Thoughts from Mariana on her year with Trumansburg Rotary
Exchange is change. Sudden, brutal, beautiful, hurtful, amazing, unexpected, overwhelming and most of all: constant change. Change in country, language, lifestyle, friends, parents, houses, school… simply everything.
Exchange is realizing that everything you knew before was wrong, but also right in a way.
Exchange is figuring out that it only depends on you how good or bad your day is going to be… or the whole year.
Exchange is going from thinking you know who you are, to having no idea who you are anymore, to being someone new.
Exchange is thinking; all the time and about everything. Thinking about those strange costumes, the strange food and the strange language and about why you’re here and not back home. And then about how it’s going to be like once you come back home. About how stupid this whole time-zone thing is. Thinking about what’s right and what’s wrong and about the sense of life. About who you want to be. And about when that English essay or Pre-calc homework is due, even though your grades don’t count.
Exchange is people. Those incredibly strange people, who look at you like you came from another galaxy. Those people who are too afraid of talking to you. And those people who actually talk to you. Those people who know your name, even though you don’t know theirs. Those people who invite you to things. Those people who don’t know your country r what language you speak. Those people who passed through the same experience as you did. Those people who actually made this whole experience possible. And those people who invite you to their homes. Who care about you and become your lifelong friends.
Exchange is great. It’s feeling the connection between you and your host parents grow. It’s knowing what the best thanksgiving food is. It’s meeting people from all over the world. It’s visiting incredible places. It’s calling this whole new world “home”. It’s having a place to stay in almost every country. It’s cooking food from your home country and not messing up (or at least not letting anyone know that you did). It’s representing your country. It’s seeing beautiful landscapes that you never knew existed and experiencing things that you thought you never would.
Exchange is falling in love with this amazing and new beautiful country and with your home country too.
Exchange is frustrating… things you can’t do, things you don’t understand, things you really miss. Exchange is not a year in your life. It’s a life in one year. Exchange is nothing like you expected it to be and everything you wanted it to be. Exchange is something no one back at home will ever truly understand. Exchange is going home after a year and learning how to pack one room, one year and one life in one (in my case, three hehehe) bag(s). It will be very hard to all of a sudden get into the airplane and be forced to leave the place I have fought so hard to call home. But the world is too small now and I WILL be coming back for more. I love you all a lot and thank you so much for helping me to make this year the year of my life. You really made it worth it. I will see you all again very soon…Promised.