WAMU: Metro Connection

South African Dancer Flies High in D.C.

WAMU 88.5 - American University Radio — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:50:00 -0400

Andile Ndlovu is an internationally acclaimed dancer, and a member of The Washington Ballet.

He hails from Soweto, in Johannesburg, South Africa: the townships that were once at the heart of the apartheid struggle. When he started dancing as a young boy, local kids would tease him for doing ballet; they considered it elitist, for white people only, and especially unsuitable for boys.

He began dancing hip-hop, Latin American and ballroom, and made the transition to ballet at 15. Several years later, he tied for a gold medal at the South African International Ballet Competition. That's when Washington Ballet director Septime Webre offered Ndlovu a scholarship to come to Washington, D.C., and study dance.

Now, at age 24, Ndlovu has a slew of awards under his belt, and is choreographing his first full-length work with The Washington Ballet. It's called "The Guardian of the Pool," and is part of a world-premiere ballet called Once Upon a Time. Ndlovu says this particular story is especially close to his heart, since it's based on an old fairy tale from Nelson Mandela children's books.

"It talks about a little boy, a chief's son," says Ndlovu, "[and] a water witch casts a spell on him to make him guard the pool as a python--a python that comes with healing, as well for men and women, children, for any illness."

Ndlovu says he loves Washington, D.C., more and more, with each passing year. He especially enjoys the cultural diversity and bevy of museums. But ever summer he looks forward to going back home, to South Africa.

"My mother calls it 'come back and get your blessings,'" he says. "Come back and get more blessings and then go back and carry on doing whatever you do."

The Washington Ballet's Once Upon a Time has four performances this weekend, at The Town Hall Arts Recreation Campus in Southeast D.C.

[Music: "I've Got the World on a String" by The Glendon Smith Quintet from Gourmet Jazz]

Outspoken Chinese Artist-Activist's Work Comes To D.C.

WAMU 88.5 - American University Radio — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:45:00 -0400

Ai Weiwei is one of China's most prolific and provocative artists. He is also very political, openly criticizing the Chinese government's record on human rights and democracy. Last year he was detained under charges of economic crimes, and he still can't leave China. But two works from his exhibition "Ai Weiwei: According to What?" are being shown in D.C.

The first, in the Freer/Sackler Gallery, looks like "a very large, handcrafted 3-dimensional puzzle," says Carol Huh, the gallery's curator of contemporary Asian art. It's called "Fragments" and uses salvaged wood from ancient Chinese temples. Ai has reassembled the wood into a jumble of crisscrossed beams and pillars joined through hand-drilled holes and wooden pegs. Huh says the installation piece forms a rough outline of a map of China. The tallest beam roughly marks the location of Beijing.

Huh says Ai Weiwei created "Fragments" after he returned to China, following more than a decade in New York. Urban development meant the physical landscape in Beijing was changing rapidly--the old being torn down to make way for the new.

"It's in this context that he starts to look at the past, but his work is not just about simply preserving it, but about reconfiguring it, reinterpreting it, asking questions about what we mean by cultural heritage, what is our relationship to the past and what we mean by authentic art," says Huh.

The exhibit is being presented concurrently with another of Ai Weiwei's works at the Hirshhorn Museum. It comprises a circle of 12 bronze sculptures, each representing a Chinese zodiac sign.

"They're 800 pounds each, and they're a little bit scary," says Mika Yoshitake, Hirshhorn's assistant curator. "These are very enlarged. You're looking up at it, and they look like they can consume you!"

The sculptures are in some cases imagined versions of the original 18th century Zodiac heads during the Qing dynasty. Those animals were designed by an Italian priest and placed in the Garden of Perfect Brightness, an imperial retreat outside Beijing. During the Second Opium War, European invaders took the originals back to the West. She says in 2008, two of the heads went up for auction through the fashion designer Yves San Laurent.

