Exchange Student experience in Gretna, Nebraska. Jan 1996.

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Traveling, getting to know the world, cultural shocks, experiencing other cultures, are things that everyone should always aim to do at least once in life. It is very fulfilling, and it opens your mind in many ways.

Not everyone has the opportunity to travel, I know. I was lucky to grew up in a family, where my dad worked hard and saved enough money to buy me a ticket at 14 years old, and sent me to an exchange student program abroad, where lived with a host family, and learned English at school.

Since in this type of programs you don't get to choose where to go, they select for you according to your profile, gender and preferences, I ended up in a small town called Gretna, located in Nebraska, USA.

Yes, all the way there.

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My dad always advised me to write about my experience, but I only limited myself to writing letters to him and my family while I was there. However, I never thought I was going to write about this life experience 22 years later...

My first day arrival:

It is not easy for a kid to travel abroad without your family and understand the idea of having a new adopted family for a few months. The program my dad signed me up for prepared all the participants very well psychologically speaking.

The first days were ackaward, I did not know what to expect, all I knew is that I had to spend 3 months there and learn English in high school.

My host family was composed by a single mother, with 2 sons, 1 daughter and grandma. At my homestay, only my host mom and her younger son lived there. He was around my age.

I was very excited to see snow for the very first time in my life, although after a few weeks of shoveling the snow became a chore, and I started to not like it at all =)

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On my first day of school I got to choose the subjects with the help of the principal, English class being the priority, and I had to attend also other subjects like art, math, chemistry, physical education, and American history. The principal did not want me to go to Spanish Class, which is completely logical, but he did sign me up for American History, and that was a big mistake!

I met so many people. It was not normal for that highschool to have someone from Panama, all the kids there did not know where Panama was.

Being the new kid of the school, from central America with an accent, it helped me to make friends faster from all type of social groups: the sports crew, the punks, the geeks, the populars, the unpopulars, you name it. There was even 1 kid that wanted to fight me because he said that I made more friends in 2+ months than him in his entire life. How crazy was that?

I had positive and negative experiences, cultural shocks almost every day, but damn I had fun!

I can't list all the memories I had during those 3 long months, but I decided to mentioned a few of those that I will never forget:

My first time getting high!

The first time I smoked weed, was with my friends Paul and Luke. We were at Luke’s house one night, after drinking soda offered by Luke, he took the soda can, made few holes on it, put the herbs on top of the holes, and lit it. I inhaled through the drinking hole and then… I was out in space.

That night was crazy, we took off into town walking down the street, they decided to take the neighbors trash bins, those medium size ones with wheels, and run with them down the street and throw them all over the place like it was a regular routine for them. We would hide in the woods, I was still stoned and shocked at the same time, my heart was beating hard. When they said: “we need to wait for the police car to pass, then we get out of the woods”, after we did that, paranoia took control over me so I told them: “ok that's it, I am going home” and I did.
Now that I remember, that night was one of the times I have been very high.

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My favorite teacher and class at school:

Mrs Volser, my math teacher. She was one of the strict teachers of the school and kids were afraid of her and her class. I was good in math, I did not need to study much. I was finishing her practices faster than the rest, always getting good grades from her and congrats for having my homeworks done on time. Little by little that class became one of the fun classes for my classmates. One day, we were practicing factoring in class, well I learned in my school back at home in the previous years how to factorize in different and faster ways, that is why I was always finishing first during her class.
On my last day of class, she bought a cake, and decided to take the last 20 minutes of class to give me a goodbye party, it was very nice from her and I will always remember when one of my classmates (Heather) came to tell me: “we are going to miss you, Mrs Vosler have never done this before”.

Here a picture of my teacher with my classmates:

Understanding my host brother:

We had good times hanging around, but also awkward moment when the only thing I wanted to do is to punch his face. He was not a bad kid, but an interesting cultural shock I had is that in the USA, usually when you turn 16 years old your parents get to buy to you a car, just because legally speaking, you are able to get a driver's license. My host mom was not in the economical position to buy him a car. For his birthday, she bought him a present that he didn't want to open. One morning when she went to work, he took the present and started to kick it around and complaining about it, and saying screaming that he wanted a car instead.

