With inbound and outbound high school exchange students, Issaquah Rotary reaches around the world and brings the world back into community homes and schools. With Rotary Clubs on every continent and in most countries of the world, our exchange program provides unique, enriched support to young people and helps them to become true ambassadors of their culture.

The Issaquah outbound students have recently been placed with Rotary Club hosts in Italy, Thailand, Ecuador and Germany. We have supported inbound students from Germany, Denmark, Japan and Brazil, helping them adjust to life with their host families and student life at Issaquah High. Our exchange student this year is from Turkey.

In our summer program, selected students live abroad with a host sister or brother for several weeks and then return home with that exchange partner for another several weeks. Talk about an international summer!

Our members are proud of our youth exchange program and serve as enthusiastic mentors to our exchange tudents. By interacting with them at Club meetings and events, we know we are helping develop young citizens of the world who will be a genuine force for peace and understanding.

We are currently accepting applications for next year until October 30, 2009 

Click here to download the form

We had a fantastic Exchange Student in our Issaquah Club this past year.  His name is David Hermansson and he was our inbound Youth Exchange Student for 2009-2010 school year.  He is from Lerum, Sweden and lived with several host families in the area and attended Skyline High School.  He has returned to Sweden and we look forward to a new inbound student this Fall.

David's interests are music, sports, and skateboarding.  He's not just a casual skateboarder; David qualified to the final event in the Swedish Junior Skateboard Cub competition!  His summer job last year was as a lifeguard at a local swimming pool.

For additional information please contact:

Youth Exchange Officer, Rotary Club of Issaquah

Cuenca, Ecuador and I am zooming past it in the back seat of a dusty '53 pick up. With a cold jugo de mora wedged between overheated legs, I begin to think of home for the first time in 800 miles.  As I blow past arbitrary shacks, fields complete with cows, pigs, and the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen, I begin to realize this is what I want.  I began to feel for the first time that I am exactly where I am supposed to be in this moment.  The realization that this year everyone back home is doing exactly what they’ve done for so long- maintaining, was a comfort that occupied a corner of my mind.  I am learning more in these first week than I have at any other time in my life that I can pin point; I am learning to survive without the support of my friends and family, how to grow, and most of all how to be happy with the cards I am being dealt at every moment. The craziest part of it all- is that I am.

I wake up to the tune of trills, caws, and tweets rising in volume with the sun.  Luckily, I have an internal alarm clock set for seven o’clock, and am able to enjoy this unexpected soundtrack.  I look out the window and see a swarm of red, turquoise and yellow loading every tree branch to breaking point.  As the birds begin to stare back at me, I open the window which swings open making a loud thud; birds fly past me like emerald bullets- it has been the best wake up call I have ever experienced.  I walk down a hallway to wake up Pablo, my host brother, as I am eager to start the day.  As soon as we are all ready, the four of us set out to find the waterfalls that La Cuenca is so renowned for.  We are in the middle of a thick green jungle and stumble upon a water fall leading to a cement dugout that looks like Ecuador’s version of Wild wave’s water slides.  We lie down in the biting water until our backs are flat down and allow the current to take us for a ride, each of us going right after the next.

Being thrown into another culture pulled me out of my comfort zone, put me on a fifteen hour plane ride with emotions running wild, and made me leave everything I loved behind.  Meeting reality was a slap in the face to assure me that this wasn’t a dream, and to say the least- I was terrified.  The first morning I woke up to nothing familiar.  Not the mashed bananas and carrots I ate for breakfast, Spanish language being spoken around me, or even the air I breathed- and it dawned upon me that I’m not here to be comfortable and experience life the way I did back home.  No, but this new country is designed to make the inhabitants here comfortable, not me; and by being open to experiences I can allow this endeavor to be fatal to chauvinism, discrimination, and narrow mindedness.  Already, I have begun to regulate my thoughts with reality by instead of imagining how things may be; I view them as they are.  Simply put, “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.”

I am arriving upon my second absolutely incredible month in Ecuador and feel as if I have already gown and evolved- appreciating and learning as much as my brain can hold in its capacity.  I have gone so many incredible places here. I spent a Saturday in the crafts market at Otavalo and bought the complete market for forty dollars, I have straddled the red line at “La Mitad del Mundo” that marks the Equator, one foot in each hemisphere; and in April, I will scuba dive and get nose to nose with tortoises in the Galápagos.  The second week I was here I took an eight hour bus ride to Cuenca, a jungle four states over from where I live. 

