{"id":2169,"date":"2025-07-08T15:10:53","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/?p=2169"},"modified":"2025-07-14T22:11:48","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T22:11:48","slug":"building-connections-through-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/building-connections-through-food\/","title":{"rendered":"Building connections through food"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Text by Griselda Garcia<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n

Photos by Bella White<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

As I stepped from my airplane into the heat and brightness of Southern France, I could only feel the anxiety of being alone in a foreign country. I panicked as I tried to find my way to the shuttle bus that took me from the airport to the train station, in fear that if I didn\u2019t get on it, I would miss my train to Arles. It felt like the world was spinning. On the phone from 5,982 miles away, my boyfriend helped me find the shuttle bus. I made it to my train and continued my lonesome journey. <\/span><\/p>\n

My anxiety eased a bit when I arrived in Arles, and people from my study abroad program took me to the family who would be hosting me.<\/span><\/p>\n

But then I felt overwhelmed again, unsure of how I would communicate with my host family since I don\u2019t speak French. My host mom, Aur\u00e9lie Pelletant, introduced herself in English, and I did the same. She told me about her two sons, So\u00e9li and Eloann. I later found out that she speaks a little Spanish, which is the language I also speak, aside from English.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, the first few days felt difficult since I was not in the comfort of my own home with my family. I fell right to sleep the first night, but the second night I woke up wanting to see my parents until I remembered that they were thousands of miles away. <\/span><\/p>\n

Then, on the first weekend,<\/span> <\/span>I heard a knock on my door as I awakened from a nap. It was Aur\u00e9lie. <\/span>I walked out of my room to see a kitchen filled with ingredients for a cake. She then asked my housemate, Bella White, and me if we wanted to bake something. <\/span><\/p>\n

We went through her recipe books and stumbled on brownies. <\/span>Bella and I explained that we had never made brownies from scratch before, and that we usually buy premade brownie mixes, to which we just have to add eggs, water and oil.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The author adds an egg to a meaningful batch of brownies.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThat’s cheating,\u201d  Aur\u00e9lie said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The three of us let out a chuckle, and it hit me that we were building a connection through our different experiences of making brownies. <\/span><\/p>\n

Her recipe was in French, but the language barrier didn\u2019t disrupt the experience. Aur\u00e9lie began to translate each step of the baking process. <\/span><\/p>\n

The rich smell of chocolate filled the air as it melted. It brought me a sense of comfort and calmness. This smell eased my anxiety, and I began to feel more comfortable speaking to Aur\u00e9lie and Bella.<\/span><\/p>\n

Little by little, I began to settle into this strange and new environment, and just like closing the oven door, letting the brownies rise, my anxiety slowly drifted away.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Text by Griselda Garcia  Photos by Bella White As I stepped from my airplane into the heat and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":2174,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[127,20],"tags":[26,128,125,126],"class_list":["post-2169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","category-postcards","tag-food","tag-france","tag-language","tag-study-abroad"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Griselda_Post_3b-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2169"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2468,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169\/revisions\/2468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}