August 15- Camryn Du Bose

She had three motivations for the trip:
People - fellow students and friends made abroad.,
Travel - 1st trip to Europe and took advantage of being there to visit around,
Growth - it was a huge expansion of her world view with all its challenges.

 

 

People:
Her host town was Cuneo, a city of 60,000 in the piedmont of Italy’s northwest corner half way between Turin and the Mediterranean. She was hosted by three families where she lived in total immersion, sharing the homes, food, conversations and all. She would walk, bike or bus to school where it was all business. She was in class #4H in the Lice Scientific which was in session six days a week. They stayed in one class room all day with the same group, not much creativity. Unlike high school here there were no Sports, Spirit or Leadership Activities, so it was challenging to be social with fellow students - not bad just different so she had to find common ground to connect. English teachers invited her to present and practice with their students and reciprocated helping Camryn with her Italian. She also assisted the Physical education class, being fluent in “step” choreography which was a good avenue to meet and socialize. Latin was a real challenge for her as everyone had had four years already.
Since it was her gap year there were not projects and grades were not critical, her goal was learning the language and helping the English and P.E. teachers which was very nice.
After school she had some time to herself which she used to play there Ukulele, make videos and connect with other students.

 

 

Travel:
She participated with 75 Rotary Exchange students from all over the world in the ITLAY TOUR. These students became her family with whom they visited every major city in Italy.
There were class trips to Rome with her Art and History teachers. Her Italian was getting better so she was getting more and more out of the travel.
She went to a town in nearby France for a week in a French high school. She had studied French so got by in a melange of French/Italian/English.
Two of her four sisters visited and they toured Venice, Verona and Milan. She also fit in three trips to her favorite, Rome which was 8 train hours away.

 

 

Growth:
THANK YOU ROTARY! Travel is such a great way to grow, overcoming fears and challenges met - the triumphs made it all worth it! Dealing with another culture and language stretched her in good ways and she flourished. This trip empowered her to go for it, accepting the challenges and saying yes! She will be attending The University of Hawaii Manoa on Oahu this Fall. She is planning to take classes toward creative media, film and media. After college her dream is to work for Disney.

The differences between Italian and California boys? Too much studying to socialize and no sports. There is not assigned homework, the studying is all based on passing tests = study, study, study.
She loved the food, enjoyhi8ng past twice a day it was incredible!…with dessert after Lunch and dinner! They ate late and drank a lot of good coffee. Bread and lasagne were her favorites.

 

 

She was an enthusiastic and vivacious speaker, clear and unhurried, poised and very personable. Her talk was accompanied by a great slide show with Italian captions, the last of which was:
GRAZIE MILLE!