(Up until) Sep. 10th, 2016
Ballston Spa Rotary Club
Braine-El-Château Rotary Club
Ann De Neve (Host mom)
Didier Noriens (Club Counselor)
I have been fine health wise for my first half month in Belgium. I feel fine, and I feel as if I am getting along comfortably with my host family, including both my host mom and host siblings. It’s been great, and I feel as if I’ve been welcomed into the family in a great manner.
I had started attending school at Cardinal Mercier, a school in a my town, and actively went to school every day. At first, school was a little difficult to adapt to, as Belgian students seem much more independent and have their own very small groups of friends. But naturally, I managed to find a small group of Belgians I would hang out with during lunch and other breaks. Overall, I felt very well accepted at school.
I had attended one Rotary meeting by this time, and met the club president, my counselor, and many other members in a nice hotel in a town near Braine-le-Château, where I was introduced as their exchange student for this year. I would describe my relationship with my club and counselor as both great, although I had still be new the club.
For my first week in the country, generously thanks to my Rotary club, I was enrolled in a French language camp where I not only got to learn some french skills for the first part of the day at a college called EPHIC at a university near me, but I got to meet other exchange students and visit some of Belgium’s landmarks and attractions as well. It was an unforgettable experience that taught me many things in just the span of one week
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(Up until) Oct. 10th, 2016
I have been fine health wise, and I still feel well accepted into my family’s home. Unfortunately, as I came back from a concert one night in Belgium, the bike I had used to get to the train station (which is owned by my host brother who’s currently on exchange in Mexico) was stolen, and I felt as though my family had taken some anger out on me in that unnecessarily, though we agreed that I would pay for the bike it it’s entirety by the time my host brother arrived back from Mexico in June.
School had still been good, and although I found it very difficult to learn much information in my very challenging course option, I still managed to keep a good relationship with both my option’s teachers and other students. I had learned how to navigate across the school’s campus and the surrounding area. I felt confident to talk to any other person in my class by this point.
By this point I had attended still only one Rotary meeting, but I had joined my Rotary in two events that took place outside of the usual meeting spot. The first was to help put on a play in our town, where many people came to watch the play, which took place outdoors. I was in charge of serving drinks, which included learning how to fill beer and serve it. I learned a new skill that day and found myself entirely in a new cultural experience like never before. The second was at a Medieval Festival near our town as well, where I also served drinks, but got to explore much of the surrounding area, which displayed tents of typical European festivities, including food, swords, and other trinkets. I would still consider my relationship with my club and counselor as great. They seemed to really like that I was eager to help during the festivities and improve my french.
By this point, I had met up with other exchange students to sightsee different landmarks and cities in Belgium, some of them including Bruges and Namur. In addition, Rotex had organized an event where all the exchange students kayaked down a river called Ambleve in the goal of having fun and making friends, and it definitely worked. I’ve made friends at a rate like never before in an even small amount of time, and would definitely consider the exchange successful.
(Up until) Nov. 10th, 2016
School has still gone well and although I found it difficult to get adequate results in my academic program, I still managed to learn many new things, both factually and due to experience. By two months at this school, I felt like I had already been going there for ages, and that most of the kids in my option were great friends. I was truly lucky to be able to go here.
I had not been to any Rotary meetings in this time frame, as the one I was planing on going to got cancelled. However, I still expected that the relationship with both my club and counselor were good.
Rotary had organized a mandatory meeting to the Parliament of Walloon in Namur, where we met the governor of that state of the country as well as learned some interesting things about the country. Afterwards, we went on a boat tour down the river in the city of Namur to bond and sightsee more of the country. It was, once again, a cool experience that I’ll never forget.
(Up until) Dec. 10th, 2016
I still felt very healthy by this time, with no outstanding problems. And besides some small issues with my host sister as I talked about previously, there was no serious problem that couldn’t be sorted out in the end, and I still felt very welcomed in the home.
School was still going well, and by this time I managed to hang out with Belgians quite a few times outside of school to go out and explore my city of Waterloo. I had never missed a day or class of my school and wouldn’t even consider it slightly, as I consider myself lucky to have been handed this opportunity to go here and meet everyone inside of it. I particular enjoyed the Religion class, which gave me a new perspective on life, as well as improving my french listening skills, and sport, where I did things I had never done before, such as diving and practicing breathing drills.
I had been the this month’s Rotary club meeting in the same usual spot of the hotel in our town of Braine-le-Château. Like usual, I talked to some pretty interesting people and had some amazing food. At the end, a man presented his fundraiser to fight against brain diseases. And although I couldn’t understand most of what he had said, it felt cool to be in a room with such amazing and intelligent people.