"The Chinese government felt this was a national treasure," she says. "They bid for it but never paid for it. It caused a scandal, and that was impetus for Ai Weiwei to create the piece. There were questions about 'What is a national treasure?' Of course it was made in China by created by an Italian and taken by Europeans and you don't know whose national treasure this really is."

Ai Weiwei has said that he has lived with political struggle since birth. But both Yoshitake and Huh play down Ai's political activism. Yoshitake says, "It's our reaction to try and tame, not just from the public but the art world, there is this sense that Weiwei is overexposed in a sense through this political angle."

Huh agrees. "I would fully embrace the criticism we're playing down the politics. We're placing the politics in context. I don't think you can look at all of his art, his entire body of work through our current political moment. We've had a long relationship with China, and this is one aspect of it. At the Freer/Sackler, we reach back to the Neolithic age in China through 20th century calligraphy. So this is one moment for us."

Huh says the more important point is whether these artworks will still be relevant when this political moment passes. "He said the artworks are opportunities for individuals to activate their imaginations. And then it's the accumulations of those imaginations that will hopefully lead to social change. So he's not trying to make a closed statement, rather he's opening it out, and it's this wonderful quality that attracts us to his work."

Huh says whether Ai Weiwei's art, or any art, actually creates change is still vigorously debated. "But in order to make a large number of people aware of something, what better way to do it than through a language that is imaginative, accessible and a multisensory experience?"

Yoshitake agrees. "Change is not on just a mass level. But on a very personal level." Because even though the questions are universal and the installation pieces imposing, she says one of the important aspects of art is to have an intimate contemplative experience.

"Zodiac Signs" and "Fragments" are a preview of a much larger exhibition featuring 45 of Ai Weiwei's major works set to open this fall in D.C.

[Music: "Melodies from the Night Fishermen" by Chinese Instrumental Ensemble from Masterpieces of Chinese Traditional Music]

Georgetown Restaurant Aims to be Global Melting Pot

WAMU 88.5 - American University Radio — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:40:00 -0400

The motto "E Pluribus Unum" has made an appearance on dollar bills, on the U.S. Great Seal and now... on the D.C. dining scene.

Unum is the new restaurant opened by chef Phillip Blane and his wife, Laura Schiller. Blane says the new American eatery with international influences is a culinary embodiment of the "out of many, one" idea that represents the multicultural nation of America.

"From all these different influences comes one country, one idea, and in this case, one restaurant," he says.

Before Blane and Schiller met, they had traveled all over the world: Schiller in the name of her job with the government, and Blane in the name of cooking.

"I was in England, France, Italy, Israel, Malta, and then I was in Japan," Blane recalls. "Then I started to run out of money, and I gained about 70-something pounds."

Though he had earned a master's degree in health care administration, he'd longed to be a chef since he was a kid. So after leaving his job at an assisted-living facility, he helped open The Charlotte Hotel and Restaurant on Virginia's Eastern Shore.

"But I didn't go to culinary school," Blane says, "and so the advice was, 'Go see restaurants. Go eat in restaurants. Go experience different cultures and cuisines, and let it try and develop in your own voice.'"

Blane's travels eventually led him back to Washington, where he became sous-chef at Todd Gray's downtown restaurant, Equinox. Once Blane and Schiller got together, they hatched this idea: why not open a neighborhood eatery featuring contemporary American food, but with a global twist?

"I feel that was a perfect representation of the world outside, particularly D.C.," Blane says, "where we have all these different cultures coming together and working mostly harmoniously together."

An example of this "harmony" at Unum is the braised Indian-spiced lamb shank. Blane says the dish was inspired by his mentor, James Beard Award-nominated chef Raji Jallepalli.

"She's since passed away, but she was a terrific mentor," Blane says. "She actually worked with Jean-Louis Palladin here in Washington, D.C., at the Watergate briefly. And her knowledge of spices was just unparalleled."

In the lamb dish, you'll see a ton of spices and aromatics. The meat's rub includes cardamom, black peppers, cloves, cumin, coriander, nutmeg, cinnamon, a little bit of chili flake, and salt and pepper. The braising jus contains celery, onions, carrots, lamb stock and wine.Blane serves the lamb with several sides, including Brussels sprouts, which you caramelize in a red-hot skillet, and a raisin-cashew-cauliflower puree.

