Not too many people can pick up and leave what is familiar and comfortable to them. But Senior, Julia Robinson, is up to the challenge of facing a new country, foreign food, foreign people, foreign language-an entirely new culture, all on her own.
Similar to junior Alice Greene, Julia is participating in the Rotary Youth Exchange program. She will embark on a year-long journey in Brazil.
When deciding where she wanted to go, she was limited in her choices due to her age of 18 years old and the timing of her trip. She wanted to make sure she had all her requirements fulfilled at Galesburg High School so she could graduate in December before traveling abroad mid-year. She had options including Argentina and South Africa but in the end, Julia was accepted into the Brazil exchange program. She previously heard that the program in Brazil is one of the top exchange programs so Brazil is a country she is happy to be traveling to.
Julia will be traveling in the air for over 13 hours with two different connections before she arrives at her destination, and first host city, Caxias do Sul, which is in the southernmost part of Brazil. The first host family she will be staying with has a 12-year-old son and an older son who is currently in Madison, Wisconsin on an exchange program, just like Julia. She looks forward to getting to know the family more when she arrives, but in the conversations she has had with them thus far, she says they have been nice and welcoming. They enjoy similar activities like Julia, for instance, being outdoors and CrossFit.
The coursework that Julia will be taking for the next year will all be predetermined by her new school. She believes classes will include English, Portuguese, Math, History, and a few electives. Julia completed four years of Spanish while attending Galesburg High School, but since the language in Brazil is Portuguese, she has been trying to get her basics down before she leaves.
Other preparations have been happening for the trip, including acquiring her student Visa. She said the steps and requirements were both frustrating and took considerable time. Since she won’t be near her doctors, she also had to order a year's supply of contact lenses to take with her. The fun part of the preparations included shopping for host gifts to give her host family when she arrives. Julia’s family has experience with exchange programs, her mother and GHS Spanish Teacher, Jennifer Robinson, completed an exchange program in Columbia, while her older sister went to Indonesia as part of an exchange program.
Julia looks forward to the wonderful new experiences she will embark upon while in Brazil. According to Julia, “I am looking forward to seeing the differences in the culture, the food and meeting new people. I also signed up for a trip through Rotary to travel to the Amazon.” She will travel to the Amazon in April.
The fear of the unknown and the language barrier are the two things that Julia has some hesitations about. Julia said, “At the moment, I have a very beginning level of the Portuguese language and while I will learn more once I arrive, my goal is to be fluent in a few months.”
When Julia leaves on Saturday, January 13th, she will not have a return date finalized, but it will likely be in January 2025. When she returns she will visit friends and family before she begins college in the fall. She plans to attend either the University of Illinois or The University of Missouri.
Stay tuned for updates and pictures from Julia once she gets settled and is off on Brazilian adventures.