By this point, as the weather started getting colder and people wanted to travel around the country less, I began hanging out more locally or with Belgians, which is always nice as I can practice the language more and see more of my local town and surrounding areas. However, there is one event that comes to mind that Rotex had organized, and that was a chocolate factory tour followed by a visit to the Comic Book museum in Brussels. Although I’d already seen much of Brussels by this point, it was awesome to learn more of the country’s cultural history and see something it takes great pride in. (Which would be the fact that Belgium make’s the world’s greatest chocolate, not Switzerland, and that the largest selling point of chocolate in the world is Brussels Airport. Also, Tin Tin is originally Belgian. AND so are the Smurfs, so who would’ve ever known? Anyways, it was great to see more of Brussels, a city I visit frequently baed off my close proximity to it, and have come to love almost as much as my own back in the U.S.
(Up until) Jan. 10th, 2016
I still feel healthy for the most part, though I did get diagnosed with Bronchitis around mid-february, which did unfortunately impact my ability to take my school exams. OF course, I managed to take the required amount regardless.
Like always, school has been going well. I finished up all my exams lately and enjoyed the Christmas break, which gave me lots of opprotunieis to explore more the Belgium countryside and her cities, including Antwerp, the second-largest city in the country that’s located in the Dutch speaking part of it. Also, I was actually excited to see all of my Belgian friends once the school year resumed after break. By this time, I felt like they not only thought of me as a close friend, but that I had bonded with my class so well that I’d imagine being friends with some of them for quite some time afterwards.
I went to the next Rotary meeting after I had my brief meeting with my counselor a week earlier, and found myself in the same hotel treated in a very nice manner, as usual. I sat next to my club’s president and discussed some of the issues I had had but he assured me it would be fine depending on how it went with the next host family, which had been great so far on my first day. Overall, I would say my relationship with my counselor and president was OK, they didn’t seem to have full trust in me before the talk, but any doubts they had would be shown to be wrong as I would try very hard to not lead myself into any future misunderstandings.
I spent New Years with some friends in Brussels, and let me tell you: It was the coolest thing every. I honestly wouldn’t even know how to begin...whether that would mean explaining the ferris wheel ride at the Christmas market or the huge parade throughout the city’s center. Or perhaps the enormously decorated Grand Place. In my opinion, the best part was the fact that every where we went, thousands upon thousands of people seemed to be having a good time. It was also cool that I spend it with friends I had only known for a little over four months. This night was a clear example of my exchange year. Short, but unforgettable.
(Up until) Feb. 10th, 2016
Anne and Hermann (Host parents)
Didier Noriens (Club Counselor)
Overall, I feel much happier an more comfortable in my new house and home. I have no host siblings, which feels like quite a change. Technically there’s a host brother and sister, but they’re never home as the as the brother is away at college and the sister’s on the exchange in Spain. I feel like I have a good relationship with them. Of course, my other host mom explained her problems with me to them as she knows them a little bit, but they told me that they’d give me a fresh start, which I was very thankful for. Overall, I feel healthy both physically and mentally, and I appreciated getting into a new atmosphere. It would benefit me in multiple ways, including getting yet another perspective on the country’s history. I’ve already learned quite a lot from my host father, who’s from the German speaking part of the country, so it’s yet another learning experience.
School is going well. I have finally grown to not just love it, but think it as my own school. Weird how your brain does tricks like that to you after just five or six months. And now I can talk french comfortably with the Belgians without a problem. (though the pronunciation is still a jiffy) And for the first time, I feel like they look at me not completely as an exchange student, but as a fellow classmate, so that feels awesome too.
I went to another Rotary meeting, where i was again greeted by warm gestures and food. I would say that I have shown my Rotary club, at least to an extent, that any past misunderstands were nothing more than that, and that I was willing to move on from that in any way possible. I also can’t wait to join more service community projects in the country, so I can show them that I am honestly dedicated to doing things that the Rotary stands for and show them that I am a good person. I would say that my relationship with my counselor and club has improved, and in time will hopefully be at a level where I’d like to be at again.
The Rotary organized a meeting for everybody in District 2170 (which runs down the middle column of the country, from the dutch speaking Antwerp, through Brussels (near where I live) and the south. We all spoke in french to each other and discussed mutual problems and ideas of how to fix them. It was great seeing some faces I hadn't seen for quite some time and also having the Rotary display that we are all one family sharing one mutual struggle as exchange students. Plus, it was interesting to see how everyone’s french-speaking skills have improved in the last five months. And for the most part, everyone’s was coming together quite nicely!
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