"We puree it with a little bit of mascarpone cheese and some garlic," Blane explains. "And we want to keep it a little bit chunky, so it has some body and some consistency."

Then you dab on a dollop of mint-cilantro chutney, and add the finishing garnish: a papadum.

"They are deep-fried," Blane says of the traditional Indian thin cake, "and they get this lovely, crisp texture."

He says he hopes the Indian-spiced lamb shank, and all the dishes on Unum's menu, capture the essence of Unum, and of Washington, D.C.: i.e. this exciting, vibrant amalgamation of flavors and cultures.

In fact, you could say he hopes his restaurant will be seen as a sort of melting pot.

And a delicious one, at that.

[Music: "Everybody Eats When They Come To My House" by Cab Calloway from Are You Hep to the Jive?]

Working as a Waitress, Dreaming of a Career in Medicine

WAMU 88.5 - American University Radio — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:35:00 -0400

Fernanda Fortiz was 17 years old when her mother concluded that life in El Salvador was too dangerous for her daughter. Gang violence was a problem there, and she wanted Fortiz to return to the United States, where she was born.

"My parents separated when I was 5, so my mom went back to El Salvador, and she took me," says Fortiz. "And when I was 17, she sent me back because it was too dangerous to be there and she just wanted me to have a better future."

Fortiz is working hard to make that dream a reality. Now 22, she juggles college studies in biology with a full-time job as a waitress.

"I also take care of my teenage sister who lives with me," she says. "So yeah, I have a lot of things on my plate."

Fortiz is finishing up studies at Montgomery College and will enroll at the University of Maryland in College Park this fall. She eventually wants to work in medicine or global health, and says she now considers Washington her home.

"I do consider myself a Washingtonian," she says. "I have learned to love this city. I like the good things and the bad things about it, and I would definitely want to stay here, yes."

[Music: "Confesion (Romanza)" by Alexander Sergei Ramirez on Barrios Mangore Confesion]

Door to Door: Wheeler Creek, D.C., and Centreville, Va.

WAMU 88.5 - American University Radio — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:30:00 -0400

It's our weekly trip around the region. This week, we visit Wheeler Creek in Southeast D.C., and Centreville, Va.

[Music: "No, Girl" by John Davis from Title Tracks]

From A To B: How Does D.C.'s Transit Stack Up Locally?

WAMU 88.5 - American University Radio — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:25:00 -0400

Compared to major U.S. metropolitan areas, Washington D.C. is one of the best when it comes to the choices available to commuters who want to avoid the congestion of the Beltway. We have the Metro, buses, and a new, popular bike share program. Compared to other cities across the globe, however, Washington is somewhat lacking in transportation innovation, but advocates and government officials say that is slowly changing due to a growing emphasis on sustainable transportation improvements.

Some changes are underway. Metro has opened a new bicycle parking area at the College Park station with plans to open two more bike-and-ride facilities next summer. Construction is expected to be completed later this year at a new transit center in Silver Spring where there will be three bus services, shuttles, Kiss and Ride access, and a new transit store where commuters can buy fare cards and maps.

Michael Replogle, founder and global policy director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, says Silver Spring's new transit center will be lacking in one area: it won't have a bike center.

"Unfortunately that is a plan that has long been thwarted," says Replogle, whose organization promotes sustainable transportation programs around the world.

Montgomery County officials say they are considering building a bike center that can accommodate a large number of cycling commuters at a nearby park, but that plan is in the early stages.

"I think this is something that may yet turn around. There are certainly some in the agencies who are fighting to get the project back on track," says Replogle, who says other cities have extensive bicycling facilities and road infrastructure to make bicycling safe.

"In a number of places in Europe like Münster and Bonn, in Amsterdam, in Switzerland, in Scandinavia, you find bicycle parking halls that store thousands of bicycles at the station entrances," says Replogle. "Hangzhou, China has 50,000 public bikes available throughout the city so that people can take a bicycle from one place and leave it at another place."

