Rotary Youth ExchangeEach year, the Rotary Club of Fort Collins sponsors one or more outbound high school students and hosts an inbound student. This extraordinary program gives Rotary youth exchange students a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to spend an entire year in a foreign country where they live with Rotary families and study the normal high school curriculum. Rotary also supports a summer exchange program for students who cannot commit to spending an entire year abroad. In this program, students from the United States are matched with a student in a foreign country and, through Rotary, contacts are made between the two families to permit youth in each country to experience 3-6 weeks in each other’s country. For more information about the Rotary Exchange program, please visit this link. http://www.rotaryyouthexchange.net/homepage/
Please visit this site regularly for updates and reports from Esther and Jessica on their experiences as Rotary Youth Exchange Students. News from EstherMay 14, 2008 Hi everyone. The past few months have been crazy. During spring break I went with my second host family to Arizona. We spent our days hiking which was fun. We also visited interesting sites, like Biosphere 2 where we saw different environments like a rainforest and tropical that were created inside the glass building. We went on the tour, which was educational as we learnt how the building operates; for example, the amount of water and air used and how it gets to various parts of the building. I was a bit nervous during the tour as I was worried about animals running loose but I learnt that there were none in the building and this put me at ease. We also got the chance to visit the Katcher Caverns which is a limestone cave with amazing limestone formations that have been forming for thousands of years and continue to form. We also went on a guided tour and learnt that the caves were discovered by two local men who kept it a secret for 14 years until they were certain that the cave would be protected. We spent a few evenings playing tennis and swimming. It was a great trip as I got the chance to see a different part of the country. After we returned from Arizona, I moved to my third host family. That evening we went to a family dinner where I got to meet extended members of my host family. The following day was my birthday. So I had dinner with both of my host families. The following weekend my friend Nay who is another Rotary exchange student in Cheyenne came over. Amelia, a Rotarian at the club, took us shopping in Loveland. We all had fun trying on clothes and having lunch. The next day we went to church and then took Nay back home. I was sad to say goodbye to Nay but we will hopefully see each other soon. On the last weekend of April, we had our school prom. I went with a few of my friends. It was great experience as we had a fun time dancing all night. After the Prom we headed to “after prom”. We had food and played games. Just recently, I helped at the Colorado marathon with my host family. We helped by giving water to the runners. I had never been to or seen a marathon so it was very interesting to be part of it. I recently held a dance show to fundraise for an orphanage in Kenya. This was part of a personal project at school. It was very time consuming and challenging. I have been planning the dance since November. I started contacting local dance groups to find out if they would be interested in dancing at the show. I managed to add more groups to the show in the continuing weeks. The weeks before the show was when a lot of things needed to get done. I therefore got help from some of my friends. The night of the show finally came. Many people came and the dance ran smoothly. We raised about $1100. I just want to say thank to all of you who donated, came to the show and supported the cause in anyway, thank you so much. I just recently had my own dance recital and it was it was a lot o fun. My time here is almost coming to an end and I can’t believe how time has flown by. Am going to make the most of the time I have left. Esther News from Jessica15 April 2008 So, it is amazing how fast time flies by, right? Well, I am about to start my third trimester in school, and before I know it my exchange year will be over. A few weeks ago, we celebrated Easter. The Thursday before Easter we visited seven of the endless number of marvelous churches in Quito. Some churches just open for this day and we got the chance to visit them. The coolest part was being with people from different social classes. We visited seven churches to represent the seven people who condemned Jesus to death. The only other exciting thing that happened during Easter was eating Fanesca. Fanesca is a soup without meat because Catholics can´t eat meat before Easter. Fanesca is a thick soup with 12 different types of beans, most of which are not available in the US. It was surprisingly delicious. Well, I had my official Ecuadorian birthday and it went well… everything normal, well, except… they told me I had to take a bite out of the cake and then the smashed my head into the cake so I got