Audrey Vandegaar (2006-2007 Inbound from Belgium)
Dear Rob,
It wasn’t just about discovering peanut butter and jelly…
Reading this title make you understand I’m not, originally, familiar with peanut butter and jelly. Indeed, where I’m from its more about chocolate, waffles, beers… and all the other awesome products from Belgium.
Yes, my name is Audrey and I come from Belgium. I’m now almost 26 years old.
More than 10 years ago a young lady, called Lisa, came into my life. This Australian girl was an exchange student in Belgium in 2003. She had some issues with her host family and my dad, being a Rotarian, decided to host her for a couple of weeks until we found her another family.
This girl soon became a big sister for me. She had some much to share, not only did she speak very well French with the sweetest Australian accent she also had a lot to tell us about her country and so much to learn about ours. Neither of us knew, when we laughed in my bedroom, that she would changed my life.
Lisa became an example for me and a few months after she left I decided to take English evening classes; my goal was to go abroad!
I was too young to be accepted in the Rotary program so I had to wait. I worked as a student, during the weekends to buy my plane tickets and save money for this journey of my life. With Lisa in my life the only place I wanted to go to was Australia.
You can imagine how disappointed I was when I found out that too many people wanted to go there and I could “only” go to Florida.
But oh well, as Lisa told me, when I was devastated, I could go another time to Australia.. “In Florida you might never be able to go there after…”
My big sister was right.
In 2006 I graduated from high school and took off in July 26th.
I left my family, my “1 month “ boyfriend, and my friends to go to a place I didn’t know.
To tell you the truth my evening classes weren’t very helpful; just in the plane I was already lost with everybody speaking English with “THE” accent.
I flew for hours, realizing all I left and wondering what was going to happen over there.
Once I arrived in Daytona Beach I had a warm welcome from my host family and Rotary club members. I was arriving in a family of 4 boys. .. My host parents must have been as stressed out as I was…
As soon as we got out of the airport I remember this weather..Coming from a rainy country it was amazing for me to have such nice weather so late in the evening.
Blair and Joe offered to go get ice-cream. I asked for a small scoop and I got a huge cup, almost 3 times bigger than back home.
I quickly understood everything was bigger…
To be honest my first night was horrible, I had so many feelings. I cried almost all night and today I can’t really tell you why…
My host parents were so nice even if I didn’t understand a word my host dad was saying.
One of the first words I learned was ‘mumbling”. It was Joe’s characteristic J
My first days/ weeks at school were horrible. Being used to have friends back home and suddenly being thrown in a class room I didn’t know with people and a language I didn’t know was an experience.
I had to take into myself. Being patient…
Patient to learn, patient to make friends, patient to feel like home.
This hard time is pretty hard to explain because, yes I clearly remember it, but it didn’t last for long.
My patience worked well. I quickly became comfortable. I went out with friends, felt part of the family…
My experience was just wonderful. Just saying it gives me goes bumps. I have so much to tell about it that I would need pages and pages and you would probably not understand half of it, unless you’ve been an exchange student.
I’ve met so many people, learned so much about them, about my host country, my home country and also myself.
When you are 17 years old you don’t know much about what’s going on around your little life, being able to travel made me open my eyes.
I can’t say I faced real life because, let’s be honest, I had an exchange in perfect conditions; perfect family, perfect rotary club but somehow I feel like I did have an experience of what life is;
Besides English, I learned what really friendship is, I learned to know who I can count on, I learned not to make judgments or generality… If I had to do a list of all I learned I would probably realize how ignorant I was before that.
This experience brought me so many memories... I tasted the weirdest things of my life like peanut butter and jelly, alligators. I went in a limo to my prom night, I went to supermarkets which are open after 8 pm, I had the biggest X-mas tree in my house, I became a fan of sweet tea. I’ve been to Disney, Washington, the West Coast, Georgia, to the Keys, Montana and I’m probably missing half of it because what I remember now, 7 years after, is a global changing year!
I now have 2 moms, 2 dads, 5 brothers in total, many people in my facebook contacts with only one American best friend and 3 best exchange student friends.
I have 2 countries (imagine how it was for me when Belgium played US on the Word Cup of Soccer last June ;) ).
All of that make me so grateful to the people how have given me the opportunity to live this experience… My parents and my host parents of course but also the Rotary.
Now I can tell everybody who want to hear it that Rotary is not about a meeting where people eat, drink and talk. There are, out there, awesome people who spend time and energy making people’s dream come true. Who, by the way, I want to thank again.
I’ve been one of the lucky teenager who has lived a year in ‘brackets ‘.
Like my dad says every good thing has an end… So I had to go back …
Once I came back I didn’t feel like home anymore and had to rediscover my own country. People in US liked my French accent and people in Belgium told me I was speaking with too many English words…
That’s the way it is…
My first months back home were very hard, I was really homesick- yes we can call it that way -but with some help I got back to a normal Belgian life.
Everybody remember this time, my boyfriend (yes the same one than 1 year before) because of my tears, and my parents because of the phone bills J
Anyway, now I can tell you the impact on my life after “THE” year.
Just a quick list of what happened since then:
· I’ve been back to Florida, alone, the year after to resource myself during vacation and went back in 2012 with my boyfriend so he could finally meet my second family.
· I had my US best friend coming over here 2 times since I left.
She got married in May, I couldn’t be part of the wedding so she decided do come in Europe for her honeymoon so my boyfriend and I joined them for a couple of days in Rome
· I had a Rotary Member (Rob) visiting Belgium so I made him try the Belgian fries
· I kept in touch with my exchange student’s friends. I went to Slovakia to visit my Slovakian friend; she came to Belgium 2 times. The Swiss one also joined us and in 2013 we decided to meet up in Denmark.
· My host parents came in Belgium once and even if they couldn’t talk with my parents it felt like they knew each other..They seemed to like my home country so came back a couple of years later and are planning to come a 3rd time next summer.
They have invited all their kids for a family reunion and I was invited, yes I think I’m their daughter just as they are my parents… I call them for every big news(and sometime the small one too)
Saying goodbyes was the hardest thing I had to do but I realized that with those people it’s never a good bye. Every time we see each other it’s like we just left each other. Even if we are hundred miles a part there is this inexplicable thing between each other
I talked a lot and it’s hard to stop but if I have to summarize I would say:
If you can change people’s life just do it. You’ll understand they can also change yours.
If you help people make friendships like these, discover another country , another culture and another way of life I'm sure you will, somehow, contribute to a better/ peaceful world.
Audrey