, the pride that comes from seeing a loved one mature and thrive, and friendships that transcend time.
My lost love was the city of Barcelona. Flying over the Atlantic, I read a journal entry recalling my initial sense of Barcelona:
September 12, 1965: Arrived in Barcelona last night late. Spent today walking around. It’s a very pretty city with wide, clean streets and fountains that are illuminated at night . . . I think I’m going to like it here in Barcelona.
Over the school year, my first impression did not change. How many miles did I log over those months walking the city? Sometimes I walked on class tours. Sometimes I walked with one or two friends. Often I walked alone for the sheer joy of exploration. My journal reminds me that walking wasn’t necessarily a choice driven by economy…
Things here are really cheap. Three cents to ride the subway and five cents for a beer.
Over the decades following my year there, I had heard many negative reports about Barcelona: Explosive growth had turned the city into sprawling industrial blight. With the demise of Franco and the iron fisted Guardia Civil had come ubiquitous petty crime that made walking the streets risky and unpleasant. The whole city – once clean and safe – had taken on a shabby, derelict aspect.
Now, upon checking in at the hotel, I ventured out for a quick walk. I had been on a plane all night with little restful sleep, and wasn’t up for much---just a quick walk to unkink the knee joints.
April 10, 2005: Then we set off to explore. Down Passeig de Gracia, past the two Antoni Gaudí buildings, La Pedrera and Casa Miró. To Plaza Cataluña and on down the Ramblas . . . flower vendors, bird vendors, living statues . . . outdoor cafés filling fast. Babel of tongues . . .Two days later, I grudgingly stopped walking Barcelona when I had to board the train for Zaragoza. Impressions quickly scribbled on the flight home tell the story:
April 14, 2005: Barcelona. A city to love. From the instant we hit the street on Saturday morning for a Ramblas stroll, I felt entirely comfortable — as though I had never left. An architectural feast . . . stone and wrought iron. The Gaudí structures are jewels, but the whole city is an architectural delight. Clean. Few beggars. Safe crosswalks. Has to be one of the world’s great walking cities.
Maybe the deck was stacked in my favor. I didn’t venture out into the areas of explosive growth, confining my ramblings to the city I knew in 1965. I was with friends sharing memories. And the weather was sunny and inviting. But Barcelona was mine in 1965, and after 40 years it reclaimed its special place in my heart, an old flame rekindled.
In Zaragoza, two days observing the School Year Abroad program in action left me with one over-riding impression: The caterpillar that was the program in 1965 has morphed into a gorgeous butterfly. In its inaugural year, the program was plagued with organizational problems. My 1965 journal repeatedly attests to chaos on the level of daily planning: missed trains, bad directions, lost students, no tickets. Worse than the miscues that derailed daily plans, the school had trouble finding suitable host families, and the delay in moving into a Spanish home severely limited the all-important family experience for us all. Several of our native teachers, while highly competent in their areas of study, had little appreciation for the special circumstances of their young foreign students, and they contributed very little to the social fabric of the school outside class.
My brief time in Zaragoza for the 40th anniversary revealed a highly structured program (albeit with the delightful, noisy surface chaos of any high school crammed into a tiny facility); students who enjoy a full school year with their host family (many of whom repeat hosting from year to year); a buffet of cross-cultural experiences (structured and non-structured); and teachers who not only bring disciplinary excellence, but also a true affinity for the original vision of School Year Abroad as a bridge between cultures. And the students … After lunch in small groups, each including alumni, SYA administrators and several students, I note …
Kids charming, smart and funny. Very at ease. On the street after lunch, I asked a student if they were prepped in any way for lunch with the alumni. “We were just told we’d be having lunch with some old people.”Earlier in this report, I gave the impression that my contact with School Year Abroad since 1965 had been virtually nonexistent. Full disclosure prompts me to amend that by revealing that in the last 10 years I have interviewed a handful of applicants to the program. I have always felt that my participation was something of an expedient for school and applicant — a stopgap measure to save the expense of the student traveling to a “real” school representative. In fact, I have begun interviews by informing the applicants that I am not a representative of School Year Abroad in the strict sense. I really know nothing about the program other than what transpired 40 years ago (before the applicant’s parents were born, I think, but don’t voice). I saw my contribution to the application process as being a passionate belief in the benefit of spending a high school year abroad (with any good program) and some capacity, based on my life experiences, to judge an applicant’s ability to benefit from such an experience and at the same time to be a good representative of our country overseas.
My brief time in Zaragoza has changed that dynamic radically. I can now share with applicants that SYA is a thriving, topnotch organization that will offer them the structure and support that gives them the freedom to make their year abroad one of the most important experiences of their life. I have always believed in the mission. Now I believe in the program. I have always been aware of the value to me personally of my year abroad. I returned from this anniversary trip with great pride in having played a small part in what SYA has grown to be.
All SYA students share a bond as a result of their year abroad. Having said that, in many ways, our experience in Spain ’65 was worlds apart from that of today’s SYA student. It was a different time in Spain, with Franco’s dictatorship firmly and sternly in control; the Civil War a festering wound illustrated daily by the ever-present and numerous black-clad war widows. Contact with our American families was sporadic and only by letter. Cell phones did not exist, and making a call by landline was a daunting and expensive proposition rarely undertaken. Eleven of us lived together much of the year in a pensión with relatively little contact with Spaniards of our age and with virtually no adult supervision. Much of the time we were simply left to figure it all out on our own. Sometimes we worked through it individually; frequently we sorted it out as a group.
Forty years later, I experienced the dividend from that communal experience when fully half our class gathered in Barcelona to share the memories. Six of eleven is a stunning turnout, and I know that others would have come — wanted desperately to come — had they not had inescapable work commitments. But it is not the raw numbers that leave me, these many weeks later, still vibrant at the memory. It is the quality of the time we spent together. I have always been aware that there are some friendships that transcend time. For those lucky people, a meeting after years without contact shows no awkwardness. There is no shallow need to “catch up” on the mundane details of our lives over the intervening years. Rather, the talk is of who we are now and of hopes and plans for the future.
Our time in Barcelona for SYA 40th had that magic quality. So much laughter. So much human warmth. So much joy. So much compassion. That chemistry is obviously a product of who we are as people. But I believe that for the six of us who gathered after 40 years in Barcelona, who we are as people is inextricably related to the year we spent together in School Year Abroad.