10 The DePaulia.

January 17, 2011

Nation & World

Recession’s aftermath hits DePaul
By NATALIE FICEK

Although the recession has officially been declared to be over,

Photo courtesy of Katrina Kopeck
Kenyans welcome
students with
‘open arms’
By KATRINA KOPECK
Over December intercession, 20 DePaul
students of various areas of study traveled
to Kenya as part of a short-term study
abroad.
“The people there said they welcome
us with open arms,” said senior public
policy student LeAaron Foley. “This little
8-year-old said to me, we’re a family, we’re
brothers.”
Throughout their travels around southern
Kenya, students stayed primarily in Karen,
a suburb of Kenya’s capitol, Nairobi, as
guests of the Green Belt Movement.
The Green Belt Movement (GBM),
is an organization whose mission is to
“mobilize community consciousness
for self-determination, equity, improved
livelihoods and security, and environmental
conservation,” according to GBM’s
homepage.
Not far from Karen is Kibera, the largest
slum in Kenya and arguably the largest in
all of Africa. Kibera is a community made
of tin-roofed shacks, poor sanitation, and is
the home of 800,000 to one million people.
DePaul students spent a day in Kibera
with children from Red Rose School.
They talked with students and teachers,
many students have said it changed their lives in ways they still
continue to experience.
College tuition is increasing at a faster rate compared to
family income. While the median household income in the U.S.
fell by 4.2 percent over the course of the recession, DePaul
University’s tuition increased by nearly 6 percent.
“Life is tough now,” said Nikol Gabrisakova, a freshman
majoring in psychology who said she feels the recession has
changed her life tremendously. After spending months looking
for a job, Gabrisakova said it is hard to find a job even at a store.
“I feel guilty asking my parents for money because my mom lost
her job and my dad’s business is not prospering like it was before
the recession.”
During the recession, employment of students enrolled in
colleges full-time dropped by 20 percent, while part-time student
employment fell by 7 percent. According to the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics, during this time the gap between female college
students who were more likely to be in the labor force than their
male counterparts continued to grow.
Gabrisakova’s decision to come to DePaul was due in large
part to its relative inexpensiveness and her desire to attend a
major university.
“I decided to come to DePaul because it was my cheapest
option and one of my top schools. Luckily, I qualified for
financial aid because of my parents’ financial situation. I did
not want to go to a community college because school is very
important due to the competitiveness with the job market. Graphic courtesy of MCT Wire Services
According to the National Center for Education Statistics,
during the first year of the recession, roughly 66 percent of faces the challenges of the recession. “I have to watch my
undergraduates received financial aid. spending a lot more. It used to be easier to just spend money
Gabrisakova is also financially aware when it comes to on random things, but now I have to really ask myself if I need
where she lives, choosing to live off campus to save money. certain things.”
Nevertheless, she is still worried about paying off student loans Some students such as Kopalski went to community college
in the future. before enrolling at DePaul as a way to save money.
Many students have said their spending habits changed as a “My family and friends are the same way,” Kopalski said.
result of the recession. “Before I came to DePaul, I attended a community college
“Money is tight and I need to save it so I can pay off my because I wanted to save money.”
loans,” said Karishma Riman, a freshman majoring in biology. When Martin Bednarczyk’s father lost his job he did not
“Due to the changes I do not go shopping as often because I am let it stop him from coming to DePaul. “I still went to college
saving money for everyday necessities,” said Riman who now because I knew how important it was for future success,”
spends more time cooking dinner at home instead of going out on Bednarczyk said. Now a freshman with an undecided major, he
weekends. Riman said the recession changed her driving habits said, “I wanted to major in business, but due to the recession I am
and that she only drives when absolutely necessary because of questioning my choice.”
the high gas prices. Although Bednarczyk is now questioning his major as a result
Stephanie Kopalski, a sophomore majoring in history, also of the recession, he said that his life didn’t change too much and
added, “I still go out and have fun.”
EDITORIAL

