My Host Family, the San Martins

 

 

I waited for a few more agonizing weeks after the Camarillo orientation before receiving my first email from my host family. More and more of my friends who are going on exchange next year started being contacted, and the suspense grew. When I finally got an email, I was so excited I could barely breathe.

Eric, Nancy, Montserrat, Cristobal, Maxi

I will be staying in Rancagua, Chile with the San Martin family. Eric and Nancy will be my host parents, and Cristobal (16), Maxi (14) and Montserrat (9) will be my host siblings. I immediately started talking on Facebook with Cristobal and was blown away by how nice and forthcoming he was. He would spend hours every night answering all of my questions. Soon, I met my whole family over Skype and realized quickly that I couldn’t have gotten any luckier. Cristobal is the person I am closest to. We Skype almost every night, and we never run out of things to talk about. He is studying abroad next year in Idaho (I am taking his room and his place in school) and so we can trade advice about America and Chile. I speak to Cristobal in English—his English is so good and he refuses to speak Spanish to me—but I speak Spanish with everyone else. Eric is the only person in the family besides Cristobal who speaks decent English, but the other kids are learning in school. Eric seems responsible and hard working (he works two jobs every day and doesn’t get home from work until around 11 at night) and he always asks me if there’s any way he can help with my visa paperwork. Maxi, although I haven’t talked to him much, seems nice and has promised to teach me how to play videogames, which will be a monumental task for him. Montserrat is the cutest thing in the world. Everytime she sees that Cristobal is Skyping with me, she grabs the webcam and starts telling me everything about her day. We once had an hour long conversation about Disney princesses. I can’t wait to have a little sister! Nancy is so caring and sweet. She a posted a picture of her and Monse at the hair salon on Facebook and wrote “Doing girly things with my daughter! All we’re missing now is you Alex!” I had to do a project for Spanish class where I made a cooking video about a traditional Spanish dessert. I asked Nancy if she had any ideas, thinking that she would just give me the name of a popular dessert She did a lot more than that. She got out her cookbooks and found me a recipe for her favorite leche asada (it’s kind of like flan). The problem was that all of the directions were in Spanish (and the measurements used the metric system), so she spent an hour trying to explain everything to me in a way that I would understand while I took copious notes. Then, she Skyped me the next day and cooked the dessert in front of me while I watched over the webcam. Then, when I finally tried to make the dessert myself and ran into a few problems, we Skyped again and she talked me through the whole process.

Talk about going above and beyond for someone you don’t even know. She promised to turn me into a fantastic cook while I’m in Chile, which is quite the undertaking. My Chilean family seems so open and welcoming, and I know that they are going to take great care of me.

I will be attending Instituto Ingles de Rancagua. It is a small Catholic school that has 1,200 students in grades K-12. This is so much smaller than Aliso Niguel High School, with its 3,000 kids in grades 9-12. I am happy that the school is so small because I think it will mean that more people will know that I am new and foreign and will be more inclined to talk to me. I won’t just get swallowed up in a giant campus where no one knows my name. Cristobal has explained to me a lot about the differences between schools here and there, but I still don’t understand everything. The students stay in one class all day, while teachers of different subjects rotate between classrooms. You choose your electives (an extra history class or math class for example) based on the career field you want to go into. There are school sports, but they are only for PE. There is not a whole lot of school spirit—no pep rallies, mascots, or sporting events to go cheer at. I think this will be a big change from American school, where I am used to going to football games with the marching band every Friday night and losing my voice from cheering so loudly. I hope I will be able to join a band there because band here has brought me so many great friends and playing music is one of my passions. I plan to bring my flute just in case (I can always play it in the house, just to relax), but I also realize that joining any type of group will probably have the same effect. I just need to get involved in order to meet people and have fun. I do have one thing to look forward to: uniforms. Okay maybe not exactly look forward to but they aren’t as horrible as they could have been. I’m excited for everything about this trip, no matter how boring it sounds. From uniforms to cooking, I will appreciate every moment and every new experience. Even if things aren’t always good—I’m sure there will be plenty of frustrating and embarrassing moments—they will never stop being interesting!

Rotary Youth Exchange

My next big hurdle was finding an exchange program that was right for me. This turned out to be incredibly easy. Maya Frost, author of The Global Student, had mentioned in the book that she had sent her kids abroad through Rotary Youth Exchange. I figured that she hadn’t steered me wrong yet, so I called the Laguna Niguel Rotary Club, told them what I wanted to do, and from there I basically just sat back and let the ball roll. I was amazed by how easily and quickly they responded with all the information I needed and paperwork I had to fill out. I learned more about the details of the study abroad process. I would be gone for ten months, and during that time I would live with 2-3 host families, attend high school, and attend local Rotary Club activities with the other Rotary Youth Exchange students in the area. I could tell how eager these people were to support me and give me this opportunity of a lifetime, and I knew that I had chosen the right program for me.

My first step was to fill out the very long and in-depth (so much work) written application. Then I received an email telling me that my first official study abroad orientation would be held at the end of January in Big Bear.

I was excited, but also incredibly nervous. First of all because I hadn’t been skiing since I was about 8—and I am not the most coordinated person to begin with—and more importantly because I would have to go all alone. I have lived in the same house and gone to school with the same group of kids my entire life. I have never been the new kid or walked into a place without knowing a single person. I started to wonder how I would handle being alone in another country if I couldn’t even manage it here. However, when my dad dropped me off at the hotel, my fears were quickly put to rest. I walked into a room with all the other kids—both future exchange students like me and current exchange students. I just started talking to people.

