"Throughout the years I have encountered people with interesting ideas on Colombia. Some have asked about its location, most have mentioned cocaine, others have asked if we speak Portuguese... Colombian Weekend is an invitation to explore a different face of Colombia."
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The theme of this column is narrating a transnational or cross-cultural experience that has indelibly shaped one's life. For our author today, Leipzig-based Ukrainian writer Svetlana Lavochkina, such an experience has been learning English, and the mark left by the fascinating, rambunctious character from back home who instilled that love for the language in her,
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Today, Diana wraps up her series by narrating what it has been like for her to finally meet and enter the "real life" of her penpal Genia, and also to see Russia for herself.
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"My sudden love affair with Aitmatov nearly made me flunk my German exam in tenth grade. 'Heroes of Our Everyday Socialist Life' was to be the topic of our written compositions. I wrote an essay about Aitmatov’s novel The Place of the Skull. [My German teacher] managed to save me from flunking. But Aitmatov saved
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"In history class, I single-handedly denigrated the Soviet Union. We were sitting with our textbooks open. I felt bored. There was a photo of Lenin on the page. With my ballpoint pen, I drew Lenin an earring and a Mohican haircut... Forty years earlier in Thuringia, a schoolgirl had adorned a portrait of Stalin with
MorePart II of this five-part series depicts the beginning of the accidental pen-pal relationship between Diana growing up in the GDR and a girl growing up in the Soviet Union - the pivot of the whole story. We welcome readers to share their transnational cultural experiences with us, as well.
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