A whole year?

No more creamed corn, thank you, but I will take another year in Europe

If you asked my grandmother for seconds of the creamed corn before she had a chance to offer you more (which would mean you were exceptionally quick), you'd be branded a lover of creamed corn, a person who can't get enough creamed corn, even if the only reason you wanted more creamed corn was because you hadn't eaten since breakfast and your stupid brother just took the last of the mashed potatoes. If you have one conversation with someone and he talks exclusively of, say, the basketball playoffs, you might reasonably infer that he is a basketball fanatic. Or it could be that he just watched an exciting playoff game and is still caught up in the moment. That's two clumsy analogies in one week, but that's what it's like to talk with Chloe on the phone or online or in e-mail. If I talk to her when she's exhausted from studying early fifteenth-century Spanish philosphers for a final, in Spanish, and she's certain that she's not only not learning anything, but that everything she's ever learned is being hoovered out of her brain, it's easy to assume that she's having a terrible week when she may be just having a fleeting moment of frustration, and that's the moment we happened to talk, especially when I won't talk to her again for a few days or so. What I write are my perceptions and inferences, based on limited conversations, which may or may not be accurate. And here are some more.

One thing I hoped for this year is that Chloe would discover that studying and living abroad is not impossibly exotic. Today she half-jokingly said she wanted to go to college in Italy. She seemed to broach the subject as if I'd be opposed, but she'd temporarily forgotten that I'd asked her near the beginning of the exchange if she'd thought about going to college in Europe. She'd said yes, maybe for a quarter or something. I said no, I mean for a year or maybe even the whole time. No way, she said. Several months later, she's changed her mind. It's working: she's learned that her options don't stop at the state line or the US border. She doesn't have to go to college in Europe or Argentina, but she can if she wants to. And if she can find a way to pay for it.

Steve, on the other hand, very nearly had a heart attack when I mentioned this conversation. Then I reminded him that she still has a year of high school left after she returns, and if she studied abroad it probably wouldn't be until her junior year. That gives him enough time to prepare to cross that bridge. And then, don't you just know, we'll start again with the "But I thought it was just for a quarter!"

Emulating Janet Jackson

Another reason for Chloe's call: a bunch of the kids on this trip are getting piercings (use your imagination for where) and should she get it done now or wait until she gets back?

A bit of background: Chloe's been asking to get her nose pierced (she'd really like her bellybutton pierced) for years. I've always told her, about the bellybutton, that as soon as she's old enough to not need a parent's signature, she's welcome to pierce away. That she won't be eighteen until she leaves for her first year of college is just too bad. That, by the way, is when she can get a fish (I hate fish - not a fan of scales or fins). So she's been concentrating on the nose piercing, a tiny stud in the side. I don't want her to come home the same old plain Chloe, do I? Well, that wouldn't be so bad. But I'd decided to allow the nose piercing, but I wouldn't tell her until I got there after she was done with school. Then it occurred to me that it might not be a good idea to get that done immediately before embarking on a several-week trip through Europe. I still hadn't told her that I'd decided she could do it when she trotted out her plea once again: her host mother, a nurse, said she'd go with her to make sure it was clean and safe. So I said yes, provided that she wait until after her trip, make sure they were allowed at school, that her host mother go with her, and that she absolutely, positively, not get a ring through her nose. The next message proclaimed me the best mother in the whole wide world. Many people would beg to differ that allowing your underage child to poke permanent holes in her nose qualifies for that distinction. Her dad, for example, thinks there have been better ideas.

Back to our story: she's going to wait until she gets back to Pamplona for the piercing. For many people, a pierced nose is not a big deal; for most of our family on both sides, it is. Their reactions will be interesting.

You can do it

We've been talking about travel plans for when I go meet Chloe. My first thought was that Chloe would somehow get down to Madrid and we'd meet there. She didn't like that idea: she didn't want to go down by herself, she might get lost, I might get lost. I told her that maybe I could meet her when she gets off the bus or the train. "Can you find the bus station?" I told her that I was pretty sure that it had been done before: a non-Spanish speaking person finding the bus station in Madrid.