chocolate frosting all over my face… well, that meant I had to eat that piece! My other amazing birthday present was a trip to the Galapagos Island… we left on my birthday! If you don´t know what the Islands are they are a chain of islands that belong to Ecuador about 200 miles off of the coast. They are famous for their Giant Turtles and the finches Charles Darwin studied on the islands. I went with all of the exchange students so I had a ball! We did lots of sun tanning, well more like sun burning, since it is unbelievable strong on the Equator. By then end of the trip we all had amazing tans. We saw many different species of unique animals. The giant tortoises were HUGE, and they can live for a couple hundred years! The moved really slow! We also saw the famous blue footed boobies. Do you know why their feet are blue? Well, they are color blind except the color blue. When their feet are bright blue that means they are ready to mate so their feet show their partner they are ready to mate. The iguanas are also very famous here. They are jet black. They sit on the black rocks under the sun to warm up their bodies. As I would look out at the expanse of black rock I would spot the iguanas and it would make me think of something from I Spy. I almost stepped on one… I thought it was a rock! The other amazing thing I got to do was go swimming with sea lions. We went snorkeling around a rock and there was a mother and her baby swimming around. They were so playful and would spin around and swim right up to you face. I could not help but laugh as I watched them swim around, bubbles rising from their cute noses. At the islands I had an all around great time hanging out with the exchange students. And I had English withdrawal coming back to speaking Spanish in my family! I was gloomy the day after my trip! Well, it was back to normal life after time in "Paradise." So, I am now preparing for a jazz presentation on Thursday with the famous sax player, Antonio Hart. And guess what, my grandparents from Texas arrive today so I will be traveling with them some to! I am excited to get to see them here in Ecuador!!!!!!!!!! What else interesting… when I was walking home I saw something that just make me chuckle at Ecuadorians. They are building apartments near my house and they had to get the bricks up to the 5th story. So, normal people would probably use a pulley system, right? I mean, it is easy, and you lift a lot of bricks at once. Well, they were throwing the bricks up, from person to person, each located on a different story. I mean, do they want to throw out their backs at such a young age?? Well, life is great for now. I am going to send pictures that I put on Facebook, so I hope you like them! If you didn´t get the pictures email me and I can send them to you again. A Giant Hug, Jessica 24 December 2007 I hope that the holiday season is going well and that you are enjoying the snow. When people ask me about the snow it is so hard to describe how much I love when it falls lightly on you nose and quickly melts. And how it transforms any landscape into pure beauty. But, I know that I am becoming "Ecuadorian" when I say that Quito is cold… it never gets that cold, like a cold fall day with lots of cold rain. Right now in school I am getting ready to take all of my Trimester exams. But, for the last week and a half in school (Nov. 28 to Nov. 6) we didn´t do much. Los Festivales de Quito, celebrating the foundation of Quito is Nov. 6 so we didn´t have school the 5th or 6th. Starting November 28 th there is a bull fight each day in Quito. That means that people can miss school to go see it and since it starts at noon many people would leave early and we wouldn´t do much at all in school. These Festivales translate directly in the minds of Quiteños to fiesta!!! That means that everyone is thinking about the parties and not concentrating in school. For this festival there are parties in every part imaginable. People drink way more that they should and stay out dancing all night. I went to a party called La Capital. It was really great. There were tons of people dancing and enjoying themselves. There was a bar libre (free drinks) but they quickly ran out. Everyone danced long into the night. I had to leave at 1:30 due to my curfew but I heard of lots of people that stayed out until 3 or 4 in the morning! As they would say here (Que Vestia… similar to Really? When there is lots of surprise) I danced with a few guys and rather enjoyed myself. Monica´s birthday is on December 6th (the official day for the Felstivales de Quito). When she lived in Germany and the US she loved that people would wish her a Happy Birthday rather that telling her "Viva Quito" or be sleeping in and waking up with a hang over from the late night parties the day before. For her birthday we had a party at the house with family and friends. At 9:30 Mauricio had a really exciting surprise for everyone. He hired a Banda del Pueblo which is very typical in Eucador. It is a small band that comes and play for you on special occasions. It was really cool to hear them play and we danced along. Juanito and his best friends shot off fire