Youth Exchanges Shape Lives

Charlotte Thornton strikes a precarious pose in Patagonia on a trip with Rotary Exchange students through southern Argentina.

Charlotte Thornton was just 17 when she found herself alone at the Buenos Aires airport, trying to understand as Argentine officials explained why she couldn’t board the last leg of her flight to Paraguay. So was Kate Barkley when she had to work her way through an uncomfortable host-family placement in Belgium.

Both were Rotary Youth Exchange students, recent high school grads taking a “gap year” before beginning college.  And both say the experience has shaped their lives profoundly.

Charlotte – an outgoing, fun-loving St. Agnes High School graduate – was, in the words of her father, a “Chik-fil-A, Starbucks kind of girl” when she headed for Paraguay. A year later she came back with a global understanding, a strong sense of self-confidence but also, paradoxically, of humility.

The youngest daughter of West University businessman John Thornton, Charlotte had a bumpy landing. She hadn’t known that Paraguay, unlike most other Latin American countries, required a visa acquired in advance, through a consulate. Fortunately, Rotary came to the rescue and several hours later, Charlotte was on her way. 

She still had a long way to go – by plane, taxi and a bus hung with chicken cages –and it was 5 a.m. when she finally disembarked in her new home. No one was there to pick her up, so she sat on her suitcase and looked around.

She saw a dark shape moving toward her in the distance; as it emerged, she made out a cow, crossing the street, right in downtown Coronel Oviedo. Down the street was what looked to be a big campground, with people moving about under big tarps; later she learned it was a homeless camp.

The first days were not easy. She began with a cold shower (“I came down to ask how the hot water worked and discovered there was none”) and unrecognizable food. John recalls one distressed phone call in which Charlotte described eating food like a tree root (mandioca, or cassava root, is a Paraguayan staple). She’d taken microwaveable macaroni and cheese only to discover there was no microwave.

“I don’t think I’m going to make it,” she told him. But John encouraged her to hang on. “We always taught our kids, once you start something, you finish it.”

A turning point came soon after her arrival. She had started school mid-year and needed a new uniform.

“My first family lived a very modest lifestyle, but my host mother went to the market and bought me a whole new uniform,” Charlotte recalls. “Her eyes began to water as she gave me the biggest hug. At that moment, I felt at home and knew I was going to embrace this new culture, no matter what.”

Before she left, the West University Rotary Club had challenged Charlotte to develop a project for the community and the club would fund it. She settled in and the weeks passed in a blur; she learned to love the empanadas and tereré (cold yerba mate tea), to not be bothered by the cold showers, and to cherish a way of life that values time spent with friends and family more than material possessions.

“The people of Paraguay have nothing, and they’re happy,” she told her dad. “We have everything, and we’re still not happy.”

He and her mother, Diane, came to visit in her eighth month.

“It blew me away to see the love on the part of family and friends,” said John. “They treated us like we were the king and queen of the United States.”

The night of their arrival, 75 people awaited them at the home of Charlotte’s host family. They greeted them joyfully with a huge feast followed by karaoke and dancing until 2 in the morning. “It was just crazy. Every night there would be dinner at a different house, with around 30 people in attendance.”

Charlotte took them around and shared what she’d learned. Her parents were proud and impressed. John asked his daughter about the project proposal for Rotary. “I’m working on it – don’t worry,” she said.

She submitted her proposal 3½ weeks before she left. Her school didn’t have textbooks, and the teachers would read or recite the lessons of the day. Charlotte proposed purchasing computers, projectors and screens, which teachers could use to project the lessons. The technology was delivered right before Charlotte’s departure in an emotional ceremony; the principal wept with joy.

“I asked her why she had waited; she said, ‘Dad, you’re like a typical American – Americans always want to fix thing as soon as they get there. You can’t do that to their culture.’”

There was another aspect, too. “I didn’t want the stigma of – ‘Oh, here comes the American kid, buying these expensive things.’ I wanted it to be a parting gift.”

John may have learned as much from his daughter’s exchange as she did.

“The people of Paraguay knew everything about the U.S., while Americans don’t have a clue about what’s going on in the world. She came back and said, ‘We’re a selfish, arrogant, wasteful, greedy country, and we complain about such trivial things.’” 

Three years later, now a junior at The University of Tulsa studying international business, she still carries the lesson with her. “Don’t get me wrong – I love my country, but taking a step back can make all the difference,” she says.

While on her exchange, Kate Barkley got to see the meeting point of Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands.

Kate Barkley, also a St. Agnes grad, had a much different experience. No cows wander the streets of cosmopolitan Belgium. But there were other kinds of barriers to surmount. For starters, she wasn’t fitting into her host family. She thought maybe it was her, so she tried to tough it out, but it didn’t get easier.

“They were lovely people, just maybe not the best people to have an exchange student,” Kate recalls. “I was lonely, sitting a lot at home, thinking maybe I’d made a mistake.”

Talking to the other Rotary students, she realized her host family wasn’t like the others. There were no family outings, dinner-table discourses or host sisters or brothers to make her feel at home.

“It was tough,” her mother, Jan, recalls. “She would Skype with us and be pretty distraught, and you as a parent want to rush in and solve their problems – but you can’t.”

She went on to discuss the matter with Rotary leaders. “By the end of the meeting, one of the Rotary members said, “You’re coming home with me.”

Despite the awkward beginning, she wouldn’t trade her year in Belgium for anything. Her three other host families took her in like one of their own. The holidays were hard – it was the first Christmas away from home, and she soon discovered that cowboy boots are not made for the snow – but her hosts went out of their way for her. The first family took her to picturesque, German-influenced Alsace in northeastern France. She learned to navigate the public transit system with ease. And she made lifelong bonds with other Rotary Exchange students in her city, the Rotary bus tour of Spain with about 50 of them being a highlight.

She’d heard Belgians were cold and aloof, but that’s not what she experienced. “All the Belgians I’ve met are incredibly warm, caring people, and they were super excited to meet people from different countries,” she said. By the time she settled in with her second family, she felt right at home.

“I could banter with them; I had reached a point in my French where I could be more myself instead of using stilted robot-speak.” 

When Jan and Jim, Kate’s father, came for a visit at the end of April, she was ready to show them around in style.

“It was wonderful to see her in that environment and culture, speaking the language, leading us around, showing us places,” recalls Jan, who hosted an exchange student of her own during Kate’s absence. Kate took them to Alsace, and when Jim gassed up the diesel-engine rental car with unleaded, Kate intervened without missing a beat.

“We were in the middle of nowhere in France, where no one speaks English, and she had to talk to the rental-car company. She worked it out,” said Jan. “We were impressed.”

Even the problems were an important part of the experience, said Jan. “When she came through that, she looked back on it and said, ‘I learned so much in going through that. I learned how to deal with difficult people….’”

As Kate savored the last weeks of her exchange, she felt happy to be going home, but sad to be leaving her friends and her new life. She will attend Rhodes College in Memphis this fall.

“I can’t stress enough how much I think everyone should do this,” she said. “Once you start college you’re put on a path and you have to finish college and find a job. When in your life are you going to get the opportunity to spend a year meeting really awesome people and visiting awesome places? You learn a lot, but it’s not the kinds of things you learn in college.”

Editor’s note: The approximate cost for a Rotary exchange is $6,000, including airline ticket and insurance. For more information, see www.westurotary.org or contact John Thornton at [email protected] or 281-415-6390. For the flip side of exchange, hosting a student, see the story, “Host Families: Parents to the world,” in this issue.