I found myself telling her that I was pretty sure she could manage. How hard is it to get on a bus or train, get off in a major metropolitan city, then meet someone at a prearranged location?

Then I realized what I was saying: I want my sixteen-year-old daughter to travel about five hours by herself, to one of the biggest cities in the world, get off at a bus or train station (which are not often in the best parts of town), then hope the rest goes according to plan and we actually meet among the millions of citizens and hordes of travelers from around the world. All the while operating as if in the dark ages, without cell phones.

True, she flew far away from here and is living in a foreign country. But she didn't do any of that by herself. We'd probably have no problem meeting up, but if something went wrong she wouldn't automatically know what to do. It's entirely possible, probable, even, with the language barrier, that I'd make a few wrong turns in getting to our meeting spot. There's a good chance I would be hours late because of that. It's perfectly reasonable for her to be apprehensive about the whole idea. I'm sure she can do it, she just hasn't yet and there would be easier situations in which to learn that lesson.

Here I am suggesting that she suck it up and get herself down to Madrid and meet me. If she was at home and told me she was going to get on the ferry (30 seconds from our house), then somehow make her way to the train station to meet someone after she gets to Seattle, I'd tell her no way, not until she'd figured out exactly where it was, how she'd get there, how she'd get back, and what she'd do should a major earthquake collapse the Alaskan Way Viaduct. And I'll still do that after she gets home.

Go away to learn about home

I wonder if it's common for exchange students to come home from their exchanges knowing more about their home country than before they left. Chloe definitely will. Seeing her country through the eyes of intelligent, well-read, well-adjusted people who've either never been here or who have only visited has taught her more about America and Americans - good and bad - than she would have learned if she'd spent this year at home.

That she's a minority now has also taught her a lot. Because she's the outsider, she's discovered first-hand that some people make ignorant comments about things they know nothing about. That seems to be a universal human trait. Now she has a graphic example of the kind of person she doesn't want to be.

How did you know that?

Having your ignorance on display is never fun, but it's usually a good thing. Chloe's host father told her that America came this close to a nuclear war. Huh? Wouldn't she have heard about that? Yes, she had heard about the Cuban Missile Crisis, but she didn't know what it was, and he didn't call it that. That's actually come up several times: someone asks her about something, she tells him she's never heard of it, she feels stupid, he thinks she's an ignorant American. Later, she realizes that she does know what he was talking about, but in the translation he called it something different. It's not always possible to hunt the person down and explain that I'm really not that stupid, and here's what I know, just to prove it to you.

He's always telling her things about American history that she doesn't know (or doesn't remember) and she finds it a little embarrassing that a Spaniard (albeit a well-read Spaniard) knows more about her country than she does. I'm just happy that her host father takes the time to discuss these things with her. I realized that I told Alicia things about America that I've just assumed my kids learned in school. They probably did, but I haven't done a good job of making sure they remember what they've learned.

These experiences have made Chloe want to know more, to be more well-read and better informed. That right there is worth the cost of this exchange year. To be fair, this is the year she would have taken a serious American history class at school (she'll have to make it up this summer). I told her that everyone should know more than what happened on The OC last night. "I know, but I want to know what happened on The OC last night." Nothing wrong with that, as long as that's not all you know.

Four months

Another anniversary. Four months and the cats, in a display of obtuse optimism, still sit outside of Chloe's bedroom door as if it will open any moment and they will once again be welcomed inside. There have been a couple of times when I've almost joined them there on the floor, staring expectantly up at the closed door, waiting for Chloe to wake up and walk out

Instead, we talk on the phone and e-mail. It's hard to imagine that just a few years ago this instant communication would have been too expensive and often impossible. I can't begin to comprehend how the lack of communication would change the exchange experience because we take immediate gratification for granted.

