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My Fulbright Life

Transcript For: Fulbrighter Catherine Daly in Sri Lanka.

Fulbrighter Catherine Daly discusses her Fulbright experience in Sri Lanka.

My Fulbright Life: Catherine Daly, Sri Lanka

Lee:                  Hello and welcome to My Fulbright Life. I’m your host, Lee Rivers, and joining me today is Catherine Daly. Catherine is a recent Fulbright alum who did her research and study in Sri Lanka back in 2008, during the academic school year. Thanks for joining us today, Catherine. I really appreciate you being with us.

Catherine:         You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.

Lee:                  Certainly. So, Catherine, tell me a little bit about where in Sri Lanka you were doing your Fulbright.

Catherine:         I was based in Colombo, the capital, which is on the west coast, but a lot of my research included some of the communities that are located along the beaches, where the tourists go. So I spent a lot of time traveling down the west coast and along the southern coast, down to Galle which is another major city in Sri Lanka and some of the little beach resorts along the ocean as well.

Lee:                  Sounds rough!

[laughter]

Catherine:         It was definitely beautiful.

Lee:                  Wonderful. Well tell us a little bit about what led you to apply for the Fulbright grant and tell us a little bit about your proposal as well.

Catherine:         Absolutely. Well, I first became interested in Sri Lanka when I was a senior in college. I was taking a post-colonial literature class- I was an English major- and we read Michael Ondaatje’s memoir called Running in the Family. It was fictionalized, but he lived in Sri Lanka until he was about 12, before his family left. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him, but he is a really beautiful writer and he was able to convey the magic of this place. I was totally captivated by the idea of Sri Lanka. So I kept that at the back of my head, always wanted to go and see what it was like. And during my masters coursework at Penn I took a class where I began studying sex trafficking in the Balkans. And just doing some research on that, which involved a lot of women from Eastern Europe being trafficked into Croatia and Bosnia, piqued my interest in the idea of the sex trade and human trafficking and the way that these issues are not necessarily addressed by governments who are more concerned with dealing with drugs and arms trafficking than the devaluing of human life. And so I was interested in that and my professional work at that point was directing an after-school program for at risk youth in West Philadelphia. So what I did was I combined my interest in Sri Lanka, my interest in sex tourism and sex trafficking, and my interest in advocating on behalf of at risk youth and the proposal jelled really nicely because Sri Lanka was actually the first country in South Asia to develop a zero tolerance action plan to combat child sex tourism.

Lee:                  Interesting.

Catherine:         Yeah, that development was through Unicef with the Sri Lanka Tourist Board and they put together a plan that they were rolling out over a few years to raise awareness in the country among tourists and citizens about the issues that they face there.

Lee:                  Very cool. And so talk a little bit about, a little bit more about your proposal and who you affiliated with in Sri Lanka.

Catherine:         Well, the first thing that I did was I tried to find people who had links to Sri Lanka in Philadelphia or on the East Coast that I could speak to about this. So I contacted the Sri Lanka club at Penn and I started taking Sinhalla language lessons from one of their members so that I could start to familiarize myself with the culture a little bit. I also reached out to some academics who taught issues related to South Asia or Sri Lankan subjects and I kind of just followed up from there.

                        So contacting Sinhalese people, and asking them about their affiliations in Sri Lanka kind of allowed me to develop affiliations with organizations in Sri Lanka. For example, I contacted a professor at Temple who was friends with the director of a pretty prominent NGO in Sri Lanka. He put me in touch with them and they ended up being one of my affiliate organizations, International Peace Council. I also contacted the Sri Lanka tourist board directly and began communicating with them on the prospect of working with them on the Zero Tolerance Action Plan.

Lee:                  What is the language and what was your level of proficiency before you ended up going to Sri Lanka, before you went on the grant?

Catherine:         Well it wasn’t… my level of proficiency was not very good and I actually never achieved a high level of proficiency. The language is Sinhalla and also Tamil. Sinhalla is Indo-Arayan, Tamil is a Dravidian language. The business medium in Sri Lanka is English. And I think that’s part of the issue for me. Being based in Colombo I was around a lot of people who worked in English so I didn’t really have the change to exercise my language skills the way I might have had I been stationed in a place that was more rural or remote with people who were not as comfortable in English. But I also took language lessons while I was there from British Council and had a wonderful teacher. So, it was something that I did really want to work on, but it was a little difficult.

Lee:                  Understood. So, take us through a typical day for you. I’m sure every day was a little bit different, but what could we kind of expect if we were to walk in your shoes for a day. Who would you interact with, where would you be going and what sorts of things would you be doing throughout the day?