Union Station has the only large bicycle parking area in the city--a glass building that can hold about 100 bikes per day with around the clock security. Washington's Capital Bikeshare program has about 1,500 bicycles.

"In the Netherlands there are several towns where there are bike stations that hold over 6,000 bicycles," says Replogle.

Benefits of bus rapid transit systems

From the Silver Spring Metro station, Replogle and a WAMU reporter traveled downtown via Georgia Avenue, one of the most congested north/south roadways in the city, one that Replogle would like to see transformed into a more efficient facility.

"This could be a bus rapid transit corridor," he says. "You might have buses running down the center of the street and basically getting rid of the parked cars on the sides."

George Avenue has three lanes running in each direction. The outside lane both ways is often taken by parked cars. Buses often get stuck behind turning vehicles. A bus rapid transit, or BRT, system, would free buses to travel down exclusive bus lanes in the center of the road with the traffic lights programmed to hit green block after block.

"Bus rapid transit in Guangzhou, China is carrying 850,000 passengers a day on a single 20-mile corridor moving 28,000 passengers per hour per direction, which is more than any of the Metro lines here in Washington, D.C.," says Replogle. "They were able to build that system at a cost of less than $10 million a mile, which compares to several hundred million dollars a mile for building Metro."

BRT is being considered in Montgomery County, where County Councilman Marc Elrich has given several presentations on its benefits.

"Ideally, we would like to add more rail lines but at $300 to $400 million per mile for heavy rail like Metro and $50 to $100 million per mile of light rail, we cannot afford to build much of a next generation public transportation system," says Councilman Elrich in a statement posted to his website. "At $10 to $25 million per mile, bus rapid transit (BRT) is less expensive and allows for more interconnecting routes."

Bus rapid transit systems exist in some American cities, including Eugene, Ore. and Cleveland, Ohio. "People could have a one-seat ride from the mid- or upper Montgomery County all the way into the city," says Replogle. "There is now a growing realization that we can't afford to build Metro to everywhere in the region. We're struggling to come up with money to finance things like the Purple Line."

The benefits of BRT would extend beyond faster commutes. The improvements brought with better transportation systems extend to the design of neighborhoods (more mixed-used development closer to transportation hubs; fewer large car parking lots) to the local economy.

"For every dollar Americans spend to buy gasoline to drive their car to work something like 85 cents of that dollar leaves the local and regional economy and goes to other countries," he says. "For that same dollar to be spent on bus fare, 80 percent of that goes into paying the wages for the driver."

A model of a sustainable transportation system

You don't have to look across the ocean for examples of sustainable transportation systems on a large scale. Look across the Potomac River at Arlington County, considered a regional leader in transit innovation.

"The most important things that Arlington has done right start with land use and the decisions that were made by my predecessors beginning in the '60s and '70s to invest in the Metro system in the way that no one outside of D.C. did," says Chris Zimmerman, a member of the Arlington County Board with 20 years of expertise in sustainable transit.

The county is a partner in the Capital Bikeshare program and has worked to design the areas around the Rosslyn Metro Station, to name one, to be more bike-friendly.

"We were the first to put bike lanes on the street and we have about 30 miles of bike lanes. We also have bike trails that connect to them," said Zimmerman in an interview outside the Rosslyn station. "We created bike parking. A lot of the work this shop does is to make sure people have provisions in their buildings. I can bike to work because there is a place to put my bike in the building."

Arlington provides an array of resources online, from websites to help commuters who choose to walk or bicycle, to its Mobility Lab. The county also runs several one-stop shops for commuters called Commuter Stores, where people can access transit schedules, bike/walk maps, and car and vanpool information, as well as purchase fares.

Zimmerman says the county's efforts to get people moving more efficiently have garnered a lot of attention with the United States, but he looks to other continents, too.

