A whole year?

It's not such a bad place

When Chloe and I took Alicia to school for orientation and registration at the end of August we met another exchange student. She was sitting outside on the beautiful summer afternoon, surrounded by kids happy to see each other as they ate barbecued hamburgers and ice cream bars, good-naturedly tossing about expletives as they grumbled about the impending end of their summer. She, though, sat with her host mother looking like a terrified child who'd been snatched from the only world she'd ever known. Which she was. Imagine being a smart, happy kid at home and then being sent to live with strangers in an enormous foreign country not because you wanted to go, but because someone else thought it would be good for you. Not only do you not want to be there, but you speak virtually none of the native language, which puts you in classes far below your age and academic level. You're quiet and don't reach out to make friends because to be so forward is contrary to your Asian culture. Consequently, you're perceived as not only not the sharpest tool in the shed, but a snob. It doesn't take too long for other students to give up on trying to make you feel welcome.

I would occasionally ask Alicia how this girl was doing and she'd say she seemed to be okay; very quiet, but she laughed and smiled a little. I think the only thing that kept her from abandoning her exchange and running home soon after she arrived is the concern and hard work her first host family poured into making her stay here a success. They didn't let her hide in the sanctuary of her bedroom where she was safe and secure and didn't have to make an effort to fit in. They made sure she was involved in school activities and asked other students if she could sometimes be included in their social activities. They encouraged her to assimilate while providing her a loving and warm refuge to return to for comfort and support. I doubt that she realizes how fortunate she was to have these people as her first host family.

Today I went to the school play, Little Shop of Horrors. This exchange student was in the small chorus, singing and dancing and on display, stage front.

No whining

I've been reading things from mostly American exchange students living in many different countries. The forum in which they are posting lends itself to complaining and generally venting about problems they're having with their exchanges: host families, school, difficulty in making friends or learning the language. That's fine because they need a place to blow off steam during one of the most emotionally trying and overwhelming times of their lives so far. No matter what anyone might say, the only people who truly know what they're going through are other exchange students. Included in these discussions are many responsible kids who are obviously representing their home country well. Still, I'm surprised at the number of kids who don't seem to get it. A common thread is "It's your year," which implies that the student doesn't have to listen to anything anyone else has to say. Along with their Rotary pins, every student should be given one of these:

Guess what: It's not all about you. Yes, you're the one living in a foreign country with strangers. You've taken a huge plunge that will test your maturity and fortitude many times. For that you deserve credit, but with that comes responsibility. You didn't get there alone. You aren't supporting yourself. Strangers have given you a place to sleep, food to eat, and a part of their lives. Lots of people back home, many of them strangers who you will never meet, invested time and resources to provide you with this experience. Your school counselor helped you complete your application and wrote you a nice letter of recommendation. Your school will spend a lot of time and creativity making sure your credits transfer home. Your parents would rather have you at home, but in their desire to provide you with the experience of a lifetime they've given up one of the few precious remaining years they have with you before you leave home for good. Your sponsoring Rotary club is putting their reputation on the line by allowing you to be their representative to their peers in a foreign country. Demonstrate to the world that they made the right choice.

Sure, nothing is perfect. Some host families are insane, just like your neighbors or your cousins or your own family. Sisters and brothers can be mean. Teachers can be rude. It's hard to make friends. But think about it: how often did you go out of your way to make new friends with a stranger who you could barely communicate with because of the language barrier and who, after you've invested your precious time in the friendship, will be leaving relatively soon, anyway? It's not usually personal because most of us have enough close friends and aren't interested in cultivating new temporary relationships.

Sometimes the situation is truly bad. It's impossible to work things out with unreasonable people. Sometimes it's necessary to move families or schools or even cities. But sometimes you have to suck it up, smile, and don't let the bastards get you down. Maybe you're right and they are whack jobs. Too bad (as long as you are not in danger, of course). They think you're not trying hard enough to learn the language? Prove them wrong and quit speaking English in their presence no matter how hard that is. Maybe at home you can storm off to your room, slam the door, and refuse to come out for hours, but don't even think about pulling that bratty, immature crap on your host family. Yes, no matter what ridiculous thing your host parent is saying to you. Some people are unreasonable and there is nothing to be gained by arguing. Be the bigger person, smile, listen, then figure out a way to make the best of the situation. We've all done the equivalent of a frustrated-toddler temper tantrum, but that doesn't mean it's ever a valid response. Not every exchange student hits the exchange-student jackpot of a loving, stable host family, great new friends, and fabulous shopping trips to Milan. Go ahead and complain and vent (to the appropriate people). Get it out of your system. I'm a big fan of self-pity parties - feel intensely sorry for yourself for a short time, but then move on. But remember, it's not just your year. You're sharing it with lots of people who deserve to see a positive return on their investment.

