Mike & Summer

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“Coming here is like getting demoted:”

The Stories of Mike and Summer

Additional Note

Mike and Summer are two roommates who talk about similar experiences that they did together. This unique story showcases that dual vision of experience.

Mike

Demographics: Colombian Male, Graduate Student, Engineering

Summer

Demographics: Colombian Female, Graduate Student, Engineering

Tags: International, Parent, PhD Student, Roommates

ElevenLabs_Mike_and_Summer.mp3

Mike

My name is Mike. My story starts at Opportunity University, when I first arrived in August 2022, as an international student. I currently live with my friend, Summer. We moved together from Columbia and started the same program together. The part of moving in together was okay. The money I was earning, since I am single was enough to survive for a student budget, but not for both of us, because Summer has a kid. So if we were living together, it would be much easier for me. Sharing expenses is also good for me too. So between the two of us, we manage to organize ourselves really good especially with the kid, Nile. So the child is really the one that we try to take care of, especially. We arrived to New York, so we rented a car from New York.

So mainly, it was paperwork and settling in. We have some- some stuff like a couch, some dishes, some utensils, and accommodations, but we also had to buy the mattress, and then organize ourselves with the grocery shops. So the day was mostly trying to figure out where to get stuff. Where to get stuff like for a low price or easy. So looking at Craigslist for beds, for mattresses, and for a bicycle, something like that. Then call the internet service, and try to install the service, so we can look up information because once you're here, mostly the internet or cell phones are the only way that you can look for something, like the schedule of the opening of the grocery shops, or seeing if they are nearby. So that was the first part, then acquiring the SIM card, opening the cell phone plan. There's other things like opening a bank account, and going to social security taking away the driver license. You just have to scale things. Social Security, there's an office close, it's in a town about 30 minutes south . So again, that's almost half a day lost between going there by bus, doing the things at the Transportation Center, and then coming back on the bus. Overall, it's the time that you have to invest, and do everything apart from your academic and research fellow responsibilities.

Summer

My name is Summer. I think when I made the decision to come to the United States from Columbia one important thing for me was the budget because I have my son, Nile. He was three years old at that moment and here, schools are not free until five-years-old. So, I was very worried about paying for preschool, paying food, paying rent, paying everything. With the research assistantship. I did my math and they did not match. What I was paid was not enough for me to be here. The first thing that I knew was that I needed to share an apartment, that I needed to find other ways of financial support, and that I needed to be very aware of my expenses, while I was here.

The first year was very difficult because besides that, there are a lot of things that you need to pay for to come here. You need a deposit for everything. You need to pay for the flight tickets and the visa. All the documents. The deposits are very high for me here in the US. And my currency in Columbia is very weak compared to the US dollars. So, with my savings in Columbia, they seem a lot, but once you put it in dollars, they are not a lot. The first month was like that, and I had this money and I had to have my SSN to get my first pay. So, getting the SSN was not that straight. I had to go to the SSN office twice because the first time I didn't have the documents right, and there is not a lot of help here, so I had to navigate it by myself and look on the internet how to do it because I needed the SSN. To get my first payment from my University.

Mike

We are housing outside of the campus which is fairly close to the campus. Probably two miles, a little bit more to the supermarket complex, the Lidl, the Aldi, and the ShopRite. After we had all the documents settled then we just tried to do reconnaissance of the area because the public transportation here is not really good. I spend most of the time walking- doing reconnaissance and trying to recognize where all the things are, like where's the university, and what are the buildings there, where should I go? Where are the faculty? Like just to recognize the place, trying to get a sense of where things are, including grocery shops. I went to Lidl and Aldi just to check on the prices, to see what the differences were, which one could be the most convenient, especially for the price per quantity. Which was important since I think I came with like- $3,000.

Summer

For the first month, I had to figure out how to support myself and my son with maybe around $2,000. After paying all the deposits and everything. With the deposits and all that and flight tickets and everything, it was maybe around $6,000.

Mike

We came to South Jersey by car, and that was one of the first things Summer said to me, "We gotta take advantage of the car.” So we were gonna make a big grocery shopping trip now because we have the car, so we just park it, we just put everything we bought in the car, and then we can easily just put things in the refrigerator." So that's one of the first things we did, trying to stock ourselves with enough food for the first month at least, or for the first couple of weeks that we have the ease of having the car, and moving around. That first trip, there's couple of trips, where we were just trying to figure out where things are? Also what is good or what is bad because as I mentioned, I acquired cheap things, less expensive things, but I like food. I like to eat well. So if things are not good I'm not gonna buy them just because they're cheap. Like maybe I just move a little bit in the price, if the quality is good. So also, trying to get a sense of let's try this and see how it goes. So trying to- to get a sense of the food here or how it's prepared. The quality of the products.