works in the background. They played typical music for this time of year (such as Lindo Quito… see below for details). After the pueblo band we had a wonderful sea food dish with all the kinds of sea food imaginable called………… After this the party officially began. We danced late into the night. I was tired around 1 in the morning however it was especially difficult to fall asleep with the lound music and partying happinging down stairs, but it didn´t matter, they were having lots of fun. When I woke up on Monday I knew that Mauricio was in a good mood. He usually does not start the day of singing. Monday was the day that I got to ditch school in order to go see the bull fighting. He greeted us all with the song Lindo Quito because of us nearing the official Festivales de Quito. This is how the song goes… Lindo Quito de mi Vida Yo te canto con amor Con la tierra más bonita Capital de Ecuador You probably realized that I did not mention anything about the Bullfighting yet. Well, here it goes. First of all, I really enjoyed it. I didn´t know how I would like it but it turned out really well. Mauricio said it is either something you love or hate there is nothing in between. The Matador would stand there and wave his cape and the bull would come charging. He would arch his back and stand still while he lead the bull charging past his body, barely missing him. It is such a wonderful art to watch, the colorful, brilliant outfit of the matador contrasting the dark skin of the bull. There is also a kind of bull fighting where rather than using a cape the matador uses a horse. Que Vestia! (That is the best I can say about it.) The matador could ride beautifully and make his horse do exactly as he wanted. I could not believe how well the horse moved. Here is the philosophy (I hate spelling that word with a ph, in Spanish it is with an f) that Mauricio explained to me before we left for the Espectaculo. This is the only sport where life comes in contact with death. The matador represents life with his uniform demonstrating how wonderful and amazing life can be. The toro is death, with his dark skin and his sharp horns, ready to charge. When the matador can kill the bull it is showing that life can conquer death. We are all routing for the matador to win. There are so many times when he barely escaped being hurt by the bull but each time with the aid of his cape he was able to avert death. If the matador on the horse puts the sword in the bull once and it does not puncture the lung correctly (how they have to kill the toro) then he has to get of his horse to kill the bull. This is showing that he was somewhat defeated by death. The matador, before killing, kind of knelt down and was begging, or more asking for the bull to die. He patted it on its nose and the bull fell over. He was asking death to please let him win once again. I hope that you have enjoyed my account of the bull fighting and if you are ever in Spain or Latin America it is something you should really see once in your life. So, I had written that a long time ago. Sorry I have not written in a while I have been really busy. Well, I finished school today for my first trimester and I am really excited for a break. I started finals last Thursday. I had two or three finals each day and then once I was done I could go home. My finals were really not to hard and I over studied so that was great. The way the school works here is that there is a study guide on line and if you complete the study guide you get a few extra points on the final. Also, the exam questions have to be from or related to what was on the study guide so it was easy to study. I am going to tell you a story but I don´t want you to take it the wrong way at all or think that Ecuador is bad because of this. In Mandarin we don´t learn very much and it is at a rather slow pace. Well, no one really cares about the class because they can’t pick their schedules and they don’t see how it will help them in the future. On the final exam every single person had a little slip of paper or used the study guide on the test. Some people knew the material better than others. I was the only one who did not use a pista (literally hint in Spanish). I could not believe it. It is just a part of their culture. As my jazz director from the US said, I should get kicked out of school because I am so weird! Last weekend I went on my Rotary trip to Quito, Otavalo (famous for its market with all kinds of different crafts and they specialize in fabric), and Cotocachi (famous for its leather making). We had a great time and we all enjoyed it. Most of the trip was just hanging out with the other exchange students. I have laughed harder with them than I have in a long time. Don´t get me wrong, I am really enjoying it here but it is hard to make jokes and talk about what ever you want when you are in a second language. We all are going through the same thing and most of us talk in English with each other so I always enjoy hanging out with exchange students. The coolest part of the trip was visiting the equator. I will try and attach a video I took so that you will believe what I am saying. People