Funny how things go in cycles. One of the teachers on my Africa trip, turns out, was an AFS student, to Norway. When I went to church with Carla in Arusha I was looking at the bulletin board of name tags for church members, and was surprised to see a pair of names I know from AFS volunteering here in MN. Turns out they live every-other-year in Arusha now, volunteering at Selian Hospital. Then, one of my nurses at the emergency room was an AFS student to South Africa. And yesterday I started reading a new blog (one I linked to via Calandria's - who is also another AFSer, but I have known that for a long time) only to find out that this writer, too, is an AFS returnee.
My AFS year was truly a turning point in my life. I spent it in what was then Yugoslavia - I was there a few years before the country split apart into several smaller nations. I never put a lot of thought into applying; my family had hosted several international students and it was just assumed that I would be one, too. It was rather competitive back then - around 15 students from my school applied for the 3 spots we were allotted, and then we had to go through regional interviews to be selected to represent Minnesota - but I always knew I would be going.
When I was there, I felt this incredible freedom to be anyone - I was so far away from anyone who knew anything about me, and this was back in the days before email or cheap phone calls. I talked to my parents only about 3 times, my best friend twice (once on my birthday, once on hers), and otherwise waited 2 weeks for letters to make it across the ocean. It's not that I was radically different from the person I had been in high school, it was that I could have been.
For a long time after I returned from living abroad, I volunteered with AFS. AFS people have such a special way of looking at the world - it becomes more about relationships than borders, and there is always the shared love of travel and adventure. I have been apart from the AFS world for many years now, but am thinking that perhaps I need to reconnect.
1 comment:
And don't forget the AFS connection on our church bulletin board! Truly the whole idea of being a foreign exchange student was intimidating. We had students every year at my high school and in small town rural Montana they were not always well-received (my government teacher was a Korean war vet with a distinct dislike for any Asians--woe to the poor Japanese girl in my class my senior year)and I think that had a lot to do with it.
There were also such "high" stakes...I mean, I was danceline, for crying out loud! How could I miss that? I look back on those thoughts and "criggle". That's cringe and giggle.
So when I feel old to be stepping out now into international life, I just remember that there is a reason I'm doing it now and not then. I'm not sure I would have survived this past year in my 20s. And I hope someone who's thinking they might try something might take heart from my experiences and feel like they can take a chance, too.
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