"I went to Copenhagen about 11 years ago on a study tour," he says. "I saw what rush hour looked like in a place in which a third of the people were moving on bicycle in a place that's farther north than we are, tough winters and all that, a third of the people were moving on bicycle. They had become more car-oriented and they had to re-orient themselves to walking and bicycling."

In order to facilitate more walking and biking in Arlington, officials needed data. Commuter-counters were employed at key junctures. The results were eye opening--6,000 people were crossing the Key Bridge daily, to name one major roadway, on foot or on bike.

"No one was counting for years," says Zimmerman. "In many places in this country we are already moving large numbers of people without cars. We ultimately save money, we even build tax base."

In a few weeks Zimmerman will depart for France to visit three cities roughly the size of Arlington to study how they are becoming less car-dependent. The goal, he says, is to create a seamless transportation system in which commuters know they can travel around the region without wasting time. They would be aware of plentiful bus routes, bike lanes, and train schedules.

"In European cities they've been doing this for many more decades," says Zimmerman. "They've built up more of it, and so you can get all over the place in a combination of transit and bicycle; you can pretty much travel anywhere. It is hardly ever an option in the United States."

[Music: "A to B" by The Futureheads from The Futureheads / "I'm Sitting on Top of the World" by Les Paul from The Timeless Les Paul 1952-1954 Vol. 3]

From Anacostia To The Atlantic: How Our Trash Travels

WAMU 88.5 - American University Radio — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:20:00 -0400

There's a trash trap over a creek at Marvin Gaye Park in Northeast Washington, D.C. It skims the surface for floating trash. There's a potato chip bag, an ice cream container, a plastic grocery bag and a water bottle. All in all, this trap catches about 800 pounds of trash a month. But in most streams, trash like this will float into the river, then the ocean, and then maybe into the hands of Mary Engels.

Engels is the science coordinator at the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Mass. She pulls out plain brown boxes from a pile of more boxes. Arranged in shiny silver rows are hundreds of little tins. Each tin has dozens of confetti-like pieces of plastic inside.

"This is our plastic archive collection," says Engels, as she rhythmically shakes the bits around. "These samples were taken in the Sargasso sea east of Bermuda."

The place in the Sargasso Sea where these pieces were strained from the water is 1,000 miles from D.C., out in the Atlantic.

The samples are from what's called a subtropical gyre--a giant swirl of calm water near the equator. The earth has five big ones, thousands of miles across. The way the planet spins and the currents flow, the gyres end up collecting all kinds of trash.

Researchers skimmed the surface with a meter-wide net for about a mile, in the open ocean, and this is what they got.

"There's a whole mixture of small pieces in here," she says. The fibers are several millimeters in size and come in shades of blues, greens and whites. Some pieces are opaque and resemble sheet plastic. There are darker pieces, as well.

It's hard to tell by looking what these bits once were or where they came from.

Giora Proskurowski, a research scientist at the University of Washington, says the primary types of plastic are polypropylene, which include fishing lines, nets, clothing, yogurt containers, and food packaging. He explains polyethylene is plastic bags, and foam polystyrene is Styrofoam.

Proskurowski has collaborated with the SEA and says the trash probably comes from the land.

"If you look at the oceanography and where the water moves, it's very hard to move from hemisphere to hemisphere," he says. "So in the north Atlantic, it's almost certain that the sources of plastic are from the United States, Europe, the gulf and Caribbean region."

He estimates there is somewhere between 2 and 27 times more plastic in the oceans than anyone thought because until now people didn't realize how much more plastic there was below the surface. There is conflicting research from different oceans, but one survey in the Pacific found the quantity of plastic there had increased dramatically.

"Over the last four decades, plastic has increased in the North Pacific by 100 times," says Miriam Goldstein, a graduate student researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.

She says there is no floating island of trash. It's more like confetti mixed in with the water.

"There's this misconception that there's like a big floating garbage dump you can see and go to, and walk on but actually most of the plastic is really small."

So what then is the big deal?