 I felt like I had some sort of unspoken connection with these people. They got it. They got that this weird, confusing, awkward world we call high school is not all there is. They got that we are capable of so much more if we are willing to go out and work for what we want. In the two days that I was there, I made some great friends—from California, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Colombia, Chile, and Ecuador. I even discovered an unknown talent for skiing!

It wasn’t all fun and games at the Big Bear weekend. On Friday morning, all 14 of us future exchange students sat down for an orientation. We learned more specifics about the trip, and we got lots of tips for how to behave with our host family and what to except throughout our exchange. Then, things got a little nerve wracking. We were split into two groups, and my group was taken into another room. We had to take the dreaded current events test. Since as exchange students we are sort of ambassadors for the United States, we are expected to know enough about our own country to be able to answer questions intelligently and represent the United States properly. Let’s just say that I may have a few facts to brush up on before I leave (I didn’t know who the governor of California was…). Then we went into the next room, where there were 7 interview stations set up. We were able to submit a preference of countries we would like to go to—mine were Chile, Argentina, and Ecuador—but the final decision is up to the organizers, who planned to interview us and then put us in a country we would be compatible with. They finished the interview, went into a room and made the decisions, and then refused to tell us. Worst cliffhanger ever! I didn’t know I was going to Chile until I received a call from Sug, my Rotary counselor, about a month later.

I quickly became the Laguna Niguel Rotary Club’s Rotary Youth Exchange representative. I was asked to give a speech about the Rotary Youth Exchange program to the Laguna Niguel Rotary Club.

My family went to the meeting and I stood up and spoke in front of some very important people including the mayor of Laguna Niguel (picture below).

I was nervous, but after they all told me how proud they were of me and how they wished me well, I felt like I had a great support system. I have also been invited to two Rotary district conferences where I learn about other Rotary programs for teenagers and tell people about how the Rotary Youth Exchange program has provided me with this great opportunity.

 

 

A few months later, in December, it was time for the second orientation. All of the future exchange students and our families met at a hotel in Camarillo for two jam packed days of learning about exchange. This was the time when all of the specifics were addressed. We received our Rotary gear—blazers, polo shirts, business cards, patches, and pins.

Then we sat in a conference room all day and talked about everything from homesickness and how to deal with it to applications for visas. Many of the current exchange students were there, and during breaks and at the pool that night, they gave us their own personal advice about what to do on an exchange (slightly less polished than the advice printed in the handbook) and words of wisdom. Each of us outbound students was expected to give a speech about our goals for the exchange the next morning. Mine included being open to new things and new ideas, gaining self confidence and people skills, and seizing hold of every opportunity that presented itself to me. I don’t want to miss out on anything just because I am a little shy or nervous. Then, the Rotary counselors wished us well and the last orientation was over.

I am expected to send monthly reports back to my Rotary counselor Sug (picture below) while I am abroad.

Also, when I get back I will return to the Laguna Niguel Rotary Club to give them a speech about my experience. And, of course, I will thank them for the amazing experience that I couldn’t have had without them.

 

How I Even Got This Crazy Idea in My Head

In a few weeks, I will leave to spend my entire senior year abroad in Chile, completely and absolutely out of my comfort zone. A pretty big decision, I know, but interestingly enough, this whole process started with a very small decision—the decision to read a new book. I had just finished the one I was reading, and I needed something new. I asked my mom for a recommendation. She recommended a book she had read a few years ago when she was trying to make a plan to help me apply for colleges.

The Global Student, by Maya Frost, is a book filled with tips and tricks for getting a good education. Mostly, however, it emphasizes the importance of getting a global education in this increasingly globalized society. As I read through the multitude of interviews with former exchange students that were published in the book, I heard countless people gush about how much the experience changed their lives, propelled them to success, helped them find their passions, and how they would not trade their year abroad for the world. I simply thought, “I would be crazy to pass up an opportunity like this!”

Getting my parents on board, surprisingly enough, was not difficult at all. My mom had given me the book in the first place, so she always knew this was a possibility, and my dad is completely obsessed with other cultures—we have a house in Rosarito, Mexico and he is down there speaking the language every weekend—so he is supportive of anything that will broaden my horizons to the rest of the world.

Once I realized that this had moved from being an abstract dream to something that could actually happen, I began to work on the logistics of it all. My first hurdle: school. If I was going to be in another country my entire senior year, how would I be able to graduate on time? After a few days of scrambling, some amazing people in the guidance office at my school found my perfect solution. I could stay in all my regular junior year classes (5 APs was stressful enough) and then take the core requirements that I needed to complete during senior year through an independent study program called Fresh Start. This means that I technically graduated from high school this year instead of next, leaving my would-have-been senior year open to study abroad without worrying about transferring credits or repeating a year. I know all my extra work this year set me up for an amazing learning experience next year that I could never get in a classroom.

From the moment I picked up that book, everything about this decision has fallen into place. I haven’t had any huge hurdles to jump over or problems to deal with. I feel like everything around me is pointing me in this direction. I know some people probably think I’m crazy, or I’m giving up my education, or I’m putting myself in danger, or about a million other concerns. I know that this will not be easy, and that I will be an outsider in a country whose language I do not speak, and that I will be homesick, and that applying to colleges from a foreign country will probably be my biggest challenge yet. However, above all of these things, I know that I want to do this. I want to have an experience that I could never get in a classroom, or even in the United States. I want to learn about myself, and about the world I live in, and I want to be more than just one more kid from Southern California who takes the well-trodden path. I want to be bold, daring, and just maybe be rewarded for these qualities in the long run. I want to study abroad.