Wow! What an experience this was! The exchange program ran from June 21 - December 18, 1998. Only six months, but fiercely intense. Twenty Canadians were paired with twenty Uruguayans, and the rest is history! I've organized the information chronologically - to help me recount all of the wonderful details. Pardon, mis amigos Uruguayan, todo de esto es aun en ingles, pero voy a hacer un traducion pronto! Pase bien!
June - Umm... como se dice... how do you say?
Canada World Youth brought together twenty Canadians in Edmonton where we began our journey. We stayed in a beautiful camp on the side of a lake and nervously anticipated the arrival of our strange South American counterparts! We had a few sessions of introductory Spanish, but when the laughing and smiling Uruguayans arrived we forgot everything and just smiled and hugged - "Welcome to Canada!" It was quite overwhelming and the camp was electrified with an energy that we all felt. Ah, those first five days of effort and frustration -- we all tried so hard to understand each other, and our Spanish and English vocabularies grew suprisingly quickly under such intense conditions!
The two communities chosen to host the exchange were Kindersley and Maple Creek, two small communities in Saskatchewan. The team of 40 youths was divided into two (supposedly more manageable) groups and we were whisked away into the Canadian Prairies.
July - learning about "the group"
julio - apprendiendo a cerca "el grupo"
From here on I can only detail my group's activities, but from what I've heard from the MapleCreek - Ombues people, there were a great number of similarities (in terms of working, group activities, problems, etc.)
After a week of group living in a church, we were ready to be a part of a family. The host families in and around Kindersley were very welcoming. My counterpart, Fernando, and I lived with the Richardson family just north of town. Other counterpart pairs lived on small farms within 30 minutes of Kindersley. About half of us lived with host families in town, and could walk to their work placements (likely sharing mate on the way - I'll explain later...).
Every Wednesday we all gathered in the church basement to have a day of activities and discussion. This was our Educational Activities' Day (or EAD - in fact, I can't really remember what EAD stands for, but I'm hoping this is correct!). For many of us working out on the farms, this was our only opportunity to visit with our friends. For the Uruguayos, this day was especially sweet as they could speak in Castellano again and leave the frustrations of trying to communicate in English aside for awhile.
Our EAD's generally began with a "Que Pasa?", or "What's Up?". Everyone had the opportunity to share their feelings or stories of the past week with the host families and counterparts. This was usually the time that I realized the troubles Fernando and I were having were common to most of the counterpart pairs! We could discuss ways in which we were learning to integrate ourselves into our new families, and we often shared ideas on how to balance family life with individuality (for most of us, having independence in our previous lives (!) was very difficult to find again within a completely new family and a counterpart, each demanding a certain amount of time and responsibility).