Welcome Home Aurora Ly
Aurora Ly was nominated to receive a Rotary Scholarship and was selected as a Youth Exchange Student and was sent to Argentina. She spoke four languages when she left and now she speaks five.
Aurora thanked the Club and Rotary International. Without Rotary this year would not have happened. She thanked Luisa Mocon, Norm Bindon and MaryAnne Tate for the great support she received from them. Thanks also to her parents and friends for supporting her year abroad.
In Argentina, Aurora stayed in Formosa, in District 4845, population 200,000, small in comparison to Brampton. She had two host families; she first lived with Mom, a Judge, who was very strict, her Dad was a Politician. Her host Grandfather was a big part of her life there, he spoke six languages and it was very cool talking to him in diff. languages.
Her second host family Mom stayed at home and her Dad worked as a Lawyer. The two families were very different. The first family is well off, large house, everything was done for her. The second family not so well off, she had chores and she got close to them very quickly.
In school she went to an all-girls Catholic High School. She was put into natural sciences. School started at 7:30 a.m. for worship and classes started at 8:00 a.m. and finished at 12:30 p.m. then lunch. After lunch they had siesta and after siesta they had gym class.
Aurora went to Sante Fe, Argentina which is about seven hours drive. This is a more developed city. She also went to Cordoba, Argentina. This city is bigger than Sante Fe, has a lot of character and is one of her favourites. She spent the month of January in Brazil. Brazil is a very beautiful country with great culture. She had a wonderful time. A goodbye camp was set up in Iguazq Falls for all the Youth Exchange Students. It was very sad saying goodbye after spending a year together.
Aurora thanked the Rotary for this experience, the best year of her life, a year full of challenges. She built so many relationships with so many people. She will be going to Western University to study International Relations.
Thank you Aurora for being our ambassador and we hope in the future you will be a great Rotarian.