"We actually think that is probably worse," she says. "Having all these tiny pieces floating all around. Cause if there was an island it'd be easy to fix--send a barge out there, pick it up, done."

The problem is that things eat this plastic. Karen Lavender Law, with the Sea Education Association has she's collaborated with Proskurowski, and has seen it first hand.

"We certainly have seen plastic in the gut of a Mahi Mahi we caught for dinner," she says. "We trawl a fishing line off the side of the boat, and in the name of science we dissected it, we brought aboard this beautiful fish, and in the name of dinner we filet it. And in the gut, there were some pieces of plastic, gridded material 2 x 3 inches in size. It's not good for the fish to eat that, but we don't know what harm it was causing the fish."

It's worrisome because plastics, Law says, act like sponges for more harmful persistent pollutants like PCB's. They concentrate in plastics and the same compounds show up in fatty animal tissue. One survey found 9 percent of small ocean-going fish had plastic in their stomachs. Another survey found 87 percent of some bird species ingested plastic.

"And that plastic can travel much farther than most of us would ever imagine," he says. "When you're 2,000 miles away from land, and can dip your net in the water and get 200 pieces of plastic, that seems insane to me. It's like going to the very farthest part of the Amazon and seeing plastic bags in every single tree."

He says it's something to think about next time you see a plastic bag blowing down the street.

[Music: "All Around the World" by Oasis from Be Here Now]

Cameroonian Musician Brings Afropop and Afrobeat to D.C.

WAMU 88.5 - American University Radio — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:15:00 -0400

Aristide Zogdoule came to the U.S. after years of success playing music in locales as diverse as Belgium, Indonesia, and Singapore. And he expected that within a few years, he'd see his name in lights here in D.C.

"Unfortunately it didn't happen," he says. "But you know, I am still very happy with what I am doing."

What he's doing is juggling a job as a restaurant manager with a thriving career as a bass player for a number of bands here in Washington. He's established himself in the city's music scene, but says it's nearly impossible to make a living in music in the U.S. Still, he says the effort is worth it.

"I might be tired after working 9 or 10 hours, but as soon as I go on stage after those 10 hours I'm still going to give another 5 or 6, [and] those 6 hours are going to be the best of my life," he says.

Zogdoule learned bass from a Cameroonian friend who lives in Belgium, and the bass, he says, is critical to a band's success.

"People... most of the time they're going to be more attracted to something like the saxophone, the solo guitar, but [if] you don't have the bass and the drum, everything is completely empty," Zogdoule says.

He says performing music is his life.

"You know what my dream is? Die on stage," he says. "Not to be on the dark side, but the stage is my life. It's where my heart is beating. You forget everything that goes around you. People are there for you; you are there for them. You give them what they want; they give you that response. It just makes you feel alive."

[Music: "Tindehe" by Zieti on Zemelewa / "What a Wonderful World" by Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra from A Very Ping Pong Christmas]

Soccer Goes International In D.C.

WAMU 88.5 - American University Radio — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:10:00 -0400

At an undisclosed location in Northwest D.C., a group of soccer players gather for an early-morning pickup game. The group calls itself "Sunday Soccer," and it's comprised of a rainbow of nationalities. Players hail from New Delhi, England, Germany, Lebanon, Iran, Russia, Spain and many more countries, too numerous to list. Week in and out, and even in the snow, the group gathers early Sunday mornings for a scrimmage.

Massimo Gigli founded the group roughly 15 years ago. He and some other dads were kicking around a ball, killing time while waiting for their kids to finish playing. They decided to meet up for a game, and thus, a tradition was born.

Olafur Gudmundsson, originally from Iceland, says meeting on Sunday mornings can be tricky, with the pressure family and household obligations. But, after 7 years of attending, his family now recognizes it as his own personal religion. As Gudmundsson puts it, he never misses a Sunday morning at "the Temple of the Round Ball."

Babak Rizagi, from Iran, says he plans his life around Sunday Soccer. When he travels for work, he makes sure to catch a flight in time for the game.