In Columbia, I know the brands. I lived my whole life there, so I know the differences. Which brands are good quality, but expensive. Which ones are affordable, but good quality, and which ones are not. You know what is good and what is not, or what do I like, and what do I not like. Now, it's funny, but in reality it's overwhelming. Jokes aside, it's overwhelming because in Columbia, we have enough. It's not like Venezuelaor let's say the 1920s, '30's Germany when you were not able to have bread, or there's one brand, or one kind of thing. We have enough stuff in Columbia, but we don't have that many brands. So here in the USA, you have a lot of brands for everything. So it is really kind of overwhelming. Again, let's go for marmalade, and then you have like eight different varieties, with sugar, without sugar, without added sugar. Like wow, I only need one. Looking for a loaf of bread now, 70 different kinds of bread and Italian style, Italian wheat crust, with soft crust. Like no, I just need simple bread. Like I don't want to have that many options because then you're like, so what's the difference, and what is this, and what are the prices, and why is this much expensive, maybe it has more quantity, or no, it's the same, or it's less, but for the price per quantity is cheaper, but you get overwhelmed trying to understand some of the prices differences. Until you just say, okay, I'm just gonna look at something, usually like the lower price that you can see the good quality. So we spend I think a fair amount of time just trying to understand, get a sense of the distribution, also the supermarket. What were the things? What were the prices? Just in comparison. Okay, it's milk. It's this much, and a cheese is this much, or I guess maybe milk and cheese are cheap, maybe eggs are cheap too. What could be the things that are said to be expensive? Like meat, it's expensive, but then when I compare per pound like per unit price. So that first trip was interesting because like it's immersing in a challenging brain activity. We were here grocery shopping, something everyone in the world does one way or another, but then you realize the cultural and subtle differences that are there.

Another funny story for me was when I was looking for basil. I know that in Spanish as albahaca. So I have it in my mind, what do I need? I need albahaca, and when I arrived at Lidl, I started looking, but I couldn’t find it. Like maybe I missed it? I realized I'm looking for albahaca. I should look for whatever that is in English. And so I happened to come across a person, "Hey, can I help you?" And I was like, "Yeah, No, because I don't know the name of what I need in English and if I have to look it up. Well, I don’t need help anymore. I know what I was looking for." So also that was kind of overwhelming. At that moment I thought how's it going to be for me studying in English? It's going to be an experience, maybe I'm gonna struggle. I haven't struggled that much with the academy as I struggled much with the conversation in everyday English. So I was in my mind like an academic, and the classes that we said were gonna be harder, and suddenly the balance just switched. Trying to communicate on the regular basis with regular people, and doing the grocery shops was like, okay, this is the real challenge now, because sometimes I don't know the words in English, or I don't pronounce them very well, so people don't understand me, and there's sitting there watching me seeing what I'm trying to get.

Summer

Well, the first time we went to the supermarket with Mike we needed to buy a lot of essential things, things that you don't buy every time you go to the supermarket. But we needed everything like salt, oil and anything else you need to cook. And it was maybe around $500 our first time in the supermarket. Well, split by two, it's less. But it was surprising. So, what I do now is try to do one conversion. My currency is Colombian pesos. One dollar is 4,000 Colombian pesos. So, I tried to take the zeros and just leave it, but in Columbia all of the food we bought would have only been $150, instead of $500. It's four times less expensive than here, everything.

Well I have been in the United States before, so I knew it was expensive. I think the last time I was here was in 2020 and I think things got very expensive. Columbia, because of political circumstances, the currency got weak and it was more... Well, it went down. And the US dollar was stronger. So, even though I have been in the US before, this is the first time that I see so much differences in the price. Like before, the other times I have come, it was not that bad. So, it was surprising because that changed my budget. I did my budget in Columbia before coming here, but then when I saw that prices for food my budget had to change. It was more expensive than I expected. I think that we spent a lot of money on food. Although, for me, food is very important. So, I kind of don't mind spending a lot of my budget on food. I think that the most impactful thing is that I don't do that many things. My budget is only for living, for rent, food, transportation, and that's it. So, there is not much money for entertainment or doing things like that. I think that's the part that is more impactful.

When I was in Columbia, I was a faculty. So, I was not food insecure or anything insecurity. I had my job. I had a good job with a good salary. But coming here was difficult because my status changed, and that is very impactful for me. So, in Columbia, I was able to do just things, going with my son to do trips and not worrying about the budget of how much does it cost to do whatever we want to do. But here, I have to think twice about what to do and what to choose to do, and maybe I'm trying to look for things to do that are free. So, going to museums. I have the library near my son's school. They have passes for museums that they lend to the users of the library because I also found that museums are very expensive here. So, what I do is I'm always trying to find things. For me, it's also very important to do things outside home and not just to stay home all day now, especially for my son. So, I try to find things that I can do that are not expensive, like going biking or going for a walk. I try to do one expensive thing once a month only, or less.

