Djembe - Concordia College

26
Where was the immersion? There was simply no attempt to reach out to the Italian
culture. In a global give-and-take relationship, some Americans, including myself at times, have
an impeccable ability to take all they can, leaving visited lands feeling nothing but abused.
Arriving at our hotel to get some rest with my band-mates, I vowed that we would
emancipate ourselves from the blatant tourism that was thrust upon us by the organizing officials
and band directors. We came to Europe to learn not just about the architecture and history, but
about the people with whom we directly and indirectly interacted.
We roused ourselves early the next morning and boarded a small tourism boat that was
destined for Venice, the City of Water. Hopping off the boat we, again, amassed as a large cloud
that slowly gravitated toward a central speaker. But I had a different plan in mind. My friends and
I were not going to take part in the tourist activities planned for that day. Like condensing rain,
we built up courage and dropped away gracefully from our cloud of tourism to be immediately
engrossed by Italians. As we proceeded through the endless alleyways, I could tell this was the
start of something beautiful.
We broke as many stereotypes as we could, attempting to speak with the people as
often as possible. Having taken a few years of French, I used the language as my main means
of communication. A surprising amount of people were able to glean messages from my broken,
half-learned tongue, and we managed to have a few laughs with locals. One such instance was
with a man of about twenty years with whom we shared an affection for aviator sunglasses.
We managed to connect not solely with language, but through other similarities like clothing,
accessories, and sports. A simple observation or shared feature, followed by a smile demonstrating
our commonalities, was the only means of communication necessary to develop our bonds.
After numerous hours of wandering the side streets and unable to pinpoint our location
on any maps, we stumbled upon a small pizzeria. We feasted on various types of fresh Italian
pies and attempted weak conversation with our waiter. He surprised us with his comprehension
of foreign languages, speaking in no less than six different tongues. My ability to speak in broken
French phrases was no longer deemed impressive. Even though this waiter was completely fluent in
English, we were persistent in our efforts to speak other languages with him. This was the culture,
the experience, the entire idea I had been waiting for throughout the whole trip. Just because we
were American did not mean we had to do things the American way. Through our snippets of banter
with this man, we were disproving the
stereotypes affiliated with American
tourists worldwide.
With satisfyingly full
stomachs, we walked around the city
like local inhabitants. We became lost
in a matter of minutes due to so many
alleys and so few accurate maps. After
about an hour of aimless meandering
we came across a body of water. This
sight of endless blue, which one of
my friends so markedly claimed was
the ocean, was evidence that we had
indeed travelled across the entire island
of Venice. High-fives were exchanged,