My Life as an Exchange Student in Mexico
During my high school freshman year I started working around town. I worked downtown Bend, Oregon at a pizza restaurant. It was one of the hippest spots to work at named Stuft Pizza where teens like me worked, tossing pizza doe in the air and serving up great pizza and calzones. It was kind of like that hit 80’s show, 90210. I was in the back, loading and unloading the dishwasher. I was also working hard at school, getting good grades and playing sports. I was really enjoying life, and didn’t really think about those earlier days in school.
Socially, high school was little bit better for me than Junior High. The elementary school incident started to wear off and hormones really kicked in.
One day, during a French class during my sophomore year, I noticed a flyer on the door asking students to apply to become an exchange student. It said, “See the world, study abroad! Talk to your teacher.”
I always thought being an exchange student would be cool, reflecting on those days of reading about the places in the encyclopedia. I knew some of the exchange students at Mountain View High School. I thought I'd give it a try, and I told my teacher that I was going to apply. She was very hesitant on giving any info. “I’ve been wanting another student in this class, who is much more qualified than you, to do this,” she said, “if you do apply, don’t count on me giving you my recommendation.”
“Good to know,” I replied. I don’t know what I did to get that teacher against me. I think she simply wanted the other student to take the same initiative that I was about the opportunity. I talked to the other student and she said that she had absolutely no interest in going anywhere during her junior year.
I applied, and was invited to go to an interview with the Rotary club that was selecting its candidates. I got real Joe America during the interview — I wore my letterman's jacket with my prized cross-country team letter, went in there, and talked about how I wanted to explore the world.
I think what won it for me was my short story of going to Louisiana to stay with my cousins a few years earlier during a couple months in the summer of 1985. “It was an entirely different world,” I said with big eyes, “I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like in a different country.”
The next week I got a really great call saying, “Guess what! We've selected you and one other person to represent the Bend Rotary as an exchange student. Congratulations!”
It was a dream come true. I felt like one of those screaming contestants on the Price is Right running all over the house. My parents couldn’t believe it. “Ok, so you actually made it into the program?” My mom asked.
It was so gratifying to go to French class and let that teacher know that I was selected. She couldn’t even muster up a “congrats”.
My social life took a turn for the better. I started hanging out with the exchange students and the selected students in my area. We all would go to conferences around Oregon up to the point when the selection of which country we were going to travel was announced.
I really wanted to go to Europe, Australia, or Asia. Somewhere very far away. When the moment came up to announce who was going where, we were each handed our envelopes. I opened mine up and read with a fake smile, “Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico?”
The Mexican exchange students ran up to me and congratulated me. I tried to show excitement, but inside I felt like it was a real let down.
I was hoping to be scaling the Swiss Alps, but instead I was going to some place one hundred miles south of El Paso.
To make things worse, my family couldn’t really afford the cost of the plane ticket, plus my annual monthly allowance that would be sent to me.
My folks were handling the cost of my new baby brother and us two older teenage kids. My mom, who still a nurse, was working with a patient up in the hospital, and she mentioned to him about her son who got selected to be an exchange student. She told him how it broke her heart because she couldn’t afford to write a check for me to do it. The patient told her to have me visit him in a couple weeks at his home, and that he’d help me out.
I drove to his home, located in a resort town of Sunriver outside of Bend. I talked with him about the exchange program, and I found out that he was in the Rotary. He also was a top-level executive for Nike. His home was like a museum, with a life-sized sculpture of an elephant and other global items. “Travel is the best thing any kid can do. Let me pay for your plane ticket and your monthly allowance,” he said.
Wow. I couldn’t believe it! This generous man gifted me what would end up being the best year of my adolescence.
The moment I had that check in the bank, I worked on getting a passport, proper immunizations, and then continued working at the same pizza place until it was time for me to go.
My friends were carpooling to live shows to the Grateful Dead at Autzen Stadium, and as hard as it was for me, I stayed behind, in an effort to keep my nose clean and money saved up until it was time to go.
I remember when my family and friends all gathered to see me off. They threw a big party with a cake and gifts, all there to gather to celebrate and wish me off. Hot dogs and burgers were on the grill, cousins were playing, and dogs were running around. I was so energized to be about to be jumping on a plane in the next couple days, where my life would completely change!
I realize now how hard it must have been for my mother. I couldn’t imagine how stressed I’d be to send my teenager off to another country for an entire year.
On the flight to El Paso, I stopped in Phoenix where my father and family made a special trip to see me off. Remember those days when you could walk into a terminal and watch your loved-one get on or off the plane?
I met my host family in El Paso, and they drove me into this new world that just blew my mind. I never really told anyone about all of my experiences in Mexico. My parents would have been appalled, and my siblings were too young to hear what their older brother did.
When I arrived in Mexico, it was a pretty warm and gentle introduction to the way of life in this culture. I lived with my first host family and would later move to another family in three or four months. In total, I would live with three separate families.
The first family were professional architects, and their son was in the United States on exchange, just like me. They were wonderful, giving me the a cultural red carpet welcome to Mexico. They introduced me to the amazing arts, sounds, tastes and richness of what most Americans don’t see. It was beautiful.
I lived in a rare middle-class neighborhood. Most people were either really poor, or very wealthy. I learned how to speak some Spanish during the late summer by watching cartoons with the child in my host family.
I enjoyed walking around and absorbing this amazing place while preparing to check into my high school, which they called “Colegio de Bachieres.” It was nothing like high school back home, and more like college.
Everyone wore the same uniform: white-collar shirt, grey pants, and black shoes. There weren’t that many rules. For the first time, I felt like I was on my own and in charge of my own decisions.
It was almost instantaneous. Everyone wanted to be my friend. Special handshakes from the cool kids, and kisses on the cheeks from really cute girls. I got my first authentic taste of being a really popular kid, and it was like a drug. I quickly went from a reserved and shy kid like I was back home, to an ultra-social person.
I started getting to know so many people. I was invited to parties and nights out, hanging out with a fun group of kids. I was the Mexican version of Ferris Beuler.
As my year went on, I got more and more liberated towards adult-like behavior. I made more friends; I spoke Spanish better and better. My closest friends were a group of girls from my school. I’d hang out with them daily, and eventually I’d be included in other groups of friends.There simply wasn’t enough of me to go around for these people, and I purposely fanned the flame of my own popularity.
I would end up traveling to different parts of Mexico, going to see the pyramids and museums in Mexico City, traveling to Mazatlan during spring break with my friends, and finishing off the whole year by going to Puerto Vallarta by myself. I went from going scuba diving on a tour, to bars drinking with vacationing college kids from the United States. I felt like I went from 16 to 25 years old in just nine months. Then, I finally went back home to Oregon.
Returning back to the United States and getting back into life in Oregon was kind of a reverse culture shock. It was very interesting to see how much the social dynamic of the kids at high school changed. People were hanging out in new groups, and it was like the school was put in a huge social blender.
Unfortunately, I was not so lucky to be mixed-matched. People, including my parents at home, wanted me to be that same shy, outcasted, and under-spoken kid who left school when he was a sophomore. I quickly grew disconnected, understanding there wasn’t any use in trying anymore. I still felt like a 21-year old stuck in high school. I got a little depressed.
US bombs started falling over Iraq, kicking off the first Persian Gulf War in 1990, and I decided to pre-enlist in the US Navy. The decision was part patriotism, part escapism. I went through my senior year of high school worried about my future in the military, and living life mostly disconnected from my peers.