Finding adjustment in Mexico

made activity books with the children, and
donated supplies to the school.
“I loved Kibera and being at Red Rose
School,” Devin Meyer said. “Despite the
destitute look of things the people are really
genuine and sincere. The kids there are
so ambitious despite their circumstances,”
she said.
Meyer said she anticipated a great divide
of resources among the people of Kenya.
“I expected there to be a lot of poverty
and a lot of rich people. I didn’t expect
there to be such a strong middle class,”
Meyer said.
While Kenya is estimated to have a
40 percent unemployment rate, students
learned that people who lack money can
still be rich in other resources.
“They were completely happy just with
what they had,” Jaclyn Tabbert, a junior
psychology student. The DePaul students
who traveled to Kenya said their outlook
on service and community has been altered
from studying abroad.
“The way I relate to organizations has
changed because of this experience,” said
Meyer. “There are ways to put money
directly into the hands of the people who
will be using it. I want to make sure
when I give money or time I want it to go
directly to the community rather than a
huge organization like UNICEF,” she said.
“There’s a different world outside of
where we are,” said Foley. “If you get a
little uncomfortable exploring the other
parts, that’s good. It’s important that you
get out of your comfort zone, it makes you
such a more well-rounded person,” he said.
By MARGARET THOMPSON
Upon living in Mérida just over
a week, my Spanish has improved
tenfold. I find myself saying, “Lo
siento, no entiendo…” (I’m sorry, I
don’t understand) about half as often
as I was mere days ago. I am able to
confidently tell people good morning,
good afternoon and good night without
wondering if I said something wrong,
and even when I’m on the phone with
friends and family in the States I find
myself accidentally saying, “sí” instead
of “yes,” and “porque” instead of
“because.”
I’m able to get from point A to point
B with relative assurance using the bus
system, I know how to ask someone
for help if I get lost, and I know
how many pesos a Corona costs on
Thursday nights at El Cumbanchero,
the local salsa bar.
I know that when you’re hot, you
always want to say you’re calor,
not caliente, (unless you are in
fact caliente, which probably isn’t
something you want to advertise on
the street). I know that the Yucatecan
culinary special, “Pollo Pibil,” is a sure
bet at most restaurants, and that if you
are an easily-offended young American
female who doesn’t take well to being
ceaselessly ogled by the locals, this
probably isn’t the place for you.
On the list of quagmires I have yet
to solve is figuring out a polite way
to tell my host mother that there is no
hot water in my bathroom, that there
is a colony of possibly carnivorous
ants living in my bedroom, or that I
would like a little more than rice and
lettuce for dinner sometimes. (Dinners
are quite small here across the board;
lunch is the main event in most of
Latin America and Spain).
Speaking of my host mother--
her name is Maria Lucia, and she
is the nicest, most helpful Mexican
woman that I have met thus far in
Mérida. She is patient with me as we
attempt to converse in Spanish over
breakfast at 6:30 a.m., she gives me
directions everywhere I need to go,
and—channeling the spirit of my real
mother—she will not let me leave the
house if my shorts are too corto (Take
a guess at that one).
Maria Lucia has three grown
children who live here with her—
Pricilla, Patricio, and Paulina. In
this culture, it is customary to live at
home until you marry. Pricilla works
for a company based in Boston that
sells travel packages to American and
Canadian universities sending students
abroad. I see her the most out of all
my host siblings, and she speaks fluent
English because of her work.
Patricio recently graduated from
a local university, where he studied
marketing. He is currently tirelessly
looking for work, yet he always
enough free time to tell me where all
the best discotecas are (and appears to
frequent them nightly).
I see Paulina the least out of the
three—she leaves for work before I
wake in the mornings, and retreats
upstairs before I have time to talk
with her any other time of the day. It
seems that Maria Lucia, as my primary
caretaker, is the only one who takes
much notice of me. I can hardly blame
the kids for their lack of interest in
attempting to speak Spanish with me—
the family has been hosting students
from the U.S. and Canada for over
fifteen years.
As my second week in Mérida
draws to a close, I can already tell
that the most difficult task facing me
on this trip will not be learning the
language or writing ten-page papers for
my classes, but rather, deciding which
of the hundreds of exciting activities
offered to visitors of the Yucatan I can
squeeze into ten short weeks.
 Nation & World. January 17, 2011. The DePaulia 11