say that water spins one way in the Northern Hemisphere and the other way in the Southern. But do you actually believe them? Well, now I do. The guide put a bucket of water with leaves in it while it was straddling the equator. The water did not swirl as it drained out of the bucket. He then moved TWO FEET to the northern hemisphere and when he drained the bucket again the water obviously swirled counter clockwise. When he moved TWO FEET onto the Southern Hemisphere the water swirled clockwise. I could not believe what I was witnessing! Only two feet made a difference. We were all really amazed. Well, now that I am done with finals and have no school for two weeks I am relaxing. I am going to make some Pecan Fingers (a favorite family recipe for Christmas cookies) with some friends today. The whole town has lights and we are all busy finishing the Christmas shopping. In school we had a parade celebrating Pasa de Jesús (the passing of Jesus into our lives). We all dressed up like different characters from the story. Christmas will be really different this year away from my family but I am really looking forward to it and I should have a great time. I hope that you guys have a great holiday and Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it. I love you all and enjoy the beginning of the ski season! Love, Jessica 25 September 2007 That means "hello everyone." Sorry I have not written lately, I have been really busy. That means this letter will probably be really long. I think I left off last letter with Cotopaxi. Before I go into my daily life I wanted to mention that I am a gringa (it is gringa not gringo for me because I am feminine) here. A gringo is anyone not from South America. Being a gringo means that you get special treatment. When there is someone from out of South America everyone is very friendly and welcoming. As Mauricio mentioned, when a new gringo arrives, everyone waits in line to meet him or her. Also, in the work world gringos get preference over an Ecuadorian. That means if anyone is interested in working in Ecuador getting a job would not be too hard! Another cultural tidbit relating to their politics is interesting. If you know anything about Ecuador this is very evident. They do not respect their leaders and if they do not like one ruler the kick him out and put another person in power. Lots of their presidents have been killed because the people do not like what they are doing. A saying here is that the best was to become president is to be the vice president. That way when the president is kicked out you are now president. Because of this instability they have also changed their constitution a lot of times. This coming Sunday everyone is voting to pick people to be in the group to write a new constitution. Now, this is a hard thing to pick, because here there are a lot more that just two political parties. If I heard correctly they are voting between 2000 people to pick the people who will write the new constitution. I can not imagine having to pick people you have not even heard of. I am glad that the US Constitution has lasted out entire time as a country!!! Two weekends ago we went to the country club to watch Mauricio play tennis in an attempt to make it into the finals this past weekend. He won his matches and played in the finals this last weekend. I did not get to see him play but he won the tournament. Today, Monday, he can move his body because he is so soar so he is lying in bed watching TV. What I wanted to mention is something about their culture. We went to have lunch after his match and it started around one. The service was slow in American standards. We all chatted a lot and the food was great. We definitely did not finish the lunch, that includes walking around after dessert, until 3:30 or 4. I am starting to get used to the slower pace of life here. This past week and this week I have Spanish classes in Quito that are mandatory with Rotary. They make me really tired because I have no time to rest during the day. Well, I think I am learning something and at the very least I am meeting the other exchange students living in Quito! It is great to get to know them… most of them are really nice. On Friday we all went out after the classes. We got to the club part of Quito around 8 but we had to wait until 8:30 for the club to open. It was definitely an interesting experience, but as you may no I do not really drink. So, I hung out with Amanda, who did not drink either and it was very nice. Juanito bought his first suit because this next weekend it a quinceañera, that is the big party that girls have when they turn 15. He is really excited! On Saturday we went to Otavalo, about two hours north or Quito. Mónica has a friend who has a dairy farm up there. It was so tranquil because there was no city noise and no pollution. I actually milked a cow…. Which was really easy. It was kind of weird but not too bad. While I am on the subject of milk I want to mention that drinking real milk for the first time in a month and a half was wonderful. Here they have the same kind of milk that they have in Europe, I think it is dry milk, so you do