Hezzy Smith was willing to move halfway around the world to learn how to speak Bengali.
But when the recent Harvard graduate didn’t get a spot this summer in a program in Dhaka, Bangladesh, he was less enthusiastic about moving halfway across the country to study this South Asian language.
“I’m from New Jersey, went to high school in New York and college in Boston,” said Smith, who needs to learn Bengali before moving to Mymensingh, Bangladesh, where he will begin working with people who have cognitive disabilities in April 2009. “And now I have to go to Madison? I was like, ‘I’ve never been out west.’
“I remember how everyone kept asking me, ‘Why are you going to Madison to learn Bengali?’ ”