"I landed at 6:40 a.m.," he says, talking about recent trip home from Brazil. "I was on the pitch at 8:30 a.m. playing with these guys."

Those who are born and raised in the United States, like Timothy Schwartz, a D.C.- based teacher, originally from Manhattan, say playing with an international crowd toughens them up.

"Our one friend broke his nose in the game, sat up and set his nose, and kept playing," Schwartz recalls. In America, he says, we sit still and wait for the paramedics to arrive. "It's just fascinating to see how they deal with adversity and getting injured."

Though they're competitive while playing, off the field, the players show tenderness and love for one another. Schwartz confides, these are his best friends. "We have our families, we have our jobs, we have our wives, but it's coming here and seeing these guys--it's the highlight!"

[Music: "Wavin' Flag (Celebration Mix)" by K'naan from Wavin' Flag]

'Third Culture' Kids Straddle International, American Identities

WAMU 88.5 - American University Radio — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:05:00 -0400

Walk down the hallways at D.C.'s Washington International School, and you'll hear a symphony composed of French, Spanish, Dutch and Chinese. That's because WIS, perched on a hill in leafy Cleveland Park, offers an International Baccalaureate program with dual language immersion for students. But WIS's worldly ways extend beyond the classroom, to the very composition of the school.

Many WIS parents work at international organizations, global corporations, or area embassies, and they and their kids come from all over the world.

In fact, the 920 students at WIS represent more than 60 countries. So asking where they're from can provoke some pretty lengthy answers. For example, Elisa Cottarelli has lived in the same house in D.C. her whole life. But her family is Italian.

"My formula is I was born here, and my family is from there," she says. "Because there's so many differences between the cultures, I can't be one thing the whole time."

Meanwhile, Camila Salvador, who describes herself as Salvadoran, Palestinian and American, says she doesn't want to choose one cultural identity over another. But she doesn't want to prove her heritage either.

"I've always felt uncomfortable because I don't know who to identify with," she says. "I can hang out with my Latino friends from elementary school. But when I want to hang out with my Arab cousins, I have to prove that I'm Arab. When I hang out with my American friends I have to prove to them that I'm American as well."

That's why, Cyrus Jalinous says, juggling multiple cultures can be pretty perplexing. "I grew up speaking Farsi until I was 2, I had a babysitter who only spoke Spanish to me, and then I watched Sesame Street in English," he says. "So I was really a confused little boy."

But Ruth Van Reken, who co-authored a book about what it means to be a "third culture kid," says these kinds of experiences are common for them.

"A third culture kid is someone who has been raised for a significant period of time outside their parents' passport culture or cultures," says Van Reken, a U.S. citizen who spent 13 years of her childhood in Nigeria.

As a result, she says third culture kids struggle with the question of identity, feeling that they belong everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.

"In a world that defines people very narrowly -- by their race, ethnicity, or their nationality -- we have an enormous group of people who don't fit any of the categories we usually use," she says. But she says third culture kids also have a lot of advantages, especially in a globalizing society.

"From our varied life experiences, we've already learned to negotiate very different worlds," she says. "We've grown up to know that people of all races and colors and nationalities are all still people, and you can relate to them in a very deep human, wonderful way."

In fact, Sethly Davis says at WIS, being a third culture kid is a badge of honor. "The fact that you have more than one culture to say that you're from is really cool here," she says.

And she just hopes wherever she goes to college will be as worldly as her high school. "I don't want to lose the comfort I have being in such a diverse place."

After all, William Lane says, the international school really lives up its name. "It was described as a global village, people from all over the world interacting with each other," he says. "At first I thought that was cheesy. But when you start to go here, you realize how valuable it is. Because WIS is like a microcosm of the world."

And in that way, Cyrus Jalinous says, the most important lessons at WIS aren't the ones that come from your textbooks, but the ones that come from your classmates.

"At an international school you learn it's not where you're from because it all boils down to who you are as an individual, as a person," he says.

And he says that's true in every language.

[Music: "Wild World" by Emmerson Nogueira from Acustico II]