I cannot believe that in less than a month I
will be on my way home to the United States again. It has been almost a year
since I have left home and embarked on this incredible journey. The things that
I have learned and experiences that I have taken part of are enough memories to
last a lifetime, and cannot imagine what my life will be like once I have
returned.
Hello there, my name is Ellen Fogel,
and this year I have been studying abroad in Boadilla del Monte, Spain. I am
sixteen years-old and from the United States of America. Now, at this point,
you may well be asking, what does it even mean to be an exchange student? Well,
about nine months ago, I left my home in the States to come here to Spain to
study the Spanish language and culture through a program called Rotary Youth
Exchange (RYE). RYE is a program that is funded by Rotary International, a
global non-profit organization, and sends over 8,000 students from all over the
world every year on year-long exchanges. Being an exchange student through RYE
means staying with various “host-families” who often have one of their own
children studying abroad as well, and take you in to live with them for as long
as half of your exchange year without any kind of financial aid or incentive.
These families treat you as a member of the family and with that being said,
also expect that you participate in chores and family activities as you would
in the house of your real family. In addition to this, being an exchange student
means, to me, that I must represent not only my family and community abroad,
but that I must be a delegate of my country. Therefore, my actions must be a
positive and just example to the people around me or they may be influenced to
create false-stereotypes about my fellow American citizens. To be an exchange student one must be
responsible, flexible, outgoing, respectful, and mature. Rotary also mandates
that students must regularly attend school in order to easily make native
friends, and to learn the language faster. However, Rotary does have guidelines
as to what we CANNOT do, which collectively are called the four D´s: NO
Drinking, NO Driving, NO Drugs, and NO Dating. These rules, as easy as they may
seem to abide, are they often times hard for some exchange students to follow.
And finally, Rotary insists that exchange students make an honest effort to
learn the language of their “host-country”. Other than that the rules vary from
each host country, apart from the fact that we are not allowed to travel alone
without having permission from your Rotary Club.
You
may now think that being an exchange student requires too much work, and that
the rules are really strict and may limit your experience, but really they do
quite the opposite. Staying with a host-family allows you to integrate into the
culture and learn about their customs and traditions with ease. Furthermore,
because we are required to change host-families at least one time during our
exchange, we are able to see how other families behave in our host country and
therefore are enabled to form a better idea of the culture of that place. These
families are the building blocks of our exchanges.
I arrived in Spain on
September 11th, 2012 from Charleston, South Carolina. My first
impression as I stepped off the plane was a bit overwhelming, I had not the
slightest clue of what to expect, or where my long journey would bring me.
After, finding my way through the Madrid Airport, I finally was able to locate
all of my luggage and my first host mother. As we walked to the car she started
to talk very rapidly in Spanish, and I have to admit that I had not the
slightest clue of what she was saying. I was so tired from the long flight and
overwhelmed with the thought of being in a foreign country for a year that was
drained of any energy or emotion. As soon as we got to the house, after I
called my mother, I collapsed on the couch and slept for about fourteen hours
straight. Over the next few months I rarely thought of home, as I was so
involved in school and trying to make friends in Spain. However, as the leaves
started to turn yellow and orange, and the holiday season rolled around, I
started to miss home, a lot. The holidays were just so different, that I
concentrated a lot on what my own family’s traditions were, and forgot to enjoy
the experience of the holiday season. However, that is not to say that I did
not put my best foot forward. I loved Christmas in Madrid, with all of the
holiday sweets and traditions, and my first host family did a wonderful job of
making me feel at home. It was also at this time that my Spanish made an
incredible leap in proficiency, and therefore started to become much closer
with my Spanish friends.
Now, as
the year is coming to a close, I cannot begin to imagine leaving my friends
that I have made here that are some of the best I have made in my entire life.
The things that I have learned and seen cannot be described by any words. More
than anything else, I feel that the doors of new world have been opened and I now
am free to explore it. The benefits of learning a foreign language are really
endless, and I would not change what I have done for anything in the world. To
anyone out there who is debating whether or not to go on an exchange program of
any length, I would highly recommend that you do it, because the only thing
stopping you from going is yourself. If you would have asked me two years ago
if I thought I would be in Spain studying for a year, I would have thought you
were out of your mind and that I would never be able to pursue that dream, but
you would be truly amazed at how things suddenly fall into place if you believe
in what you are doing, and have great group of people helping you to make your
dream come true. 