Catherine:         Well, early on in my project I ended up branching out from the tourist board because their vision for my work with them involved a more 9 – 5 role which I wasn’t interested in because I was there to do independent research. So I struck out on my own using the connections that I already had, as well as some I was provided with by a political officer at the U.S. Embassy. I kept contacting people. Basically any and everyone who would be affiliated with combating child sex tourism or affiliated with psycho-social support. I contacted Unicef, multiple NGOs that were working on the behalf of children, directors of children’s homes. I ended up interviewing various judges in the courts and also going into the prisons. So I really let me research take me in a bunch of different directions but my typical day would involve- well you know you can’t really get anywhere without a tri-shaw, those little three wheeled taxis! So that was something I was doing everyday, riding along-

Lee:                  I bet you have some stories from that experience for sure.

Catherine:         [laughing] Yeah. I do, I do. We had some buddies at the end of our road that always took us on our trips around Colombo so… I would generally set up interviews and I had a digital recorder and I would go in and I would ask questions related to my project and I would try to get other connections or links from the people I was speaking to so I could then contact those people and try to establish a greater sense of understanding of the issues they were facing and the type of work that they were doing. And then, you know, I would also travel outside of the capital to these Southern beach areas and also to Negombo which is north of Colombo and that was an area notorious for its commercial exploitation of children in the sexual realm. So, I tried to move around a lot. I think that that was pretty important in terms of gaining a fuller sense of the picture.

Lee:                  Good, good. So talk to us about transitioning into the new environment that you were in. What were some of the challenges that came with that and how did you address them? How were you perceived as an outsider and how did you balance, kind of, trying to fit in but at the same time maintaining your American identity as well.

Catherine:         Well, Colombo is a really small place. So any new arrivals who were foreigners get a lot of attention through various functions at the embassy or with… you know we went to some events at the Ambassador’s house. There’s a small culture of people who work in NGOs who are from US or other countries and they all kind of cluster together so in that way your circle is sort of small if you confine yourself to that but I also definitely tried to step outside of that realm. One of the challenges that kind of wore on me was being so conspicuous. Just being a woman walking on the street who was obviously a westerner and wasn’t proficient in the language. That could be kind of difficult and a little tiring. But I think that honestly my main challenge was the heat. That equatorial sun every day, you know, it wasn’t just hot but it was polluted and humid as well. That, I think, was the main challenge for me living there, acclimating to that and I don’t think I ever truly did.

Lee:                  You talked about what you did there during the course of the day. What about during your downtime, whether that’s at night or early mornings maybe, what did you do in your downtime?

Catherine:         We went out a lot with our friends. We were friends with all the people who worked at the Embassy, I had Sri Lankan friends, and I was also friends with some of the other ex-pats who were there working with NGOs. So we would go out for dinner or dancing, things like that. And I did a lot of traveling also. I was lucky enough to have some visitors come while I was there so. Sri Lanka is about the size of Ireland, or West Virginia, so pretty small. And I’m sure, as you know, there are certain sections of it that are forbidden to travel in as a US citizen because of the civil war and the violence. But you can travel throughout most of it and it’s incredibly varied. I mean, there’s pretty much everything except snow on this island.

Lee:                  Oh wow.

Catherine:         I did that circuit about three times and we went up to the tea plantations, I saw the ancient capitals. They have a number of UNESCO World Heritage sites there. And of course, the beaches and rain forests, some safari areas, some natural preserves- I actually didn’t do that but I did pretty much everything else. And they have a world famous surfing site called Arugam Bay that gets waves directly from Antarctica so. I traveled through there but I didn’t surf; it was the off season.

Lee:                  That’s awesome. I’ve actually read about that before.

Catherine:         Have you?

Lee:                  Yeah. Can you give us… maybe there’s a highlight or a snapshot from your experience in Sri Lanka that whenever you think of your Fulbright experience, this that comes to mind. Do you have anything like that?

Catherine:         Yeah, you know, I did a lot of interviews in offices with people who were working for NGOs, people who were working for Unicef, psycho-social specialists, and things like that. But, my most memorable time was when I got to step outside of the office, when I visited the children’s homes, when I spoke with people who were advocating for equal rights for the gay and lesbian population of Sri Lanka, when I visited the prisons and got a chance to speak to some of the women who are being held there as well as some of the men. I think those types of interactions were what resonated with me the most, and although I’m incredibly grateful to the people who took the time to speak to me, the professionals who were working on these issues, there’s really nothing like speaking to people who are affected by issues. If you’re really driven and interested in a certain topic, I think that that’s often the most rewarding way to explore it. So that I think was the hallmark of my time there, being able to visit those children’s homes and speak to other people who are dealing with various issues

Lee:                  Just kind of talk about the opportunity the Fulbright gave you to further explore your interests and your passions.