This week in world news

1 TERESOPOLIS, Brazil —
The power was out, but light-
ning flashes illuminated the horror
as villagers watched neighbors'
homes vanish under a wall of mud
and water, turning neighborhoods
into graveyards. Survivors dug at
the earth barehanded Thursday, but
all they found were bodies.
It was a scene of muddy de-
struction in mountain towns north
of Rio, where at least 464 people
were killed when torrential rains un-
leashed mudslides in the pre-dawn
hours Wednesday, burying people
alive as they slept. Officials would
not venture guesses on how many
people were missing — but fears
were high that the death toll could
sharply rise.
In the remote Campo Grande
neighborhood of Teresopolis, now
accessible only by a perilous five-
mile hike through mud-slicked
jungle, family members pulled the
lifeless bodies of loved ones from
2 TUCSON — From left, Ellie Steve, 6, Lucia Reeves, 6, and Zoe Reeves, 18, gather
the muck. They carefully laid the
for a candlelight vigil outside the offices U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Giffords was
corpses on dry ground, covering
critically wounded during a shooting at a political event Saturday in Tucson on Jan. 8.
them with blankets.
A young boy cried out as his fa-
ther's body was found: "I want to
see my dad! I want to see my dad!"
Flooding and mudslides are com-
mon in Brazil when the summer
rains come, but this week's slides
were among the worst in recent
memory. The disasters unduly pun-
ish the poor, who often live in rickety
shacks perched perilously on steep
hillsides with little or no foundations.
But even the rich did not escape the
damage.
"I have friends still lost in all of
this mud," said Carols Eurico, a
resident of the city's Campo Grande
neighborhood, as he motioned to a
sea of destruction behind him. "It's
all gone. It's all over now. We're put-
ting ourselves in the hands of God."
6 The calendar features black
3 7
2 5
4 2,000, recreating images of the
1 Images taken in rustic settings
5 TUNIS, Tunisia — His face was plastered all
over Tunisia, and the message was piercing:
An ageless and ubiquitous leader with a seemingly
endless grip on power.
Then came unprecedented riots and his ouster, and
the prevailing image was of a once-unthinkable nature:
On video-sharing sites, Tunisians watched footage of
protesters setting light to the photo of President Zine El
Abidine Ben Ali, their leader of 23 years.
Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi went on
state television to say he was going to assume power
in Tunisia.
In response to the riots, the president declared
a state of emergency in the North African nation,
dissolved the government and promised new legislative
elections within six months.
Ben Ali had deftly managed the economy of his
small country of 10 million, a beach haven for tourists
and beacon of stability in volatile North Africa. It
3 SANT JOAN, Mallorca —
Seeking to raise money for
their Roman Catholic youth group,
members came up with a risque
idea: Pose nearly nude for a
calendar recreating scenes from
the Passion of Christ.
The group has almost sold out
of the 10-euro ($13) calendars for
2011 and is considering another
print run because of high demand.
But Mallorca's Bishop Jesus Murgui
is blasting the effort as showing
disrespect for the most important
Catholic holiday.
"The calendar trivializes
Easter," the Bishop's office said
in a statement e-mailed to The
Associated Press on Friday.
It added: "We regret that the
religious feelings of Catholics on
this island have not been taken into
account and that Christian symbols
should not have been shown due
respect."
Members of the Davallament
Catholic group of young adults that
gives Sunday school classes say
the sheer popularity of the calendar
shows they have the public's
support. They have almost sold out
for a profit of 1,500 euros that will
be used to buy material for their
work aimed at educating young
Catholics and keeping them in the
fold.
and white shots of young men and
women of Sant Joan, population
Roman era when Christianity was
born.
include nearly naked gladiators
fighting with spears, and Roman
centurions with their buttocks
visible escorting three imprisoned
Christians wearing skimpy loin
cloths while carrying a rustic
wooden cross.
seemed as though there was a tradeoff with his
people. There was a lack of civil rights and little or no
freedom of speech, but a better quality of life than in
neighboring countries like Algeria and Libya. But it was
unemployment — officially measured at 14 percent —
that led to his downfall.

4 Port-au-Prince -- A woman holds a rosary as she prays
during a mass at the Cathedral in Port-au-Prince, Haiti,
Wednesday Jan. 12, 2011. Wednesday marked the one
year anniversary since Haiti's magnitude-7.0 earthquake that
devastated the capital and is estimated to have killed more
than 230,000 people and left millions homeless.
6 SEATTLE — A simple writing exercise can relieve
students of test anxiety and may help them get
better scores than their less anxious classmates, a
new study has found.
The report in Friday's edition of the journal Science
says students who spend 10 minutes before an exam
writing about their thoughts and feelings can free up
brainpower previously occupied by testing worries and
do their best work.
Psychologists, educators and parents have known
for a long time that the way students perform on a
test does not necessarily indicate what knowledge
they bring to the table. Test anxiety is fairly common
in classrooms, especially in the United States because
of its "increasingly test-obsessed culture," said Sian L.
Beilock, a co-author of the study.
Compiled by Rachel Metea | Photos and news courtesy of The Associated Press
7 BEIRUT — Lebanon's government collapsed
Wednesday after Hezbollah and its allies re-
signed from the Cabinet in a dispute with Western-
backed factions over upcoming indictments in the
2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik
Hariri.
A U.N.-backed tribunal investigating the truck
bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others is widely
expected to name members of the Shiite militant
group, which many fear could re-ignite sectarian vio-
lence that has erupted repeatedly in the tiny nation.
Hezbollah's walkout ushers in the country's worst
political crisis since 2008 in one of the most volatile
corners of the Middle East.