not have to refrigerate it until you open it. I think that the milk is the only food product that I miss. Otavalo has a world famous market that was really cool. For anyone who loves jewelry this would be you place. There was traditional clothing, jewelry, instruments, and lots of artwork. I loved wandering around looking at everything. I hope that I can download pictures for you to see. Well, I think that is about it for now. I hope that you enjoyed the update and I hope that now I am in the school routine and I can write updates more frequently. Remember, I love hearing about how your life is going! I send my love, Chao for Now, Jessica 6 November 2007 Hey Everyone, I don´t know if it is just me, but I feel like I have not talked to anyone in a long time. Well, I hope that everything is going really well in all of your lives. My past few weeks have been really fun and exciting. Where should I start? Today we went to the Club and it was really hot. I felt like I was in Florida swimming around in the pool outside in late October. It is weird how much a simple change in climate messes with your brain. It is hard for me to believe that it is October already because it is always warm here. Last Friday was my host brother´s birthday. He had a bunch of friends over and they slept in a tent outside. It was a pretty normal birthday. I gave him a smore´s making kit so that he can learn how to make the delicious dessert! An interesting costum they have for guys is that their friends get to whip them with a belt the number of years they turn on their birthday… lucky for me that this does not apply for girls. So, going back in time, I will give an account of my Rotary trip to the province of Manabi. The five days we spent together were really fun. In all there were 120 exchange students from all over Ecuador who met there for the trip. I could not believe how many people there were. The bus ride to get there was 8 long hours on really windy roads which did wonders for my sensitive stomach, just kidding… it was horrible. Great roads are not Ecaudor´s strong point. There is also lots of sudden slowing down and speeding up because the bus would have to wait for a good time to pass the slow moving farm vehicles. When we finally got there I was really relieved. When we got there we found out that the guys were staying in a separate hotel from the girls. The Rotary people sure are protective! They also checked our bags for alcohol… they are pretty strict about that on the coast. I forgot to mention that on they way there we stopped for lunch at a KFC. It did not look that appetizing but on the other side of the street there was a fresh fruit and veggie market. A few of us went over there and indulged in some great fruit for very cheep. We saw a "cabeza de platanos." I am not sure what you call it in English but you can look at the picture I send if you don´t know what I am talking about. A head of the small bananas (Ortiz) is an entire clump of bananas that grows together on the tree. We asked how much the bananas were. They said one dollar. We assumed it was a few bananas but they handed over the entire clump of bananas! That is about 150 bananas for one dollar!!!!! All of our jaws dropped at the sight of it. So, on Thursday we headed from Porto Veijo (where ours first night was) to the beach to sleep in Canoa. We stayed at a beautiful hotel. There were tons of palm trees and the hotel had a rustic beach feel. The boardwalk lead straight to the private beach that we had to ourselves. We all hung out and most of us talked in English… I wish that there would have been more Spanish, but oh well. The waves in the ocean were really big and awesome to jump. Some guys surfed. We had a volleyball and soccer championships, it was fun to do some bonding activities. We hung out and got to relax (and eat lots of food) for Thursday and Friday. I was hanging out with some friends and we walked to the gas station so they could get some snacks. As we walked back we searched for the little crabs that camouflaged with the sand. We saw one and surrounded it with our feet. We watched and waited for it to dig a hole. We stood in a circle, the four of us, for 5 minutes. Looking back it was such a stupid thing to do, I am sure we looked like complete idiots. At night we all hung out and shared our experiences which was refreshing to realize that everyone is going through similar experiences as you. I met lots of really nice people and they should be great to hang out with. On Saturday morning we headed out early to stop and three other cities. At the first one we took a farry across and the buses took the long route around to meet up. We had time to shop. Instead Larissa, Liz, and I went on a bike taxi ride. It was a little cart that is pushed by a biker. It was really relaxing and cool to look around and move at a lot slower pace. We thourougly enjoyed ourselves. Next we headed to Manta where we had lunch. After lunch Larissa, Liz, and I were walking around again. We saw a life guard tower and were kind of shy about asking to go up since there were lots of chicos guapos arriba! Well, we finally got the courage to