Catherine:         You know, I think it’s a pretty incredible thing that they give you a stipend to go live in another country and to do research that you care about. That’s an unbelievable opportunity. And I’ve heard that the levels of accountability once you’re in country vary depending on the program and the program director. The Sri Lanka Fulbright office is wonderful. They were supportive and also very encouraging that we strike out on our own. So, you know, they drew us back in to give presentations on our research, and we had events where we could meet people. They made sure that we were introduced to the culture and society of Colombo and Sri Lanka and that we always felt that we could turn to them whenever we needed anything, but we very much had to take care of ourselves which I think is a really nice balance. I will always be grateful to the Fulbright program for the opportunity it has afforded me. Really I don’t know of many chances that people have to be able to go and spend a bunch of time doing something that they care about and not be pressured to do other things at the same time like earn money, or care for other things, or correspond with people on regarding issues outside of the scope of what you’re really looking at.

Lee:                  Exactly. Well part of this podcast, Catherine, is to really just share with those students, and those young professionals who are interested in applying for the Fulbright. I’d just like you to maybe share some insight, maybe share just some hints for those who are possibly on the fence about whether or not they should do this and maybe give some more insight into the application process. Some things that were helpful to you.

Catherine:         Absolutely. I think the most important element of your application is that it is generated from an interest that feels integral to your life, whether intellectual or otherwise. It seems to me from the other Fulbrighters I’ve met, as well as in my own experience, that the application is not formulaic. That you’re being driven by an issue, or topic or study that feels larger than just an individual pursuit. So I think that if you find something that you’re really interested in, it’s very helpful if you can find a country that corresponds really well. I think that that’s one of the vital elements of a successful Fulbright application is, “why this country? Why this issue? Why those two things together?” I think it also really helps if you have academic advisors who know you well enough to write recommendations that relate to why you’d be well suited for this type of research, rather than them not really having a sense of your interests. And I would say, definitely go for it. I mean it’s a grueling process and I mean I wasn’t sure about whether or not I would receive one and it was definitely a test in a lot of ways but when I found out that I did receive a Fulbright, it was a really wonderful moment. Take your time with it, start early, and think about the things you care abut, think about the places that you’d like to go, think about how you can bring the two of those together in a really organic way. And then just start putting your application together, start reaching out to people, try to contact organizations in the country that are relevant to your research far in advance. Your correspondence with other people in the U.S. via email everyday is not mirrored in other parts of the world. You might need to make some long distance phone calls, send an email again and again, but pursue it, keep after it and hopefully you’ll meet with some success.

Lee:                  That’s awesome insight Catherine. And tell us, what excuses, do you think, like fully legitimate excuses could you have made to not do this?

Catherine:         I think it’s important to demystify the Fulbright, in a way, because for some people that name has so many connotations. I can’t even imagine what they are for other people, but for me sometimes it’s like, “oh I could never do that,” you know? But I did. And so I think if I can share that with someone, the fact that whether or not you don’t think you’re suited for it, you very well might be, you know. And especially if your interest is really something that you carry with you all the time, I think that that will resonate in your application and that might shine in a way above and beyond perfect academics, or a ton of extracurriculars. You know, if you really do your research and you put your time in, I think that the committees that evaluate the applications recognize that.

Lee:                  I agree completely. I think it really does kind of start with having a passion, having an interest, and then just believing that you can do it and putting the work behind it.

Catherine:         Absolutely. The first step is just believing that you can do it. So keep that with you and build on that.

Lee:                  Exactly. Great, Catherine. Well, thank you so much. Are there any final words of wisdom that you would like to share with our listeners?

Catherine:         I would say, for those of you that apply and are awarded Fulbright grants, just, when you get there, do absolutely everything that you’re offered. I mean, dive in, speak to people, travel outside your comfort zone, do things that you would never have done before because at the end of your grant you’re going to wonder where your time went and you’re going to want to make sure that you spent all of those months in the fullest way possible. And that sense, of having really immersed yourself in the culture is what you’ll carry with you beyond any specific memory or sense of achievement. I think that my greatest joy and satisfaction when I reflect on that time is feeling as though I tried to do everything that was available to me during this really incredible period in my life.

Lee:                  Thank you once again for taking time out of your day to share with us Catherine. I really appreciate it.

Catherine:         You’re welcome. Thank you Lee.

Lee:                  This concludes this episode of My Fulbright Life. I hope you join us next time. Good bye.