If you haven’t already heard, I went to ~church camp~ this week. Finally made it to Mass in Italy (that is, four Masses, because it was, like, really a church camp), had some really cool experiences talking to immigrants, volunteered a little, and still ate pasta every day. I mean, it’s Italy.
But something way more important happened on this trip. I know, right? More important than eating pasta? Let me tell you, it’s possible. But for you to understand this, especially if you aren’t/weren’t an exchange student, I have to first explain to you both my worst fear of exchange and how I have to face it every day.
Senior year, before I was completely sold on Rotary, I went to talk out my thoughts with Ms. Luna who, for those of you who don’t know, is my high school wellness counselor. The topic of vulnerability always comes up when we talk, but this time it made me ask this: what if people in whatever country I would go to can’t tell how much I value vulnerability.
Now, my end-all fear about exchange wasn’t specifically if people would know or not that I think being vulnerable is really cool. It was that people wouldn't know who I am because I’m living in a language I don’t know. And, I gotta say, up until this church camp, I (for the most part) had forgotten about this fear. Looking back on the past four months, I don’t get how. But I really didn’t think about it, or at least definitely not as much as I thought I would.
And then, I went to church camp this week. And as we were driving back from one of the places we had volunteered, the nine of us that were riding in this van began having a debate about abortion and euthanasia. Or rather, the other eight people in the van began having a debate about abortion and euthanasia. Because even though I could understand almost everything, the most I could speak was two sentences. I just didn’t have the vocabulary. I couldn’t listen and think and form intellectual sentences in Italian as fast as the conversation was going. And it sucked. It hurt. So much.
If that had been in English, I would have talked so much. Because that’s who I am. And so it was so hard to watch this conversation happen – because I could understand it – and not be able to participate. And it was the first time I’d truly realized 1) that my worst fear had totally come true and 2) that there was another, even worse side to that fear.
First of all, the people around me couldn’t tell that I am the kind of person who speaks up and likes to argue and have interesting conversations and debates and has a lot of opinions. And secondly, I discovered the backside of that fear. I was scared that people wouldn’t be able to know who I was. What I didn’t realize would come with that was the inability to be myself. Which is just one billion times worse. I don’t know how many of you have ever been in a situation such as this; I hope you never will be. Because it hurts so much when you know who you are, when you know what you can do and what you want to, and you physically cannot. I could barely say two sentences in that fast-paced debate. And it hurt. To know who I am and not be able to be it.
I don’t know how to truly explain what it’s like. Because, with this super fun feeling of knowing that you can’t be yourself, there’s a boatload of other emotions that are equally as un-fun. For example: anger, because I wanted to participate so bad and I couldn’t; shame, because people told me I should be fluent in three months and I’m still not; guilt, because I don’t study Italian as much as I should and I barely listen to Italian music or watch TV in Italian; frustration, because I’ve worked so hard and in that moment I felt like I had nothing to show for it.
In short, it sucked. Really bad. And it made me think about so many other things that suck. Like the fact that when you speak a language in a broken manner, people disregard you really easily. Think about it: when you hear someone speak broken English, you just kind of act like they’re dumb. You do. Or at least, I know I probably do. It’s kind of a natural thing to do. When they can’t say what’s in their head, you assume they have nothing to say. It’s so easy to jump to that conclusion. It’s not even a jump; it’s almost a logical step. But it’s not true.
And the more unfortunate side effect of this unfortunate falsity is a slight loss of respect. I don’t know how to explain it; you can just kind of feel it. It’s this look people have in their eyes, a slight change in their pitch, and by the time you’ve reached the end of your point, you realize that the person you’re talking to has kind of let their attention wander. It’s too slow, or too simple, or too accented for their attention. Because the grammar is wrong, because the words are kind of off, because you can’t express what you are trying to and so what you’re trying to express isn’t important. And then you get kind of a half-smile, and your presence is reduced to ‘oh look at this cute little foreigner’ and that’s all you are.
And it’s really hard to be just the cute little foreigner when I know who I am, and when I know I’m more than just that, because I’m a whole person. A ‘cute little foreigner’ is just a facet of a person. It sucks to be a whole person inside and to only be seen as a portion.
So I’ve explained the suckiest part of this year. I don’t know what y’all are thinking about exchange right now, but I promise you I actually totally, completely love it. Best decision I ever made. Because overcoming this fear and showing who you truly are in your host language is one of the best feelings in the world.
This actually happened the day after the debate in the car. It was the last day of church camp, and we were discussing in small groups what we had done that week; there was a paper with a bunch of written prompts to talk about. And there was this one that asked about the effect of seeing all the people we had that week – prisoners, immigrants, disabled people. But the word it used was ‘poveri’. Unfortunates, in english. And I read that, and I got so mad. I have already explained my experience with loss of respect; with the diminution of people to one thing. And what I saw in that sentence was a complete lack of respect for the people we had supposedly been in communion with the whole week. So, when we got to that question, I asked if I could start. And I said just that; explained about how the whole week was about being equals, and then when it’s over, we call them ‘poveri’. I said that sucks, and it’s not fair. And one of the leaders of the small group said ‘wow. I didn’t even notice that. That’s really amazing’ and he looked at me and, I swear, I could feel myself become more of a person to him. Like he had this picture of me, a neat and tidy two-dimensional cute little foreigner – and then, all of a sudden, I revealed that statement inside my head and the two-dimensional picture of a cute little foreigner unfolded into a person.
And after that debate in the car, after being unable to be myself, it felt so amazing to be able to be myself in Italian. It meant so much. This fear, this feeling is, of course, a cycle; it will come and go and come again. But what is good is that it’s a motivator. It’s a motivator to study Italian, to practice, so that I can finally be myself to the people here that I’ve come to love. The suckiness and the hurt push me towards the amazing feeling of unfolding, of becoming me and knowing others can see it too.
I’m on exchange right now, and sometimes it sucks. But more often it’s amazing – more amazing than anything else. I am learning so much about being human. The world is teaching me. It’s teaching all of us exchange students right now. And we’re going to change it right back. Like, I honestly believe that. Exchange students are the coolest and strongest and we can change the world if we want to cause we know it and we love it and we have learned from it.
So the one message I want y’all to get from this: exchange is hard. And there’s problems that are the suckiest thing ever that I never expected. But it’s the best thing I’ve ever done, and maybe the best thing I’ll ever do. And I’m learning so much and growing so much and, most importantly, I’m loving so much.
Peace out and see you soon. Love you guys.