I decided to leave him alone, I was very mad at him but I was also laughing. Just thinking about me asking my dad to buy me a car for my 16 year old birthday… really!?

In this picture, you can easily tell we could get along but at the same time I wanted to hit him sometimes:

Discovering new music:

This experience abroad influenced a lot on the type of music that marked the rest of my teenage rebel phase.

It was rare to see a freshman kid hanging out with the juniors and seniors students of high school. One of my best friends Dan (junior student) introduced me to one of the best hip hop groups back in the days… Bone Thugs N Harmony and the song we always listened when we were driving around town was Crossroads.

Man, I am listening to this track while writing this post and memories come like if it was yesterday!

Although, the music that I enjoyed the most and transformed my teenage life was of course… PuNk Rock!

One day I went with some of my crazy friends to a near city called Omaha to an underground concert. Literally underground! I had so much weed and fun that I missed my ride back to Gretna (after midnight) I was afraid my host mom was going to kill me. Luckily one of the bands had to pass by my town, so they dropped me off.

These are my 3 friends from the Rock & Roll crew, they were the ones that invited me to the concert that night:

I can't talk about my Punk Rock phase without mentioned my favorites bands, although my list is long. These two are the most important ones I discovered during my trip and that listened later for years: NOFX & Lagwagon.

Here one of my favorites records:

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When the 1st month passed, I wanted to go back home, I missed my girlfriend I had back then, but I was missing my family even more. Is not easy for a 14 yo be miles away from his mom and had to call someone else’s mom “mom” in a language he is learning as well.
Many kids can't take it in this type of programs, but I did not wanted to return with the “tail under my legs”, so I decided to be strong and kept taking all the cultural shocks and crazy experiences.

Misbehave and detentions, or just being a kid?

Almost every day of the week I had to stay after school because of detentions, most of the time because I never did my American History homework, or did not attend to that class at all, instead I sneaked into the Spanish Class, it was more fun for me to make more friends helping their spanish than having to sit and listened the most boring classes of my life. I mean, if you think about it, how a foreign kid that just started learning english is going to even understand or assimilate a class about history of United States?

Anyways, like a week before my last day, the principal called me through the speaker (a regular thing), probably that was what made me popular in that school, he wanted to talk to me about my detention time, he said:

“You don’t need to stay after school any more, you have so many detention time that will not finish because you are already leaving anyways”

Yeah I know, it may sound very embarrassed, but I was very happy to hear that.

After 3 months, I was ready to come back home and finally feel the hit of my tropical country.

I will never forget the face of my parents when they saw me coming from migration once landed, with long hair, earrings, nails paint in black, baggy pants, and a metal chain with a lock around my neck. It was priceless!

The rest of my rebel years, better not to write it here.

If I have to come back in time and get the opportunity to change something from this experience, I would definitely change nothing.

One time my dad asked me, according with my experience, if it would be a good idea or not to send my brother and sister abroad as well, and I said no.

My experience was great, it’s just that I did not want my siblings to be exposed to the crazy things I was exposed to, you know, drugs, alcohol, vandalism, etc. But I regret my answer now.

If you have kids, and have the opportunity to send them abroad to learn a different language or just to learn something, don't think about it twice!

Unfortunately, I have no contact at all with any of the people I met back then. Maybe one day someone from Gretna will read this post and remember that kid that was on dentaiton every day, the friend of everyone and very good in math class.

Even though I can't reach those friends I made 22 years ago, I still remember them and will always keep these color negative film pictures.

With my friends Paul and Dan, drinking beers after school =)

This was definitely a memorable experience of my life...

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Disclaimer:

• If you are underaged and you are reading this, do not do what I did when I was your age.
• I decided to scan those original pictures to honor this post.