"The Israeli Voice: Telling the November 2012 Story of the life of the VCU Humphrey Fellows" by Suzan Ben-Ezra (Israel)

The adventures of the VCU Humphrey Fellows in November 2012 started with a tour to Williamsburg and Jamestown, VA, experiencing the American history first hand; it was wonderful experience. The actors and the live history that I shared with my friends was unique and helped us to understand the American history of those days. We shared this experience with Bob and Crystal that were our tour guides, friends and colleagues all together. We missed Bola and Jezelle on this tour, who could not join us.

We started with a briefing by Bob and then toured the city, heard the stories and participated in events in the spirit of the time.

In the evening we went to dinner at a local tavern.

On our way to Jamestown we took a break on the shore of James River.  Imagine if it were summer now….

Historic Jamestown was the first English settlement in the "new world". We saw restoration of the houses and boats and we shared in a group effort…..

And then we needed to rest

Pictures are worth thousands of words!

November movie night in Dos Santos family house was a cultural and happy social event. We continued our movie night tradition and shared Brazilian food and movie. Claudemir picked a police movie and we learned about the crime in Brazil. Sandra (Claudemir's wife) refined our shock from the movie with some good homemade Brazilian food J

November was a month of studying as well and we learned methods of "creating a change" with Dr. Mary Nash.

We had a visit in the Psychology lab (if you found an intoxicated mouse please help him to find his way back to the lab) :-) 

On our field trip to SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services) we met our Humphrey colleagues from John Hopkins University. Winnie Mitchell, International Officer, and Nadine Benton introduced us to the work and the different departments in SAMHSA. We heard from the heads of departments an extensive overview and opportunity for collaboration in the future. In the second day Dale Weiss, Associate Director from NIDA joined us. It was a wonderful two days of meeting our friends from John Hopkins and broadening our knowledge of SAMHSA's work.

At the end of the month Claudemir, Bola, Kouame  and me went to VSU (Virginia State University) in Petersburg, VA to share with the students healthy lunches- vegetables and fruit shakes and….pizza.

While the students enjoyed their shakes we shared with them information about our country's cultures, our work and the drug and alcohol situations in our countries.

Sooooo how do I summarize this month???!!!!

This is a typical Humphrey Fellow's month: we have cultural and historical learning, we have friends to share quality time, fun and good food, and we learn new skills and methods, enriching our networking and sharing our experience with others. All of this is during our own individual schedule and professional development activities, so I believe that from today our name will not be Hubert Humphrey Fellows….It will be: The Hubert Humphrey Super-Fellows!!