Mike

So the experiences in Columbia, it's really convenient to find local markets or fresh markets. Here, I've noticed that in the United States in comparison to most of the places in Columbia, the vegetables and fruits section, it's really small. most of the things are processed food or canned food. So the variety of fruit and vegetables was kind of a shock like in Columbia, we don't have seasons, we're more of a tropical country. So we have most of the vegetables and fruits all year round. You can see the prices, it's pretty much similar if you think about the cost of living. So if you compare the cost of living, what I earn in Columbia, and what groceries are in Columbia, and you compare that to the cost of living in the USA, housing and the groceries, it's pretty similar. It's just that when you're arriving and you're paying with Colombian pesos, you lose money in every transaction, on every transaction because especially at that time, like post COVID, still the Colombian peso is not strong. So if we assume that $1 is 1,000 peso, like one on one. The US dollar was so strong that you have to invest like four times, 4.6 times or like 5,000 pesos per dollar. So as I mentioned, milk is almost two liters, the big cardboard milk is like $3 or $4 when you convert that to pesos, it was roughly 20,000 pesos. For that money, you can get at least lunch. I can have a regular lunch at a regular restaurant.

So when you put that in comparison, you say it's- it's expensive. Yeah? How is it that I can buy just milk with what I can have for two lunches? So it's mostly that, not really that the cost of living is different, butI didn't. I was trying to not think about it, but for me, it was kind of impossible not to think, $3, that's this amount of pesos. $10, that's this amount of pesos, but it's unbelievable like how little the peso is worth. It was kind of funny because of course, as I mentioned, we were mostly paying in Colombian pesos. So we still haven't made this change of, okay, we're in the USA now. Like we should compare to the USA cost of living, but when you see a milk for $5, that is roughly like 20,000 pesos. Like let's say $20 for millet. Oh, uh, oh, shit like really? We're paying in pesos when we get our first payment in dollars, it's cheap, it's affordable, but the first time was like, okay, so trying to get a sense of the order of magnitude of the prices. I saw that Lidl was cheaper than Aldi. Not because I knew that it was actually cheaper, but when comparing the both of them, Lidl had the lower prices. I didn't know they were cheap or not per se, just that it was the better price for what I have access to. So which would be cheaper or better, and other bargains. I did that and I noticed that Lidl had the most price benefit and quality of the products. So I stick with Lidl, and they also have the app. So I've been using the Lidl app, and because they have coupons and you can earn some for every X value of money that you accumulate every month, you have extra perks and bonuses. So that's nice because when you're on a student budget, everything helps. So that was my first time settling into the USA and okay, how is the food here in contrast to where in my home country.

Now I don't think about it because I think about my payment in dollars, sometimes I just still think about it. I have a friend also doing his doctorate studies in Belgium in engineering. We chatted and we saw each other in Columbia, this past winter break, and we talked about that, how things are for us here, how the conditions are not that good when compared to our home country. We were part of the privileged middle, middle-high class, professionals engineers with a master's degree with a job, so we had a way of living that was comfortable for us. We run mostly on grains. Like I run on lentils and chickpeas and for vegetables, it's eggplant, tomato bell pepper, onion, and I put that in the pot and put it with its oil, and then I add the lentil, the chickpeas. For the salads, and for the vegetables, so it's eggplant, or it's broccoli, or it's zucchini. Sometimes I do my lasagna, veggie lasagna. There's always rice or potatoes. It's mainly rice or couscous. It's made out of corn. Again, they're good, they have good proteins, and they're cheap. They're easy to cook. They're really affordable. Sometimes chicken, for example for a soup, or for a Colombian soup, for a Mexican soup. From time to time, we buy frozen salmon from Lidl or shrimps. That's the animal protein that I've acquired with my diet here. In terms of fruit, it's always pear and/or apple. Sometimes it's strawberries, blueberries, or grapes. And from time to time, I manage to get some papaya. Yeah, especially in Lidl, or Aldi. So papaya it's a tropical fruit and normally the variety of the fruit, the types of fruit, but also the flavor. So it's a good flavor, but when I think about the flavor of the tropical fruits, and the flavor here, it's tasteless. It makes sense usually in Columbia, in a tropical country, you can cultivate it, wait till it's ready, and then you just take it out, and move it to the grocery shops, but here for example, I know they probably harvesting a little bit green because they have to spend months in a boat, so they don't want them to spoil. So that affects the flavor a little bit too. It happens also with plantains, with platano, with the big one. Sometimes it's really, really hard. It's not that tasty, but it's nice that we can find some of the things here, like plantains, and papayas. Like I'm not completely neglecting the food that I used to have in Columbia. So I can find it here.

Another thing about the food in America is that and maybe because I'm biased, I'm prejudiced, but a stereotype we have in Columbia at least that the USA, most of the food is processed, and full of sugars, and the corn syrup, and between that prejudice and stereotype, and also being here and looking at most of the things that have corn syrup, but I know it's something like processed food and additives. Of course, sugar, a lot of sugar. I reduced my sugar income during the pandemic in Columbia. So now I can withstand that much sugar. Sometimes it's just like, it's too much. I take a bite or two bites, and you know it's sugary. So that's one of the reasons, Summer and I, avoid the high process food and well, Summer has a son, named Nile, so she's also worried, and I worry that yeah, we don't want to expose him, he's little. So maybe we as adults have a better metabolism and are aware of, okay, maybe this is not good to eat, but for Nile. Summer’s like, you have to be mindful of what you expose him to, not for him to develop an addiction or just a future health impact. So we avoid that, we also, we don't like, well I don't like the taste of that food too much. Sometimes it's too greasy or too sugary, like too processed. Even the regular things like when you buy a coffee, Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks sometimes, I have to ask "No sugar, please," or the juice or the iced tea, "Do you have sugar free?" Usually it's, "Oh, no, it already has sugar." So it's, "Oh, no, thank you. I'm just gonna have water." It's too much sugar.