Five

Five months sounds a lot longer than four months, maybe because Chloe's just slightly past the halfway mark until she's done with school. It's hard to believe she's been gone so long, and yet it seems normal. Unlike Steve, I'm not a big fan of routine, so I don't usually miss routine moments like picking kids up at the ferry every day or making sure there's enough clean underwear to go around. I miss Chloe, but I ain't crying over the untaken trips to the ferry dock to pick her up, or the mountains of laundry full of sweatpants, flannel pants, and hooded sweatshirts.

One reason why Steve misses Alicia (besides the fact that he adores her) is because there's no need for his morning routine of making lunch and breakfast and driving a kid to the ferry. He finds comfort in routine and he likes to be useful, so not having Alicia there in the mornings makes the pain of the Chloe void even more acute for him. The other morning he decided that the bathtub and shower had to be scrubbed - before he got out of the shower. A clean shower works for me, but without the kid routine in the morning, he tends to get a bit obsessed, like scrubbing the shower or taking the dirty dishes out of the dishwasher and washing them by hand, just so there are no dirty dishes in the house (he never uses the dishwasher, and he does almost all of the dishes around here). Christopher calls him Captain Compulsion and I've called him OCD Boy. I won't worry about his behavior until he fails to see the humor in our teasing.

These are among the little things that Chloe misses by not being here: teasing Steve about being a compulsive freak. Hearing Steve and Christopher arguing about the best way to reheat the sloppy joes, both trading good-natured insults. The puppy growing up. Relatives dying. And all of the other shared experiences of both immediate and extended family that will be a gap in Chloe's family history.

But it's not the missing so much as the sharing. Even having to change the number on her cell phone seems more significant than it is. She said, "Now I won't be part of the family" (our numbers were within a few digits of each other). That would take more than a different phone number, but I understood her point. Most of us harbor a secret fantasy that the world back home stops turning until we return, and we're humbled and disappointed to find out that it kept on happily spinning without us.

Likewise, I will never have any idea of how Chloe interacts with her host families or with her Spanish friends. I will never know her teachers or the school administration. Or any of the people who are shaping one of the most formative years of her life. With Christopher, those changes in the parent-child dynamic have happened gradually as the years have gone by. I don't notice it as much because it's a natural progression toward independence. With Chloe, it happened all at once. One day she was here and didn't want to leave us. The next day, she was gone and was going to be gone for a long time. It hasn't taken long to realize that, although she misses us, she doesn't really need us. I wish she were here, but I'm glad that she's there.

Vicariousness (yep, I looked it up)

When we know someone who is temporarily living in another country, we tend to think that every day must be fun and exciting for that person. Many exchange students have kept journals, blogs now, and written home, but most of those accounts hit on only the highlights because they are written so infrequently. A student will start out with good intentions, and then the next entry is, "Gosh, it's been two months since I've written and so much has happened!" When you're trying to cram two months into 300 words, you tend to leave out the ordinary bits.

From some things I've read, it sounds like this can be a problem for exchange students because we have unreasonable expectations for their sojourns. Many people still think that, because a phone call originates from another continent, it must be important. So, when the kid calls just for idle chatter and has no exciting stories to tell, the people at home wonder what's wrong. What do you mean you're bored? You're in Geneva and I'm in North Dakota; don't talk to me about bored. Maybe at that moment the kid is bored because he's been studying for a history test tomorrow. It's not a big deal and it's not indicative of his entire stay; it's just a snapshot of one moment. These kids can't be skiing in the alps all the time. Sometimes kids will call just because it's nice to hear a familiar voice for no particular reason, but the parents will assume that something else must be going on because it is, after all, a very long distance phone call. But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Another problem is when the student is not having the experience we would if only we'd been given the chance. You're in Spain and you're not taking Flamenco lessons? I've always wanted to take Flamenco lessons. How can you not want to take Flamenco lessons? If you've always wanted to take Flamenco lessons, quit whining about it, do it, and leave your child alone. And, no: there has been no discussion of dance lessons, Flamenco or otherwise, between us.

