Life goes on after exchange…oh, really??

Well, here I go again! Maybe I shouldn’t write here anymore when my exchange year is already over (half a year), but isn’t that the best reason for a new article?

Actually the main impulse for writing this article about life of an ex-exchange student was an article I read the other day - www.multilingualliving.com/2010/05/28/returning-home-after-living-abroad/. I can tell you that I almost screamed „THATS EXACTLY HOW I FEEL“after every paragraph of it! :) Although I was of course happy not to be the only one who feels like that, it also scared me a little bit – it seems the author is still missing something wherever she goes. And I so hoped this feeling would eventually disappear…

But starting from the beginning (or should I say the end?) - the first days of my ex-exchanging  were pure HELL. It all started off with leaving of my dear host family, hiding my tearful eyes and trying to understand what was happening around. Which, by the way, was totally pointless because there wasn’t any nice or logic explanation of what was happening, just the facts: I was done. Leaving. It was the end of being cool (and foreigner) and the beginning of the inner fights between the old and new me. Even if I came back, it would never be the same again. That’s just it. Cope with it.

Czech Mafia forever! <3

Quite depressive, isn’t it? Luckily we got the chance to take one more deep breath before going to our home countries – YES camp. YES alias Young European Seminar is a camp organized by European YFUs in Germany for all exchangers from European countries who spent their year in another European country. That means a lot of (around 400) young people who try to enjoy their last days of that unusual experience as much as they can. So yes, we did partied a lot. Beside this there was the official program which was always somehow relative to the theme of whole YES 2011 – A world without borders – a European dream? For people like me, who don’t like simulations of parliaments and being moved from one place to another according to a schedule, could this official part be quite annoying, but most of the activities turned out to be much more fun than I thought. The one activity that always comes to my mind when thinking about YES, is a simulation of emigration with all the things like bribes, blackmailing, peddling, forging and annoyed officers. It was a lot of fun, but sometimes quite horrible to find out how desperate the situation can be (my role was a bullied gay who is trying to escape from his home country which is not safe for him anymore) and how impossible it is to get a new, better life.

After that came (at least for me) the most stressing part– coming home. We (6 ex-exchangers) went to Prague by train and it gave us chance to see again a part of the country where we were born. My thoughts after crossing the borders were something like: “OMG, did we always have suuuuuch high mountains? Blah, those buildings are so old and disgusting! Back at home – that guy has socks in his sandals, how typical! Hm, can I really smell the sweat?” And that’s when my culture shock started – the biggest and the only one from whole exchange year - the shock from my own culture.

Then all things happened really quickly. Suddenly the train stopped, I could recognize the Prague’s main railway station (not a thing you would like to see as first from Prague for sure), I saw my parents and did the last hopeless try to delay the end of me as an exchange student – with tears in my eyes I refused to get out of the train. Silly, but what can a man do? Then I saw my friend and family, I didn’t recognize my younger sister because she changed so much since I left. Everything felt strange, but normal in the same time. I had problems speaking Czech and I was told to have a funny accent. My dog barked at me and seemed to be angry – I don’t really know if it was because I left him at home for whole year or because I came back so he wouldn’t have my bed just for himself anymore. Then first food at home – fruit dumplings. First night in my bed. First morning and waking up without having a clue where and why I was. :) First time going to shop – my head hurt really badly just after 5 minutes. It wasn’t because of the prices which I kept getting terrified of (1 czech crown = cca 30 euros -> for a person who is used to euros are numbers like 120 (Kc) for razors a big shock), but because of those people who spoke Czech. After one year when I heard Czech just from people who talked to me was this tsunami of Czech language all around killing me. My ears tried to catch every word of every chat happening around me and my head just didn’t take it anymore. So my advice is: DON’T GO SHOPPING AFTER COMING BACK HOME!

Then I left for a camp where I go regularly every year. I see those people usually just once a year so it was surprisingly normal and natural to be there with them. But soon I found out that my culture shock is not over at all – I kept sleeping whole nights and days (before that I usually slept 5 hours per night), I felt totally exhausted and every morning when I woke up I felt like after a week of intense partying and just fell asleep again. My head was ringing all the time, I lost my appetite and I was very annoyed by behavior of my family members (after all, I changed a lot and I lived in totally different family for one year!). The rest of my summer holidays I spent with my family at different places and by studying for my passing exams.

In the end of the summer I went to YFU seminar and met other YFU’s ex-exchangers and those few amazing people who decided to spend their exchange year in the Czech Republic. I had great time there, finally I felt like being among people who really understand what I was going through. It’s really funny how close and well-known those people feel even though you haven’t met them many times. On the other hand, it was quite strange to be “on the other side” – to be a volunteer (or in that time almost – volunteer).

After the start of school most of the things fell back to the same old stereotype. But still, it felt so different! Still I felt that I was missing at least a half of me, a half of my life, a half of my heart.  I was thinking about Finland all the time and I really couldn’t get used to living in my family again. All I wished for was to go somewhere far away, to be there alone or with my friends from Finland, to be  with tolerant and open-minded people who don’t mind foreigners and foreigner cultures or even love them, just like me. That has been the main problem after coming back for me as my parents are not like that at all and still I cannot cope with that. Finally the main point – I changed. And I changed a lot. Some of my more tolerant friends tried really hard to get on with the new me (and were mostly successful) and forget the old one, but most of the people around me didn’t really feel the need to realize who I am now. But who cares about such people, right. ;)

A lot of things happened during that half a year and, after a few fouls, faults and disappointments, I finally found out what can replace at least some of the things I was missing - FOREIGNERS. Many of them! Girls or boys, my age or older, students or workers, party people or serious ones, people from over the ocean or people from Europe… Anybody brought me back those amazing feelings I had when I was foreigner.  I love that time I spend with them and I can never get enough of it!

Though, life hasn’t been fair lately and I lost my very dear friend who was enjoying his great life abroad. It touched my heart and made me realize how simply somebody can just disappear from our lives. I still think of him and keep my fingers crossed for him so he gets back to his beautiful life again. One thing I learnt from that – friends are something that cannot be replaced. Whole my life I had a feeling that it’s so easy to find friends everywhere so why to care about them so much. But it wasn’t till this moment that I realized, how special each of them is and how a big hole can be left after them when they cannot be around anymore.