Summer

Well, for me, food is important because I think food is health and I believe that I'm building my son's future health with the food I'm giving him right now. So, I want to have quality food and I want him to eat well and balanced. I try to buy things that are more organic and with not that much salt, with no sugar and with no fat. Those foods are expensive, even though they don't have sugar or fat. They have less ingredients, but they're more expensive. So, for me, and for myself also it's very important to eat healthy. So, that's the main reason. But especially my son. It has been challenging because I don't have a support system here. I think that's the most important. So, there is a challenging part, but I also see it as a benefit for Nile and me. While I was in Columbia, I was able to pay for nannies when I couldn't stay with him, or my mother would stay with him, or my sister, or my cousin. I always had someone to take care of him. For example, while I was in Columbia, I had help for someone to pick him up from the preschool, take him home and make food for him so he could eat. Bath him, help him to have a bath, and then take him to sleep. Then I would arrive after work. So, I was with him just the last hour before he was going to sleep and in the morning, I used to take care of him.

Usually on the weekends, he was with my mother, so I had a lot of time for me and for doing my things. But here, it's like I have to do everything with him, from in the morning to get him ready, and in the afternoon. So, my working day stops at 4:00 when he is out of school. That is challenging because I was used to working more, and then if I have something additional to do, I would do it after he goes to sleep. So, from 4:00 to 8:00 I'm with him. But the good thing is that I think that our bond is more solid now. Now I reflect on that and I feel that he was not that tied to me when we were in Columbia because he didn't spend that much time with me and because he had other people to rely on, like my family. My mother, he's very tied to my mother. So, he had these other relationships, and that was good, but I feel that we didn't have a strong bond because of that. He was maybe, without noticing, I think, resentful of me. Sometimes he didn't want to be with me and he preferred to be with the nanny or with my mom, and for me, it was sad, but I was over it. But here, I can see that now I'm his preferred person in the world , and that's good. I like that.

I have been trying to keep the food here the same as in Columbia, and it's difficult. So, I want Nile to eat the same things we would eat in Columbia. As I said, for me, it's important that he has a very balanced diet. It was fun here, for example, at the preschool when he started. We needed to send him the lunch, but it was a cold lunch because they don't heat it. So, I was trying to send him the same lunch I would give him in Columbia that is rice, maybe lentils, maybe a piece of fish and some vegetables. But you cannot eat that cold. At the preschool, at the end of the day, they were giving me back the lunch as I sent it. Like, the first month, he ate it, but the second month, he didn't. So, I asked him why he was not eating and, well, he was three years, four years, so he didn't explain that much. But I started to see that he was comparing his lunch with his friends. His friends were having chicken nuggets or jelly, peanut butter sandwiches. That is very common here in the US. So, they were having that and he wanted that for lunch, and I said, "No way. You are not eating that for lunch." So, that was hard, very hard. So, I decided to give him just maybe a sandwich, like, a tortilla with cheese and ham, something very easy to eat cold, and then he will have lunch after school, the real lunch for me, that is vegetable, rice and beans and things like that. That was hard because in Columbia, it is not like that. In Columbia, the preschool, they give them lunch with rice, beans, fish and salad. We have very different habits, food habits in Columbia. That is hard for me here.

It takes more time to do all the cooking and to take care of all that because in Columbia, you can find that type of lunch very easy on the street. In a restaurant, you can have these types of lunches because it's the way we eat. But here, no, you cannot have this type. When we go out for lunch, it's always cheesesteaks, burgers and if you want something more healthy, it's too expensive. So, the only restaurant I have found here that is kind of healthy within my budget is Panera Bread, so we always go there if we want to go out for lunch, or the Asian restaurants. We try to go to these small Asian restaurants that they have. Well, they put a lot of sauces that I don't find that healthy, but at least it's rice, vegetables the things we are used to eating.

Mike

When we started the program, Nile attended the Opportunity University Early Childhood Demonstration Center. The policy is you have to make lunch for your kid. Okay, sure, fair enough. So our custom in Columbia and Summer’s custom was that for Nile, when he was in kindergarten in Columbia, she paid for the kindergarten, and they cooked there for the kids, and they gave rice, lentils, beans like a balanced food. So here it was like, we cooked lentils, we cooked rice, we cooked beans. So whatever we cook, we send in his lunch. So it seems to be that most of the kids here eat chicken nuggets, or peanut butter jelly sandwiches, like not that healthy food. So maybe because of social pressure, he was hesitant to eat things that we sent to him.

