A good question to ask yourself before writing anything for public consumption is, "Who cares?" In this case, I couldn't find what I was looking for, so I began writing what I couldn't find, using what we learned - often the hard way - along the way. I've assumed that others in the same situation might care. This blog is for potential exchange students and their families.
When our 15-year-old daughter got the news that she was going to be a Rotary Youth Exchange student (and when she got the news that they'd changed their minds - that's a part of this story), we started looking for information. I wanted the tiniest of details: What time does school start? Does the entire country of Spain really take a siesta every day (no, despite what self-proclaimed experts will tell you), should she bring a Spanish-English dictionary with her (yes, but even more important, a good book of verbs and their conjugations), is there a jovial doorman in the lobby of the apartment building where she'll be living (no, jovial or otherwise), how much is the bus fare, and do you pay when you board or when you disembark? That, I still don't know.
We also hosted a student, and the story of how she got here and why she almost didn't was an exercise in learning to never take no for an answer and to keep asking the same question until you get the answer you're looking for. If American bureaucracy is more than you can handle, stay away from the exchange-student process because other countries can be much more difficult, arbitrary, and even spiteful. If you're not willing to jump through specious hoops and collect personal documentation - and make multiple copies - that will never actually be used, run the other way. Any organization, volunteer or paid, is only as good as the individual members. The low-paid gatekeeper sitting at the front desk, the one, for example, holding the stamp that says your visa application is complete, has the power to keep you from your dream, so make a friend of everyone you meet. Many are great and of much help. Some are not, so you'll have to work around them. Our experience demonstrates that it can be done.
We're told that anything they need can be bought wherever they're going to be living. They lie. Can't live without peanut butter? Bring it from home and by the time it runs out you'll have found a local food product that you won't be able to live without when you get home. Live in shorts and flip-flops? You'll need a new wardrobe. Want to avoid homesickness? Too bad - plan on it (you will get over it, but no matter how many people tell you that, you won't believe them) or stay home.
Because blogs are often personal journals where people write about their lives, it may seem like I spent all of my time lamenting the absence of our daughter and living vicariously through her. I did not. We missed her terribly, but we got over it. We eagerly anticipated her return, but didn't put our lives on hold until then. We did not miss the debris field she leaves in her wake when she is home, or the mountains of laundry she generates consisting primarily of 186 tank tops, 18 hooded sweatshirts, and 74 pairs of flannel pajama pants. The information here is targeted to exchange students and their families, so it necessarily centers on our daughter being away from home. We also tend to tease a lot, and some readers got the impression that I was being mean. No, just sarcastic. There was a cake-baking mishap and I was taken to task for teasing her about it, because I didn't support her in her failure to bake a cake in a foreign country, with unfamiliar ingredients, in a foreign language. If my comments, which echoed her own, on an unsuccessful cake-baking venture were enough to harm her psyche, then she'd have no business being an exchange student.
I also firmly believe that it is not solely the student's exchange, an attitude that some exchange students have objected to. No exchange student gets where he or she is going without a lot of help and support from friends, family, schools, and strangers. Unless the exchange students pay and arrange for the entire trip, including room, board, school, books, transportation, insurance, luggage, immunizations, documentation, and myriad other details, the students owe a lot of people a lot of gratitude. Being good ambassadors and keeping people at home apprised of the exciting lives they're leading is a good way to show appreciation for the gift they've received.
The beginning is here and everything else is in the archives. Because this is about being an exchange student, there have not been too many posts since our daughter came home in July 2005 (so you'll need to look in the archives for posts). I'm still working on finishing the posts when I went to Spain to meet her and our month-long trip to a few European capitols before we came home.
If you have anything to add, please comment, or e-mail me. I'm especially interested in hearing from people who've been exchange students in places other than Europe. Thank you, and I hope this helps.
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