Welcome, Bea
Bea Chang joined FIUTS last week as our new Manager of Community Programs and we’re so glad to welcome her to our office! She will be working with our hosts, homestay programs, communications, Wednesday lunches, and lots more—all of the wonderfully large shoes left behind by Ellen Frierson, who is moving into her new role as our Manager of Education Programs. Here’s Bea, introducing herself to the FIUTS community:
Neither of us spoke much Spanish. Like the two other Americans we met in Peru, we had somehow come away after three years of high school Spanish with little beyond hola and gracias. But, there we were, eating with what we could only guess as a single mother, a soft, gentle woman in a heavy skirt and wool pullover, and her young daughter. Outside, the sky over the Amanati Island was quickly fading to a charcoal black; I could make out the faces of our hosts only by the one candlelight on the ground. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about in that staggered conversation, that encounter of broken languages and gestures, but I do remember the soft brush of the breeze as it lifted off of Lake Titicaca and up through the hillside, in through the door-less hut of a kitchen, and wanting so desperately to pocket that moment and take it home with me.
I guess it is possible to say that I came to Seattle by way of Singapore and Honduras and 50 some odd countries to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in order to write about these experiences, of kind hosts and cultural connections. And I did. I spent years during and after my residency trying to convey to anyone who would listen about how a nomadic family in a yurt in Mongolia slaughtered a lamb for my friend’s birthday and how a couple in Japan picked us up so we wouldn’t miss the once in a week train that raced in and out of their village. I wrote about the wonderful culture I found in Singapore, where I spent a year and a half first as a Princeton-in-Asia fellow and then an Asia Pacific Sports Management coach; I put into words my six-month stint as a teacher in a port town in Honduras. Then, somewhere between an AmeriCorps VISTA term at UW’s Center for Leadership in Athletics and founding Basketball Education in Action, I discovered FIUTS. As the Manager of Community Programs, I am thrilled to use my love for traveling and community to connect the local to the international, to recreate in real life, for real people, what I tried to do on paper.
At a time when information is everywhere but our world seems fractured and conflicted, I, like the staff at FIUTS, believe in the power of positive connections and mutual understanding. I’d like to play a small role in bringing the richness of the world to Seattle doorsteps, and to bring a little of Seattle (“Ah, Seattle…Twilight, right? You really have vampires?”) to the world.
In my free time, I coach high school basketball girls. In my actual free time, I still like to write and hike and make an adventure out of just about anything.
So does my companion, a blue alien.
Want to get in touch with Bea? Email bea@fiuts.org.