So we figured okay, we're not gonna waste our time cooking and doing that extra effort, so we're just gonna send him some tortillas with cheese and ham, sort of healthy and carrots . So he can have , "lunch," something in his belly so he can go all day, but when we pick him up from the childcare. He will eat the same lunch that we had, Summer and I, for dinner. Like mid-afternoon. It was surprising because we didn't want him to also get exposed to starting to eat what we call trash food all day. Now, sometimes from time to time, but in our mind, and in our understanding of the calories and sugars, like if a kid is eating nuggets every day or peanut jelly butter or crude snacks that are just like fruit flavored gummies. So they just start eating a lot of sugar and corn syrup and it's in detriment to their health, and of their future health. That was one of the concerns also for cooking and for making lunch at home, especially because we've noticed that it's really common here that kids don't have the same lunch that adults do. We had a friend that Summer shared with me. She was with that friend and with Nile. We were discussing, so we're gonna maybe cook something for lunch or we go and buy something like a salad or rice. Summer was thinking that the three of them would have the same lunch. Our friend, Summer and Nile, and suddenly our friends say, okay, and for him, a peanut jelly butter sandwich. No, he will eat the same lunch that we're gonna take. Are you sure? Yes. Yes, and for us, cultural thing, a peanut jelly butter sandwich is not lunch, regardless if you're a kid or not. No it's not enough food and it's yeah like, just carbs, and bread, and sugar, and so where's the nutrients in that lunch? So that was one of the things that really surprised both of us, how kids tend to eat, when we compare to Columbia, you know really eat bad foods most of the time.

Some of the challenges are that it's fairly easy for him to get exposed to things like fast food or chicken nuggets and see other kids around eating different things that we don't get at home. Eventually he starts asking, like, "Oh, yeah, can we ..." It happens to us once at the Lidl in Glassboro. "Oh, mom. Can I have fruit snacks?" He told me, "Hey, Mike, can I have fruit snacks?" "No, because those are not really fruit snacks. So Nile went to his mom, "Hey, mom. Can I have this?" She looked at me like, okay, let's see. So she took off the box, and wait, these are not fruit snacks. These are fruit flavor snacks, and then we look at the nutritional facts. It was like, no. They are fruit flavor, so they're not good for you." Like maybe a little package when you go to a birthday party or something, or hey, I bought you this one. Not I want the big box, so I can take those every day to the daycare. Like no. Corn syrup, added sugars. Like there's nothing natural in those . So it's challenging because sometimes, he wants to taste, and we allow him, especially when Summer’s friend, his mother’s like, "Of course, you can eat some candy from time to time, but usually you have to eat your lunch. When you eat your lunch, you can have one candy." He knows that it's restricted to that, but when you compare to some of the other friends, they have this and they have this, and on the birthday parties, there'll be attended, or of his companions, or his friend from the childcare or from the school. Usually birthday parties, they just give pizza and cupcakes, and then there's a lot of fruit snacks, and then chips, and snacks, and like it's fine. It's a birthday party, it's nice for them to eat, but we think from our perspective it's like children are really, really exposed every time to pizza, sugar, and cupcakes. So if it were only a birthday party, it's nice. But in Columbia, in Columbia usually at birthday parties, yeah, you made an exception. Sure, even for your kids. Sure, we're gonna have your birthday party, so we're gonna have a cake and usually we have fruit for the kids and for the adults too but you have candies, cookies, yeah, sugary stuff. But here, it seems like the only thing that kids eat is sugar.

It also happened to us on the University Fresh Food Program, the first time Summer went, well we went together and the lady that was like directing or managing the volunteer thing that day. You have a little one? Yes, I have a small kid. Oh, here is this box. It's a lunchbox, and we saw the label, healthy lunch. Nice. We reach home, we open it, and we look at each other and laugh. If this is healthy for the USA, well, I cannot imagine what is unhealthy. A lot of fruit in that when you buy the can peaches, they come in sweets like that. Yeah, fruit, but it's sweet fruit with more sugar, and they're not like a juice, all sugar. So we were like okay, it's funny that it's a healthy lunch . So that's why we tried to be also really, really mindful of what we- we cook for both of us, and for the kids too.

Summer

Before coming here, I saw it in the enrollment webpage, I saw it somewhere. I even wrote to the University Fresh Food Program because they were looking for volunteers and I wrote that I could be a volunteer during Fridays. In the end, I didn't do it, but, yes, I said, "We need to do... To use that and we need to see that." Then in the student group fair, there was a student group fair, there was the minister of the shop. They had a table and he also had a sign saying they had a pantry. So, I talked to Mike and I said, "Okay. We will go to the pantry also." So, I decided that I needed to try that, especially the first month. Well, as I said, I was living on my savings and we didn't have the pay yet, so with Mike, we decided to go there, to go to the shop and the fresh farmer market. So, I start using those, those facilities, those that help just to try to make some economies.

