For the average high schooler looking to attain the highest level of education, leaving school is increasingly becoming the answer. That is, leaving their school campus and taking on a global experience for a year. Starting in September 2017, what would have been the start to her Grade 11 year at Bow Valley High School, Tianna Davidson travelled to Italy through the Rotary Club exchange program. Rotary is an international service organization where each branch works on multiple community projects. There are more than 1.2 million Rotarians in 35,000 Rotary Clubs worldwide. Davidson attended school in the northern Alpine Lombardy region of the Mediterranean country, in a town called Bergamo, about an hour from Milan and Verona where she lived with three different families over the course of her 10-month stay. But it wasn’t the lessons in school that stuck with her the most, it was the experience of being immersed in a culture halfway around the world. As a Rotary participant, on top of learning the language of her destination country, she was also an ambassador of Canada, sharing her culture and values. “All the time (my host families) were like, “OK Tianna come learn this come learn that’ and teaching me how to make everything and all the different foods that were Italian,” Davidson recalled. “Cooking was definitely important, especially with my first host family.” She said one of her host families would even parse through their assortment of dozens of different types of olive oils and cooking oils so they could teach her the difference in each. To get to school and back each day – which was several trips since she would go home for lunch – Davidson would walk or use public transit. “Walking past all the shops and just smelling all the food as everyone is making lunch ... all the delicious smells and all the colours,” Davidson said. “It was really small, I experienced it every single day, but it was just something that I absolutely loved and just one of the small moments that I absolutely treasured.” Davidson said she also picked up on a different way of housing in Europe. “I lived primarily in apartments because everything is much smaller over there,” Davidson said, which contrasted largely with the urban sprawl in Alberta. “As far as laundry, every single one of my host families had a maid that would come in and do cleaning and the laundry. They weren’t super rich families, it was just everyone had someone to come in and do that kind of stuff for them,” Davidson said. “At one host family, I had a live-in maid, and then the other two would come one to two times a week to do that kind of thing for me. I wasn’t allowed to clean my own room, I wasn’t allowed to do my own laundry because someone else was paid to do it.” All of her clothes would be hung to dry outside, even in the winter. Davidson wrapped up the trip with several other international Rotary exchange students, hopping around 12 countries. But coming home was a challenge, Davidson said. “I definitely went through some reverse culture shock,” Davidson said. “It’s much colder here than in Italy... It was hard to adjust at first, you know, no public transportation so I was stuck at home a lot more, having to come back and have all my old friends and family that hadn’t gone through the same experience so it was a little challenging to find my place again. But I was definitely happy to be home after being gone for so long.” She also had to enroll in her Grade 11 year at Bow Valley High instead of Grade 12 with her peers since her coursework in Italy did not transfer over. Part of the goal for the Rotary exchange program is to promote education and peace, said Scott Grattidge of the Cochrane Rotary Club. “The people that we send on these exchanges are usually young leaders that are fairly exceptional and throw them into a steep learning curve because they usually have to learn a new language and new culture and just figuring different things out,” Grattidge said. “Thirty years from now when they’re making decisions on what their countries are doing, they may have a little more understanding and empathy for others around the world no matter what country they’re from,” Grattidge said. Rotary International sends between 7,000 and 8,000 young people around the world each year on exchanges. The Cochrane branch is currently looking for next year’s outbound student. Those interested are encouraged to apply at https://rotarycochrane.ca/page/rotary-youth-exchange. For further information, contact Scott Grattidge at [email protected].