Today we talked about how some people dismiss other ideas or foreign practices as a defensive measure. If I agree that your way of doing something, while different than mine, is no less valid, then I have to admit that there is a big world out there and it's not all scary just because it's different than what I know. Maybe what I know to be true can be challenged; maybe I don't know as much as I think I do. And just maybe my child might come home with ideas different than what she left home with. As parents, we're used to having the benefit of experience that our kids haven't lived long enough to develop yet. Suddenly our kids, far outside of our reach, are having major life-effecting experiences that we'll never be a part of.

We Americans send our kids away to gain a broader understanding of the world, to discover that most cultural differences aren't right or wrong, they just are. Parents in other countries often send their kids here primarily to improve their English-language skills and would prefer that their kids not come home with American baggage like questioning authority or social tolerance or wearing flannel pajama pants to school. Or sitting in front of the TV balancing a can of Duff beer on our hops-and-Twinkie-filled guts (Homer Simpson is a useful shortcut for many people in other countries - he is what is wrong with America. I'm guessing that some of the insightful satire is lost in the translation). Many of us host parents are happy to see that, despite what they'd been told at home, these kids have realized that the world didn't stop spinning when a fellow student questioned a teacher's position. Rather, the teacher used the student's point of view to further the discussion.

I'm seeing now that a full school year is essential to developing that kind of attitude shift. It takes three or four months for the students to get past the differences before they're able to synthesize their experiences into opinions that might differ from those of their parents. It takes that long for the students to begin to develop more self-assured autonomy. They have concrete proof that they've been away from the direct authority of their parents and have not only survived, but are often thriving. That they can flourish without our daily, hands-on influence is not something we parents are eager for our minor children to discover.

It's a smaller world

Concern over the tsunami that hit Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, etc. is another example of how this exchange program has made my world smaller. One of the three exchange students at Vashon is from Thailand, another from India. And Anna Rae's mom has a friend who is teaching in Thailand who writes a blog full of interesting photos. I have no idea who she is or even how Anna Rae's family knows her, but I'm worried about her. Likewise, I barely know the girl from Thailand or the boy from India, but I'm worried about their families and how scared they must be until they can get word about their families' safety.

At this time last year, I would have been interested in the scientific aspects of the earthquake and tsunami and had a vague, fleeting sense of sadness at the incredible destruction and thousands of lost lives, but I had no personal connection to that part of the world. But these are no longer just land masses with arbitrary borders; they are the homes of people I know.

Wish I'd written that

In today’s Bremerton Sun there is a column about a local exchange student who is in Australia right now. Rob Woutat, the writer, was an exchange student many years ago and in this column he eloquently describes the value of that:

And he may discover decades hence, when he reads a news story about some disaster that has befallen Australians . . . that it will no longer be possible not to care.

And:

Finally, he’ll also learn the fascinating truth behind the saying that a man is like no other man, some other men, all other men.

That’s what they should put on the brochure.

Yeah, right.

“Soooo, what are we thinking about the piercing situation? “ We weren’t, but I was thinking that it would take longer than a week and a half to bring it up, even though I know it’s common for exchange students to get off the plane on their return home with different haircuts, different hair color, extra piercings, and tattoos. And, on a few occassions, a spouse.

Chloe has wanted her bellybutton pierced for a couple of years and I told her when she’s old enough to not need parental permission she can get it done (that will be at the beginning of her first year of college, the magic date that I also told her she could get a fish – I don’t like fish). Now, to help her feel more Spanish, she’s thinking that a tiny jewel in the side of her nose would do the trick and make her experience there so much more enjoyable. Alicia’s pretty darn Spanish without extra holes in her nose. I don’t care if Chloe gets things pierced, I just want to be sure she’s old enough to make a decision that she’ll have to wear for the rest of her life. And I have a feeling that her host parents won’t think it’s such a good idea. Alicia is a very good girl who does exactly what her father tells her to do and I get the impression that a pierced anything-else is not in her immediate future, either.