The first time I think was summer or the, the beginning of fall '22. They are located outside in the residencies, but I think they were, before, in another place. I really appreciated that they are doing that. I noticed that most of the students were internationals. We needed to take a ticket or something like that so we could pick things. I noticed also that the shelves were kind of empty. Like, it was difficult to get things maybe for the shop, to get enough for all the students that were there. We were not that much. Maybe 20 at the time, at the same time because they had a slot. It's three hours or 12 slots. But definitely, there were not enough supplies, I think. As I said, for me, it's important that the food quality, so I was looking at all the things. I think I use it mostly for the vegetables in cans. The other things I didn't pick. Then when you start having here, that was easier. I think at that moment, we went maybe two or three times to the shop on that side. Then we came here. I like to have fresh vegetables, but I can use canned vegetables if they are not fresh. So, I was just looking at how much salt is in it and how fresh they look by doing much. I know it's not a way to see things, but just by the brand or how they look, you can kind of tell the quality, it's just a marketing thing. For example, if I see beef lasagna, I will say there is no way there is a good lasagna in here, you know? That's how I think. But if I see these ones, we use them a lot. It says non- GMO. Well, I’m going to believe them. Here, potassium is not that bad. So, this one, I will take it because it's kind of a vegetable. I don't believe that there is quality meat in cans. I prefer vegetables. Yes, they are easier. Everything that is in the can and has meat, I will avoid. This one, I would say they look good because I love corn. My diet is very based on corn in Columbia. So, I will take this one also. This one has meat, well, it looks like meat. We use this one, and I like them. So if I try it once and they are good, I will use them again. The beans, I think, are very well preserved in cans. So, beans are a good option. I like Garbanzos, but you need a special pot cooker for those if you take them raw. So, I prefer them in cans because I don't have the pot here.

The University Fresh Food Program. I love the University Fresh Food Program because I love vegetables. Something that surprised me here in the US is that people come to the pantries in cars. For me, that's surprising, and I understand that it's a different way of thinking than in Columbia. I like the way you think here. Well, that's how I have interpreted it. In Columbia, if you go to a pantry to look for fruit, it's because you really are homeless or you don't have a job or you don't really have anything. So, it's like you get whatever they give you. Here, I see, and at the pantry shop, I was surprised that people were coming in cars because the way we think in Columbia is that if you have money to pay for a car, then you have money to pay for food. That's how we think in Columbia. When I started seeing that and seeing the pantry, I was thinking, like, "Why?" So, I have to start reflecting why, why is the way you think here, and I haven't talked to anyone, so it's just my own conclusions that here, you appreciate.No. You are aware that there are other dimensions in life, not just food and shelter and that's it. Like, in Columbia, we're more, the other things, like the car or going for amusement is luxury. So, you cannot have luxury if your basic needs are not covered. But here, you see, like, you need everything to be good, to have wellbeing. You need all these dimensions, and it's not because you have a car that you won't go to the pantry, because you need a car also to fulfill your other needs. So, it was interesting for me to see that in the University Fresh Food Program.

I like the fresh food program very much, but there were some things that we didn't use in the cooking, and I was a little bit ashamed of saying, "Please don't give me that, because I won't use it." I think one student tried to say that and also, again, I'm not complaining. I think it's a great thing, the University Fresh Food Program. The things are very good. But the student tried to say, "No, I just want the bananas," for example, and the person who was there doing the managing everything was a little bit mad and was like, "You cannot pick. You have to take everything." So, I went two times. So, we took things that we didn't use and we didn't know how to cook , and we didn't like. I don't like to throw food in the garbage or not use it. So, we kept it in the fridge and we tried to do things but we couldn't, so I decided not to come more because I didn't want to be picky. I didn't want to take everything and not use it.

I love that they have fruits. I like fruits, and I think it's very important to have fruit for students. That gives you the energy you need to study, but it's not sugar. It's not processed sugar. It's real sugar and the sugar is what you need to be awake and be able to, to manage school. Also because we moved to the city, so now it's more difficult to get things. Now, I am a little bit more at ease with my budget. It's not like the first year. The first year, I was paying for the preschool for my son. We were paying the rent. The apprenticeship was not enough, I think, for me to pay everything. So, I was worried about my budget. But this second year, no, because I had the scholarship. So, that changed my situation. Maybe if I didn't have the scholarship, I would be maybe coming to the University Fresh Food Program l. Also, last semester, I tried to use it, but it was at the same time I was taking. Even though I knew the professor would allow me to go there, I had to ask the professor if I could go, and so, I didn't feel comfortable. Maybe I will use it again. We didn't come again. We need to come. But also, well, maybe I think it's this way we think, that if you have money for your basic needs, you cover your basic needs, even if that means you don't have money for doing entertainment or things like that. That's the way we think in Columbia, and I think I have that. I can buy these cans, so I'm not going to take them because I can buy them, you know? Another time is when the international center does meetings for international students, they give very good food. When you go to other meetings and they say, "There will be food," it's always pizza. But for international students, I think pizza is good, but, for example, for me, pizza is not a lunch. For me, pizza is a snack, but not a lunch. So, when you go to international meetings, they give, for me, real food and they always give Indian food. And I see that the international students love that, and I see that they give Indian food because there are mainly Indians, and I like Indian food. It's more similar to what I eat. Except for the spicy part. The ingredients are similar. So, I like that. I like that the international center is aware of the food preferences of the international students. I would like it if they had South American food also, not always Indian food. But maybe start thinking at Rowan when there are meetings or when there are events to have that other options that we are more used to.