Unlike other exchange students, I have been lucky enough to only have one host family instead of three; allowing me to stay in the same school and become accustomed and grow into one familiar family for nine months.  I live in the state of Pichincha, Ecuador with my host- mother Fatima; she is a dentist and is the tiniest lady I have ever seen, my host- father Julio, is an engineer that works at the electrical dams in Cuenca.  He is an intelligent man, who comically insists on telling me every word in Spanish very slowly “le-che means milk” he will say as he pulls it out of the fridge, and my wonderful host-brother Pablo, who is eighteen and takes me to the most remarkable places.  I stay in the room of their daughter who went on emersion to Norway, I have my own bathroom and a shopping mall just seconds away.  

I go to school every day fully uniformed in nylons, a blue plaid skirt, white collared shirt, and a light blue sweater; this took some getting used to given since I was used to dressing myself in whatever I liked in the United States, but just like everything else I take it as a new experience.  School, along with bungee jumping is among the greatest challenge I have faced here yet.  It’s not easy being stared at because you have blonde hair, or looked down upon because you don’t know how to read aloud to the class, and it’s hard not having best friend’s by my side to laugh with; but I’m learning and it may be “ poquito by poquito”, but I am- and for that I am appreciative. 

As much as you think you might, you can’t really understand a culture until you’re living in it and being affected by it.  The decision to move to Ecuador was one I made on my own.  I decided to pick one place and go there completely.  What will make this trip life changing is partly the place, but more over what I bring to Ecuador: infatuation, curiosity, and understanding. It is the people I meet and how my experience will change how I act in daily life.   I am staying here long enough to get under Ecuador’s skin, and let it get under mine.

I have been taught valuable life lessons; first of all, it has allowed me to change how I feel about myself, accepting every piece that makes me to be the girl I am.  It has taught me about independence, joy and compassion; educating me to see people for who they are and not for what little they have- assisting me in the overcoming of ignorance and building of confidence.  Most of all, I’ve realized all the trips it takes to make my life worth living is one. 

Nikita

  Rianna at a Special Needs School (left) and at her school (right)

Rianna at a Kick-Boxing class

Saturday, September 12, 2009
So, I’ve been in Thailand for about a month now. This post is very long overdue.

Family: My family is usually just me, my host mom and dad. I technically have 3 host sisters, but one is on exchange in Michigan right now, and the other 2 live in our house in Bangkok to go to school and the housekeeper takes care of them, this is apparently very common for the upper class of Thailand. My oldest host sister went on exchange to New Zealand when she was younger, and speaks amazing English, very helpful! My host mom and dad are AMAZING. Khunmaa (mom in Thai) speaks good English, and is the kindest person, ever. She told me she loved me like a daughter on the second day I was here and always so concerned about my happiness. My host dad is also amazing, but speaks little English, so once I learn Thai I will fully appreciate him. He makes funny jokes a lot, and something about him just makes me laugh. He owns a family business, construction and poultry, which obviously go hand in hand. Khunmaa owns a bike rental place at the zoo. Which means free trips to the zoo whenever I want! J Oh, and how could I forget our INSANE dog, kim ti. He’s a Saint Bernard, massive and always dirty. It’s a game with my host family and I to see if I can get inside when we come home from places without getting attacked by him!

The People: Almost everyone is so nice. They go way out of their way to make sure you are happy and fed. Mostly just fed, the amount of food they feed me is insane, I may be a whale by the time I get home. The one thing I will never really get used to is the stares. Being a “falang” (foreigner) is not common in Thailand, unless you are a creepy old dude looking for a young Thai girl, which I see all too often. Disgusting. But, anyways, the people will stare/point/yell anything. Walking down the street I’ve gotten ‘I love you’ yelled at me a couple times. Once, when I was walking from where my host mom had dropped me off to the school, a guy stood in the middle of my path and gave me a thumbs up, and just stood there until I walked around him. What can you do but start hysterically laughing? People are always telling me how “soi” (beautiful) I am. It’s very strange, they all love my eyes, hair, nose, and skin! Here, they all want pale skin! One would be lucky to find a lotion/body wash/hand soap that isn’t whitening. I guess we all want what we can’t naturally have!