ask and they were all really friendly. We had a great time looking around from a different view and talking to the life guards. Our next stop on the one day tour of Manabi was Monta Cristi. They are famous for selling Panama Hats (Made in Ecuador). These are hats made of straw and there are some that are really good quality. Supposidly if you take the really good one and pour water in the bucket part where you head goes the water should not leak through. In Monta Cristi they are also building the new building for writing their constitution. We saw the construction of it taking place. I can´t figure out why they are using to much valuable money to make this new building when they have to possibility of using an existing building. That night we had our good-bye banquet. First of all we started out by parading in like they do in the Olympics. Even though Estados Unidos starts with an E we still went last, probably because about half of the exchange students are from the US. They did all of their talking stuff and then we picked the King and Queen of the trip. I felt bad because there was one representative from each country so if you were the only person of your sex you were forced to get up in front of everyone. As expected from Rotary they fed us tons of food. And, as expected from Latin America there was a dance at the end of the night. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves but lots of people were tired from the little sleep that they allow us. It was rather amusing to watch the Rotary people watch us dance. They all had little grins on their faces. This past Saturday night we had Family Night at William Shakespeare. Everyone has to do a little skit with all of your grade. Our theme was fire and it went pretty well. Two of my friends had real fire and were really nervous about it. They soaked the cloth a little too much in gasoline so as they swung them around hot oil splashed onto their face. I could not believe they were allowed to use real fire. It is cool that in the school they want every kid to get involved. Afterwards they had this spinning thing that let of fireworks… it did not look really stable to me. It is a typical thing to have in small pueblos in Ecuador called Castillo de Fuego. It was cool to watch but I was also afraid that it was going to fall over at any minute. So, October 31… Halloween. I actually celebrated it here even though Correa (the preseident) banned any celebration of Hallween. October 31 es Día del Escudo (the picture in the center of the flag). At school we all brought in candy and had to construct the picture on the flag out of candies. Our grade got second place. It was really fun and I am going to try and get a picture from a friend to send to you guys. Later I went with my little cousin Pipe and Maria Victoria to a club we belong to called Jacaranda. We all dressed up and followed clues to various places to receive candy. It was cool to dress up, as a cowgirl, and wander around with Pipe because he was so excited. In the neighborhood it is also the only location that you can ring door bells and receive candy. We didn´t do that because it was getting dark but there were herds of kids wandering around. It made me feel like I was at home. I hope that everyone had a great Halloween. The actual Ecuadorian holiday is on November 2nd for Día de los Disfuntos (day of the dead). We didn´t do anything to special, as in visit a graveyard, but we did enjoy the traditional food while having no school. They make guaguas de pan (bread children) that they decorate with icing. The traditional drink in Colada Morada, which is great. It is a thick sweetish drink that is a dark purple color. It was piña (pineapple) and mora (black berries) as its main ingredients. It is unlike anything I have ever tried and it is great. I had a great time learning about their new traditions. Well, as usual, my life is going well. I love my family but I also miss all of you guys a lot. I have added pictures on viewbook at http://chicaecuatoriana.slidez.net/. I am going to exchange photos with a friend and will put those on viewbook a little bit later. I hope to hear from all of you soon and I wish that your life is going really well. Lots of Love, |
This year, our club’s exchange student is Jessica Halter who is spending her exchange year in Ecuador. Jessica is a student from Poudre High School where she was enrolled in the International Baccalaureat program. Academically, Jessica enjoys Spanish, math and science. She loves to play the trombone in the concert and jazz bands. In addition, Jessica is a competitive swimmer, avid snowboarder and enjoys cooking. 
Esther Mngola is the club’s exchange student from England. She was sponsored by the Bedford Rotary Club (District 1070). Bedford is a small town located in the south of England. Esther lived in Marston Moretaine, which is a village of 4,000 people about 5km from Bedford. She attended Wootton upper school and wants to study international relations in university. Esther was born in Kenya and lived there for 11 years. She speaks Swahili, which is the official language in Kenya. She has 3 sisters and 1 brother.