Shelbie Harris

Staff Writer

After serving as Fulbright scholar and visiting professor in Chile, Idaho State University Associate Professor of Geosciences Benjamin Crosby and his family lived inside a 1985 Volkswagen camper van during their monumental four month, 15,000-mile drive home.

Crosby served as a Fulbright scholar at the Universidad de Concepción in Concepción, Chile from August through December 2013.

Accompanying Crosby during his 14 month sabbatical was his wife Cana, his daughter Dylan, 14, and his son Wells, 12.

Since then, readjusting to regular life in Pocatello has been a process for Crosby, which is to be expected after spending more than a year outside the country.

“I think that there are days that I am really glad to be home because I feel a sense of responsibility and belonging here,” Crosby said. “I have a purpose at ISU. I have a purpose in Pocatello, but in Chile and on our drive home our life felt like a new adventure each day.”

During that time Crosby was responsible for conducting field research in addition to instructing a few technical courses, in English, to students whose primary language is Spanish.

The Fulbright Program offers grants to study, teach and conduct research for U.S. citizens to go abroad and for non-U.S. citizens to come to the United States. It is designed to support friendly and peaceful relations between people of the United States and people of other countries by increasing international understanding in response to critical global issues.

“You are accomplishing diplomacy through academic exchanges,” Crosby said.

Once his Fulbright was completed, Crosby stayed at Universidad de Concepción as a visiting faculty member on sabbatical, and focused on completing the field research he started during his Fulbright. 

“From January through May 2014 I was on sabbatical with ISU. During that time I didn’t have any responsibilities for teaching. I could just focus on research and that’s a lot of what I did,” Crosby said.

“My research was all about understanding how river water quality cycles over time. With this information, dams can be designed and managed to replicate these natural cycles, minimizing their impact on downstream ecosystems,” he added.

To Crosby’s surprise, life in Chile wasn’t much different than life in the United States, other than everyone was speaking Spanish instead of English.

Many parts of the country, including the university he taught at, were very modern, something he described as “the shock of the familiar.”

“There were people riding around on $10,000 full-suspension mountain bikes wearing the cool clothes you get at Pacific Sunwear,” Crosby said.

He continued, “There are brand new shopping malls and giant movie theatres with leather reclining seats that you can go and watch the brand new Captain America movie, in English with Spanish subtitles.”

Crosby wrapped up his office life and local research at Concepción near the end of April 2014 and began the 15,000-mile trek home.

The trip began with the family heading south to the tip of South America exploring Patagonia, Argentina and Chile before heading north back to Idaho, making sure to catch all the must-see locations, including the ruins of Machu Picchu.

Contrary to warnings from family and colleagues, the drive home went much smoother than Crosby initially predicted.

“[The experience] was amazing. It was easier than I anticipated, and easier than everybody made me feel it was going to be,” he said.

“I received all kinds of scary emails from people saying don’t go to Columbia it’s full of drug runners, or you’re going to get robbed in Mexico, however none of it was true, it was all just wonderful.”

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For Crosby this experience was full of adventure and of great challenges. The experience allowed him to break away from regular life for a while, and for that he is grateful.

“When you’re a kid new experiences come so fast and furious that your evolution as an individual is extremely rapid. That learning curve is very steep,” Crosby said.

“As we get older I think that learning curve becomes a little less steep, we challenge ourselves less, and we live more within the familiar. I think my year away was a break from that familiar,” he added.