Mike

It was really nice because we managed to get access to fruit and vegetables. We usually went for apples, and sometimes zucchini and grapes. We also did it because sometimes we didn't find what we needed at the Lidl, the fruit or the vegetables that we found in the shop. So it would also help us because they have a really good variety on the University Fresh Food Program. For the shop, I went one or two times. I think I went once, Summer went a couple of times, and she told me, "Yeah, it's good, but it's mostly processed food in a way. Some of it, most of the vegetable canned food that it's- it's good, but processed stuff." So that's why we prefer the University Fresh Food Program. As I told you, most of the things that we eat in our diet are vegetables and fruits, so that was a primary need regarding that, fruits and vegetables.

Also they had the food pantry that we went to at the church we mostly went for the fresh stuff. They tend to have carrots, lettuce, potatoes, and turnips. Mostly like the University Fresh Food Program. We just accepted what was given to us, we were really grateful. So I learned to cook turnips. I figured it should be like potato, you can boil 'em, but I ask the ladies, "Oh, hey, how are you? How would you recommend that I prepare these ones?" "Oh, you just need to boil it a little bit," and one lady said, "I put in a lot of water because they're tasteless." Okay. So I experimented with turnips and I put a little butter and cheese, and like some seasoning, and they were nice, really good. It happened with cabbage too. We had cabbage in Columbia, but it's not really common. We tend to go with lettuce, for example. Like lettuce is everywhere in Columbia. So I tried to boil cabbage, so then okay, what can we do? Summer told me, and another friend, the one I told you about their kid peanut jelly butter sandwich, and he's from the USA, and we share stuff, and we just share recipes and everything. I have a funny story about with cabbage that we got. So when Summer told me, "Hey, we should try to make this salad that I know people who sometimes do it in Columbia. You just chopped the cabbage really, really small. You boil it a little bit, and then you add wine with cream, raisins, and pineapple." Okay, let's try it. Oh, no. We tried and both us,and when we shared, we told our friend, "Hey, we tried everything. I think it's an acquired taste, like we're not used to cabbage really, so I don't know how to prepare it, and I don't like the flavor." So next time we went to the pantry, I say, "Hey, I’m sorry, I don't wanna be picky, but can I leave this for another person to take it?" "Sure." "Thank you very much." Yeah, because and usually they give you this big cabbage and we haven't liked the taste of cabbage. We didn't like that we still have more than half and I don't know what to do with it. When we shared that recipe of whipped cream with cabbage, our friend was like, "Whip cream with cabbage?" "Like, yes?" "What were you thinking?" "We're just trying to figure something out to eat the cabbage," . So also it's funny, but it could happen and because of my research and experience I have with other students, international, sometimes from India and Bangladesh, or from Eastern.

The dietary change is a game changer. Not being able to cook or eat things that you know, or that you like, and how to experiment with new things that you maybe don't like, is that maybe could lead to a really hard food insecurity. I can't really eat this because I don't like it, or I don't know how to prepare it, or I'm not getting enough nutrients from the food I'm getting. So luckily for us, we still were able to get cabbage and turnip, and eat the turnip, but cabbage is a no, no for us. It's definitely not our thing. It's not an acquired taste we got. Another thing that is good is when there are events or reunions for students, that they offer and it's nice, you get to have some nice food. For me, it is not so appealing now because it tends to always be pizza. The only nice things are the international students center reunion because the International Center usually offers Indian food because international students are from India, so it makes sense, and that is a really good food. But apart from that, when the events that the Early Childhood Demonstration Center, or the various student organizations, you just name it, usually it's pizza, and it's like, ugh, no. So from time to time, when we're like, "Hey, there's gonna be this event, and there's gonna be free food." Nice, let's go. The third time I was like, hey, they're gonna be offering lunch. We better eat lunch here because it's probably gonna be pizza. So yeah, we can have a slice, but we're not going to eat pizza all the time, all the reunions. So that's also another thing that I don't know if it’s about convenience maybe, but what it tends to be really most fast food and processed food.

Summer

I think that the university can do a lot more about food insecurity. I'm not very aware, but I kind of heard that the person that is running the Opportunity Pantry, she's more doing it because it's her initiative, I think. Again, it's not that I'm very well informed. Maybe it's just an educated guess, because I talked to the minister in the Church, and I think that it should be not only from the willingness of some people, but it should be an institutional policy. It has to be something that university administrators should be looking for more, not just because of the willingness of some person, people that care about students. But it should be something more at the institutional level, you know? I'm just saying, because of what I saw and what I talked to the minister of how the shop was running. But maybe I don't have the right information. The University Fresh Food Program, I also feel that it's more an initiative of someone that was interested in doing that.

