Club Committee Meetings

Dee Rumpsa, our current outbound exchange student, video chatted from her home in Argentina. She arrived in September just two days before she had to start school. She worked hard to learn Spanish and felt that by December, she understood everything in school. She is still learning Spanish and has a great time with her host family. Her host family has 3 daughters, all in their 20s. She will be moving to her second host family in March.

 

It is currently summer break from school and she went on a trip to southern Argentina with about 20 other Rotary exchange students. She got to see penguins and whales close up. There is one other Rotary exchange student from Belgium in her town. She joined a soccer club when she arrived and has been enjoying playing.

 

There are some differences between her school in Argentina and her US school. The teachers expect to be called by their first names and are very close friends with their students. The school meets from 7 until 3 every day, but there are only 4 classes each day. There is plenty of time to complete class assignments in school and it is not expected that students will need to do any schoolwork at home. The classes are different depending on the day of the week so that there are the same number of classes overall as here.

 

Her favorite things so far are eating different foods and going to lots of parties. She especially loves empanadas. It took a bit of getting used to eating dinner around 9-10 PM.

 

Brisa Sanchez Vasquez also joined from college via video chat. She talked about looking back at her year in Taiwan as an exchange student. She reflected that being an exchange student gave her confidence, skills, and international connections. In fact, she did an internship in Taiwan last summer because of her connections.

 

Etta Leedy will be going on an exchange year starting in the fall. At the meeting, she learned that she will be going to Japan.