Chloe's Christmas

It was white. When we first heard that Chloe was going to Spain, the last thing we thought of was a white Christmas. She had a pretty good Christmas and being with Abby probably helped more than she knows. When I talked with her on the phone, she asked if it was warm and happy here and said she could picture the fire in the fireplace and everyone getting into their stockings, but she wasn't sad.

It wasn't bad for either of us, but we certainly missed her. I even drove by Pets Mart, thinking that I should stop and buy something for the dogs and cats. Then I remembered that it's Chloe who always pesters me to buy the animals Christmas presents. I didn't miss that and they didn't seem to notice their lack of giftage. It probably would have been a lot worse for us if Alicia and Laura hadn't been here, and a lot worse for Chloe if she hadn't been with Abby. Our Christmas package for her arrived in time and she has at least three more, from other family members, to look forward to.

If Chloe had been home, she wouldn't have met her host mother's cousin, a monk who they just adored and who gave them a personal tour of the monastery. She also loves her host father's father, who is very funny, so being with the family was fun for her. Probably not so much fun for Alicia's cousin, who surely missed her two cousins this year.

We haven't received the box of Christmas gifts for us and assorted other people from Chloe yet, but we got one gift last week. She made a photo album documenting a typical day in Pamplona, starting with her not yet out of bed in the morning. It was such a good idea and we love it. Those are the details that often get forgotten when reminiscing years later. We'll look at it often.

They haven't heard anything official about moving but are hoping they can do it after January 6 (Epiphany, Three Kings Day, the last day of Christmas) so they can spend that major holiday with the family they know. They like living where they are, but recognize that it's probably good that they'll be moving, and they'll still see each other often. One of the host fathers wants his exchange student gone sooner (she and another American girl - they're all American - will be taking Chloe and Abby's places), but unless he complains to Rotary, they'll probably be able to move after the sixth.

Turning a corner

Yesterday I was going to post about how Chloe is lonely, which is common for this stage in her exchange. She has some friends, but they will never be more than acquaintances. Her Economics class went to a museum and she doesn’t have friends in that class, so she spent most of the time alone. People at school are polite, but aren’t too interested in new friends (most of us aren’t), especially when it’s so much work to communicate. What usually ends up happening with exchange students is that they hang out with other exchange students. But year-long exchanges are rare at Chloe’s school and there are only one or two other exchange students there. The kids are much more cliquey there and have been together in their small groups since they began school at three years old. I was telling Alicia this and she said the people here are nicer than in Spain. Alicia also mentioned that she's not looking forward to going back to her school because school is so much more fun and less boring here.

There is a lot of time-consuming, emotionally draining unpleasantness going on here right now with both a friend and a relative dying and some other extended-family turmoil so Chloe didn’t want to complain too much, but just said that she feels sad when she sees kids laughing and talking and doing the simple, mundane things good friends do. I've told her to not hesitate to tell me how she's feeling no matter what is going on here (and this is certainly not business as usual here), but it's only natural (if you're not a self-centered brat, which she definitely is not) to try to not pile more problems on the people you love. I don’t have the answers for her, because I don’t think there are any (and even if there were, it wouldn't matter - she has to work it out in her head for herself), but that doesn’t make it any easier to know that your kid is sad and there’s not much you can do about it.

Today they went to San Sebastian, a resort town on the Atlantic. She said it was the most perfect weather she’s ever seen and the place was amazing. Then Abby said she was so glad to be in Spain, which sparked a realization for Chloe: so is she. Maybe she won’t have good, close friends, but she has them at home. She realized she should quit complaining about that and feeling sad (she hasn't complained a lot, but I think she's been a bit preoccupied with the thought), and embrace the fact that she’s living in Spain. She’s known this all along, of course (and I’ve frequently reminded her of it), but it takes time to work those things out and shift focus. And she likes to go out and see the sights, but when the kids there get together they go to dark, noisy, smoky bars and clubs instead of exploring their city. Which is normal – I don’t recall doing any sightseeing in my hometown when I was in high school. So she realized that hanging out with friends in that situation is probably something she's not too interested in doing on a regular basis, anyway.