The Food: Although some is very tasty, I do occasionally get scared. They eat a lot of meat here, including livers, intestines and other insane internals. I have successfully avoided inners though. I have a new found love of eating spicy food! It tastes so amazing, but minus the crazy pain I go through after. There is this amazing beef with cilantro (I think) and chili, which I love. But can only have a few bites manageably. And tom yum, a soup that tastes so good, but burns like crazy. The one thing that really is gross is that they never cut the fat off the meat. Or take the skin off, it’s icky. I also do not enjoy eating noodles and rice for breakfast, but cereal is apparently not an option. L All the deserts are so delicious though, coconut milk in almost everything! Yum! And the fruit is to die for, I would be so happy if that’s all I ate, every day. Oh, and Thai Tea! So delicious, and it’s great because the instant powders of it are good too! Not shockingly, the Chinese food here is really good too, same with the sushi! I have become somewhat addicted to sushi.

School: Monday: Thai foods, Muy Thai. Tuesday: Flower Arrangement. Wednesday: Cocktail. Thursday: Baking, Dance, Muy Thai. Friday: Cocktail. That is my schedule for this semester, which kinda just ended, now I have a 6 week break where I will be doing special classes (I think) and Thai language class, FINALLY! I go to vocational college so there are no “real” classes, except for the business part of the school. A good 90% of the boys in my school are gay/ transvestites. They are the nicest, seriously. But, the transvestites are seriously gorgeous, if it wasn’t for the fact that they have to wear pants as part of the uniform, I wouldn’t be able to tell. The kids are generally very nice, especially in Cocktail class where we have photo shoots! My group for when we mix drinks always says hi to me when they see me around campus J I have a lot of unwanted free time when I’m at school, hopefully that will be changing soon!

Now for the miscellaneous things…

The Good:

The shopping!! Everything is so cheap! But I go shopping wayyy too much, and need to control myself. I will have an amazing wardrobe when I come home…

The elephants! I have a low elephant sighting count, only 3, but people just ride them places, like on the side of the highway. I saw one ‘parked’ in front of a bank once. It’s so exciting to see one!

Thai musical instruments, I had my first Thai music class today, so fun. I want to try all the instruments! They make such unique sounds, and are all so beautiful!

Wall Lizards! I love wall lizards, which I guess you could call geckos. I have a few in my room and they look so funny crawling around my walls. As long as they are reasonable size, I’m very happy, and if they stay away from my mouth when I’m sleeping! Remember Meredith from the Lindsay Lohan Parent Trap movie? When the lizard crawls in her mouth, I do not need that. Ever.

Massages, ohh heaven! Thai massage is amazing. And in Thailand, very very cheap! I paid 200 baht (6 USD) for an hour, in a semi expensive place.

The Bad:

Their eco-friendly consciousness! Nobody recycles, it makes me so upset to have to throw plastic bottles away. It’s so interesting because there is a huge eco-friendly line of t-shirts that all say things about loving the earth and what not. They all wear them, and don’t follow what their shirts say! I’ve decided I’m going to be SO eco-friendly when I get home, in need of making up for all my bad habits now.

THE DRIVING. Holy crap, I’ve almost died like a zillion times. My host mom cut across 4 lanes of the highway in Bangkok in about 2 seconds, and then proceeded to put the car in reverse to make the exit. While cutting off about 20 cars that were waiting to get off at this exit. So safe! People drive on the other side of the road, in between lanes of traffic, and pass people when they really shouldn’t. All while frequenting the horn. If I die in a car crash here, don’t be shocked!

The Stray Animals. There are so many stray dogs and cats, which all look like they have been to hell and back. It makes me so sad L

The Heat! Sometimes it gets unbearable. I start sweating bullets as soon as a leave my front door. It makes me really lazy to be in the heat, which makes me sad. And it’s not even hot season! It hot season it gets to 40 degrees Celsius. I believe that’s about 110 Fahrenheit. Ughh!

My bed! It’s so hard, like sleeping on a wooden box. I end up sleeping completely on pillows, if they move out from under me I actually wake up, it’s that uncomfortable.

The Different:

Motor Bikes! Every single person rides them. And they continue the horrible driving. I would say that the motor bike to car ratio is about 1:1, I would cry if I ever rode on them. And people will ride with 4, maybe 5 people on one. So dangerous!

Song Taos, my ride to school and virtually everywhere. It’s the public transportation in Thailand. Basically, a pickup truck, with the bed as a seating area, benches on either side, with a giant cover thing with walls, I need to take a picture of one soon!

Eating with a fork in the left hand and a spoon in the right, I’ve gotten used to it, so much so that one day when I made spaghetti, I went to eat it like that as opposed to how I do at home. It actually makes a lot of sense. Basically, you use to fork to cut things smaller, and the push it into the spoon. Knives are virtually non-existent here for regular Thai eating. Only in Western restaurants have I used one.