Less Than a Week!

Hey ladies! Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend–mine was very busy and I couldn’t update until now! I spent my exchange year in Belgium with AFS and the weekend before we leave Belgium we have an obligatory end of stay orientation. Honestly, a lot of these orientations are bullsh!t (we’ve already had two orientation weekends–one in the beginning of the year and a mid stay orientation) but it’s great to see all the other exchange students from around the world. And actually, this orientation did have some interesting things to think about it (what a surprise!).

But Saturday was the typical wtf sh!t. We broke into groups and played “get to know you games” (such as running around like a bird, we only let that one fly in my group for about 30 seconds) and then we received this piece of paper with strange looking people hanging out on a tree. We had to describe which strange looking person we felt like with our family, with AFS, and with our friends. Whatever. I used the sheet of paper for my own purposes:

And I characterized a bunch of the AFSers! It started because I really liked the look of this guy:

Wtf is up with that smile? Anyway, there’s this creepy Indonesian exchange student who grunts a lot, and I decided that it looks like him, and then it just took off from there. Sorry for the blur there from focusing in on him. Here I am:

I’m on top of the branch trying to save my friend who can’t take her host family’s craziness anymore so she takes drastic measures. For some reason, I am obese looking here (haha, don’t think I picked her for bad self image reasons!) My friend there on that board is from Hawaii and hanging out on her surfboard.

AFS ridiculousness extended into the evening, when they kept us trapped in a room by taking our keys (so we don’t sneak back to our rooms and drink, which some students may or may not have a history of doing at past orientations, but not yours truly) and had us play the most random games well into 1 am, at which point we desperatley wanted our keys not to commit shenanigans but just to SLEEP.

Anyway, enough of that. Sunday was pretty beneficial. The AFS organizers had us close our eyes and turned out the lights in the room as they slowly recounted what e’ll be facing when we return to our countries next week (along the lines of–you pack  your bags and leave the house you’ve lived in for a year. You look one last time at the house, prepare the car with your suitcases, and think about what to say to your host family as a goodbye…etc). I’ve enjoyed my year in Belgium and I’m so glad I went through this experience, but I feel like it’s time to go home, so I’m pretty happy to return to the U.S. However, a lot of students are heartbroken, and this mental exercise made them confront their emotions concerning the end of their exchange year and many people started crying. The AFS organizers also had us write letters to ourselves that they will send to us in December. I really enjoyed this exercise, my letter got kind of deep, and I can’t wait to see where I am and what I’m doing in six months when I read the letter.

Then we found swings…swings that were formed in a circle! Chouette!

I’m prtty sure the swings were designed for the short legs of little kids, so consequently our legs hit each other a lot, and we used that opportunity to give each other feet high fives!

I’m miss calves right there to the left.

The Americans are definitely going to see each other again at the airport this weekend, but we weren’t sure if we’d see the other exchange students before they leave for their own countries, so there were a lot of photos and a lot of tears.

I love the Norwegian kid!

One of the best things about being an exchange studnet is meeting people from so many countries. I’ve learned so much this year and encountered so many new things. For example, the Thai student wrote this on one of the student’s names in Thai on her arm:

Thai looks like such a beautiful language.

This post is sorely lacking in the food depaartment, but AFS orientation food is usually not that interesting. I have to give them props this time though, they had this falafel tasting veggie burger concoction for the vegetarians and salad bars on both days. But I hope you found this post interesting, nonetheless! If you’re interested in being an exchange student check out the AFS website. There are other organizations as well, such as Rotary and YFU (I reallly like the name of that one!).   

I’ve been gone for a year and it’ll be both interesting and bizarre to go home and see how my friends and family have changed. I’m sure I’ve changed, also, and I think that seeing everyone again will serve as a mirror to see how I’ve matured this year. Have you been through a similar experience? Were you surprised by what you saw when you came home?

I’ll be back soon with some eats!

A toute à l’heure!

Maya