Halloween

I asked Chloe if she felt like she was taking advantage of where she is or if it’s pretty much the same, just in a different location. I don’t want her to come home and wish she’d done more than live a common life going to school and doing homework. She doesn’t think too much about how where she is is different than where she came from because that’s her life right now. She said if she had a chance to come home early and there were no repercussions – like humiliation and never-ending regret – she’s not sure if she would cut the trip short or not. Definitely not “the best year of my life” as is quoted in so many exchange-student brochures, “but I think that comes later.” I’m glad she recognizes that the soft-focus lens of nostalgia softens the uninteresting bits so it can focus on the exciting parts.

I suggested that maybe she could take the bus places and just explore, but she said she gets lost and doesn’t know the language good enough to successfully navigate the transportation system (she has not the best grasp of location or direction). She says her host parents mostly want them to spend time with Spanish friends and are not so concerned that they experience culture and history on their own, although they've made an effort to show them things on the weekends.

Sunday night was a sleepover at a Spanish friend’s house for Halloween. Chloe said that even the kids, when eating as a group without adults, sit down to a meal: putting down a tablecloth, setting the table, eating real food from real serving dishes. I asked Alicia if the parents or the kids would have cooked the meal. She said it depends, but that she didn’t really know because people don’t usually do that (in this case, eat in each other’s homes). That’s a common refrain: “People don’ usually do that.” They played charades and I told Alicia that Chloe said she had a few problems. Alicia didn’t understand why, when all you have to do is act and not speak, so the language shouldn’t be a problem. Maybe not a language problem, but pull the Crown Prince Felipe card and you have a cultural ignorance problem.

It's not always good

I’ve been reading the unofficial RYE message board and some kids are going through things they shouldn’t have to. One boy posted that he’d worked hard before he left home and had over $1,000 in his bank account. Then he got a notice from the bank that his balance was $500. His parents have been withdrawing money and not telling him. A girl found out that her mother is in the hospital and her father told her that no one was forcing her to stay where she was, implying that she should come home after only three months of her exchange. Another boy is trying to convince his mom that he should be an exchange student and she tells him no because, among other things, it’s a lost year, he wouldn’t get an education, it’s just a vacation because they go out dancing every weekend, he’s hers until he’s 18, and these are important years and he should spend every one of them at home with his family.

Other kids have had problems with host families: maids stealing money, host siblings stealing personal property, creepy host fathers, mean host mothers, or the families are angry with them for not speaking the language fluently upon arrival. A girl had a highly inappropriate and scary experience with her Rotary counselor when he took her to her first Rotary meeting, but telling her host family didn’t help because they were friends and so ignored her complaints. One student wrote that his job was to take the family’s obnoxious little dog for a walk four times a day. He hated the dog, it would stop and roll over on its back and refuse to budge (but only while crossing a street), and it was usually raining.

Someone else told an amusing story: A boy found out that his mom had just been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and said that his family needed him at home. The cancer was bad enough, but what a shame for this boy to have to cut his exchange short. But another exchange student happened to know someone in his hometown and heard a different story. One morning his mother went downstairs to get the coffee started and saw his suitcases in the hallway. She checked his bedroom, where he was sound asleep. She didn’t have cancer and had no idea he was coming home.

Smoke and trash

Chloe’s in a bit of a homesickness slump, which is right about on time. She has terrible dreams where we all go visit her and then she wakes up and no one is there. And, for reasons I'm not sure about, someone is usually yelling at her. She’s sort of hoping that we’ll surprise her with a visit in the next month or so, but that won’t be happening. I told her that I couldn’t do that – visit and then leave again, but she’s quite certain that she could handle it.

She gets sad when she hears a dog bark or sees a cat, got really sad looking at the pictures of her friends that Alicia’s been taking and I’ve been posting (but not sad enough to not look at them), and the chocolate chip cookies she made are all gone. And she doesn’t look forward to going to school tomorrow. She had fun going out with friends on Friday night but is already tired of “drunk old men and trashy girls” in smoky bars, but that’s where they go. At least she’s not developing a fondness for the bar scene. She’ll have an advantage when she goes to college because the party scene so common with recent high school graduates who equate independence with alcohol poisoning will be old news to her.

But next weekend they're going to a mountain with some family friends or relatives that have teenage kids (or at least that's what she thinks was said), so there will be counter to the smoky bars.

I'll stay here

Yesterday I mentioned something about the end of the school year and Chloe said, “Don’t remind me – that’s soooo far away.”

But today she said she was thinking about the whole homesickness thing and it occurred to her that she doesn’t want to come home, in fact would be really upset if she had to come home now. She would, however, like all of us to go over there.