International students often find it hard to adapt to life in Laramie — with the cold, the cowboys and the culture, Wyoming can be a disorienting experience.
For international graduate assistants the struggle is doubled. Not only do they have to learn how to live here, they have to teach, too.
Chipiliro Kalonde, known to friends and students as Chipi, came to the University of Wyoming about a year and a half ago from the small African nation of Malawi. He came to the U.S. to study the political system and now helps grade papers and teach various International Studies classes while he works on his master’s degree.
“I actually found UW through a Google search,” said Kalonde. “I Googled universities with a good international program, and UW came up. I thought the campus looked really nice, so I decided to come here.”
Kalonde likes it here in Laramie, but he’s experienced some challenges. Though he enjoys the small size of Laramie and feels that it makes it easier to study, his main problem is with the weather.
“It’s so cold here. It’s been really difficult to adapt,” he said. “I wouldn’t even say I’ve adapted — I’d say that I tolerate the cold now. And it’s really hard to tolerate it, too.”
Besides the weather, Kalonde encountered many cultural differences when he came here. Though he feels that he’s adapted well, for the most part, there are still some things that give him pause.
“The American way of approaching issues is completely different. They like to tackle problems head-on and deal with them,” said Kalonde. “But back home we’d talk around them and beat around them.”
Kalonde has experienced other problems with the American way of communication beyond just discussing issues.
“Personal space is really important here, everyone seems to want their space. My home is a really cramped country, there just isn’t room for everyone to have space,” Kalonde said.
Kalonde has no problem getting physically close to people, but building relationships has been tougher.
“Americans in general were hard to make friends with, at least at first, and a lot of people say that to me, that they’re hard to get to know,” he said. “But you just have to have patience. It takes a while. It takes a lot more to make friends with someone here.”
As a graduate assistant, Kalonde works closely with faculty and students to make sure that International Studies provides the best education possible. That’s the biggest difference that Kalonde found between his home country and the U.S.
“America has better education, the quality is much better,” he said. “I came here for the expertise.”
