PSU Magazine Winter 1989

Expanding International Dllnensions PSU faculty experience Middle Eastern and North African cultures through study-travel program. For six weeks this summe1; humanities and so– cial science faculty from PSU and OSU traveled in North Africa and the Middle East as mem– bers of a Group Study Abroad project funded by the Fulbright-Hays program. T errains ranged from the shaggy 12,000-foot mountains of Yemen to the Mediterranean beaches of Tunisia. Temperatures hit a miserable 11 5 degrees. Despite breathtaking altitudes, heat, and some fearful moments, PSU project members say their trip was the opportunity of a lifetime and their experiences people-to– people the best part. History professor Jon Mandavi lle was co-director of the Group Study Abroad project and coordinator of the tour's Yemen activities . Other PSU travelers were Lisa Andrus and Rudy Barton, department of Art; Sandra Anderson, Graduate School of Social Work ; Walter Ellis, Public Administration; and Joan Strouse, School of Education. All six declare you can't get at home what their firsthand experiences in North Africa and the Middle East afforded the emotional intensity necessary to dispel stereotypes and bring about lasting interest and involvement in Arab cultures. "My whole world has been American and European art ; the classical world ," says art hi storian Lisa Andrus. "The trip to Yemen and Tunisia opened my eyes to an incredibly fasci nating culture. It made me awfully hungry to learn more." by Pat Scott The people of Yemen and Tunisia are Arabs and their religion Islam, but the two countries are otherwise markedly different. The Yemen Arab Republic, bordering the Red Sea, is one of the ten poorest countries in the world . It has a population of nine million , an annual income of $600 per capita , and it hosts a mere 49,000 tourists per year. It has changed little during the centuries. "Yemen was like stepping back in time,"" says Andrus. "'The bui ldings are fas hioned basically of stone and mud brick. They're PSU faculty n·avelers, from left: Rudy Barton, iii-titer Ellis, Jon Mandaville, Joan Sn·ouse, Lisa Andrus and Sandra Anderson. made the same way now as they were 3,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. And the souks of San'a [open-air markets] are the same as they have been for thousands of years." Na1rnw, winding alleyways are all di sconceningly similar to foreign trave lers, and minarets dot the landscape. PSU 5