Of course, University sponsors it or allows it, but I'm not sure if they put in all the institutional effort, or they just allow them to do it. I think it's very important for the students. As I said, I have seen many international students using it and I feel that it's important. So, You don't get to talk about this situation when you come here and how insecure you can be, and sometimes even because of the currency exchange, you can be secure in your home country, but you leave that security to come here and be insecure. You do that because, well, you want to get education from the United States. In my case, I have been asked many times why did I come here, and we don't have that much research in engineering education in Columbia. We have some research in engineering, but the United States is so advanced in research. That is the place where you can get the skills and you can get the knowledge and you can get the opportunity to be in a spot with advanced research that we could bring back home also. I left my security in Columbia to come here to be insecure because I want to be in the US to learn about what I'm doing with the PhD. So, it's a cost, it's a transaction that you have to do and I don't think that the university, because it's not very large with a lot of international students, has had the experience and maybe the knowledge about that. I haven't seen much research on international students. I don't know the situation about the local students, the domestic students, how they use the Opportunity Pantry or University Fresh Food Program. I saw the international students because the domestic students were in cars-while the internationals, we were by foot. When you are in the car, you cannot see the person. Also with donations and helping the shop have financials. The college could try to make an effort. That's why maybe the shelves were so empty. One day I came there, I felt like the international students were kind of trying to get all they could because there was less. I don't know if it is the culture, but I find that when you have enough, people are not afraid that it's going to run out. How I feel they were acting at the shop that time that I went. They were trying to grab wraps, take things before they ran out. The manager had to ask them not to take everything, at the same time that they had to take just what they needed. I don't know. It was not nice to see that. I didn't know why they were doing that. Maybe it's cultural. Maybe if you see that things are running out, I don't know. I think the Opportunity pantry could be much more, much more. Offer more, and not just based on donations.

Mike

Coming here is like getting demoted in a way. Like that feeling powerless in a way. In a way it's nice because it has opened my eyes to things that, well, maybe outside of this story, but like privilege, racism, segregation. So I think it's nice when you experience things, you're able to say, okay, yeah. So other people live like this every day, so maybe we should do something. It's weird, and it's not linear per se, because there are things that are really good here. Like the quality of life, the quality of air. I can go out and feel it, and breathe fresh air. Like in Bogota it's much bigger, like 10 million people in the city, but you feel the contamination in the air, you feel insecurity on the streets, sometimes you see the extreme poverty, you see people getting on the buses and begging for money. So coming here, that is like an upgrade in the quality of life overall. Like the sense of security. When people say to me, "Oh, you live in Philly. Oh, watch out. Oh, it's dangerous." Like no, I come from Bogota. This is not that dangerous for me. Again, just perceptions, like the thresholds. So I say, "No, it's- it's nice. I can go outside. I can look after myself on public transportation." As I can do in Columbia, in Bogota, but you're more hesitant to do it, or on the street. Here, I feel safer.

I feel like that because I don't have easy access to move around, or to go to the grocery shops, or to go to see a movie, or to go to a restaurant with my friends because it's expensive. So I don't have the same acquisition power now. Although I have enough money in terms of the cost of living. Like my yearly salary, it's below the poverty threshold in the USA. I'm in poverty, but as I told you earlier, and we joke about this with Summer, and with my Colombian friends. "Yeah, but you may be in poverty, but it's USA poverty." So it's really convenient poverty. Like I can move around, I can still do things. I have a house. I have a feeling. I have a TV, I can just watch some series. I can go to the grocery shops and get food. It's just that I'm limited in what I was used to do in Columbia. I don't have the same acquisition power over the same time or the same resources. I didn't have a car, but I have better public transportation. So also trying to get used to the public transportation here's been a little bit of a challenge. It's better in Philly, in the city it's better because you have the bus, the metro, the trains, or the different options, but it's still sometimes, you have to make a lot of switching like two or three changes of bus or, things are really far apart because the USA mostly it seems for people that have a car. It's like a 10, 15 minute drive. I go by public transportation, so usually like twice the time. So that is still one of the things that moving around is one of the challenges in a way too. The time you have to spend to be ready at this time for being at the bus, train, metro station at this time, so we can reach the place that we want to go on time.

So I was thinking that it was nice, but again, it's not the American Dream like some of the maybe common things that people, oh, yes, American Dream. The American Dream is not true. We have that idiom in Spanish, like you go through the hole, like illegally. Maybe for people like that, yes, the American Dream is still, "The Dream," because in Columbia, for example, people that earn the minimum wage, they probably have to work two or three jobs with the minimum wage to eat, and to be food secure and with a household. Here in the USA, another thing that I noticed is even with the minimum wage, people seem to live comfortably, like most of the people I think are in good condition. The definition and the characteristics of poverty are different. I think here in the USA, people have quality, like better quality of life than Columbia, for example. So being poor means that you are behind some average income per year, but you are still able to mostly eat, or go out, or have clothes, and maybe just with one job that with a minimum wage job. I think most people have a car. I guess it's because of how the economy works, but it makes sense, but when I compare it in Colombia. Being here it's being poorer, but like USA poverty, it's better than Columbian poverty. So that's also one of the reflections I've realized now. Earning dollars and being able to go to the grocery shops and to the shops without having to think about the currency exchange, but it works much better for me now, but it's still sometimes it lingers in my head, but I'm privileged though. So it made me reflect on how things are in Columbia.

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