May 12, 2016 Meeting of West Bay Rotary
Deb Hitchings introduced our inbound exchange student from Iceland. Berglind gave a presentation with slides about her year here in Camden. She explained why she decided to participate in exchange starting with her mother asking her a few years ago if she’d be willing to spend a year in another country, and then a presentation by AFS students that her friends saw and shared with her she started to consider participating herself. Her desire to learn to be fluent in English and experience new things and meet new people from around the world. She wanted to learn about how her own culture was different from another. Her expectations were tempered by her desire to not be disappointed in the future, but she wondered about many things including food, Christmas and even whether to hug her host family upon meeting them. She has learned a great deal from her two host family experiences and made many new, close friends from around the world who are also here on exchange and from Camden. She talked about homesickness that came and went during her time here. She found methods to cope, like staying busy, being social and not contacting home too much. She came to Camden with a good understanding of English, and her vocabulary has expanded greatly over her exchange. She started thinking in English, and now Icelandic sounds foreign to her.
She feels that she has built her independence, self-esteem and maturity during her exchange. She said being out of her comfort zone has helped a lot. She has learned to be more straightforward and how to do small talk.
She was not used to getting up as early as her host families do. She also has started carrying a water bottle and said that is not common amongst her friends in Iceland. She’s been taking many photos, more at the beginning of her visit than now, and keeping a brief diary. She has made monthly videos and shared on with us from February.
She thanked the club for hosting her, and appreciates very much the new friends and experiences it has given her.
She will return to Iceland in July and has two years of school to complete before she can go to college. She played soccer and was in the school musical. She skied on the Alpine team and was involved in Interact. She is glad she was in an area that is different from what most people outside the US see in movies and on TV, like Florida or California.
Buckets on the table are for the Fort McMurray wildfire relief. District 5370, Zone 24 West, (Alberta) where more than 90,000 have been evacuated from their homes, including Rotarians.
Peter Berke encouraged people to bring their ticket stubs and money from tickets sold to next week’s meeting on May 19. He has decals and posters for people to promote the event. If you haven’t already received tickets to sell, see Peter Berke.
Sandy said on June 11 (June 18 rain date) is to scrape and paint the lamp posts in Camden. It should take about 2 hours and he needs volunteers.
District Conference is May 21 and 22 at Sugarloaf, with music from Motor Booty Affair.
Camden Rotary is having a special meeting on Tuesday June 7 on Curtis Island and Bruce Malone has $12 tickets to share with members of West Bay Rotary. Transportation will be provided leaving 11a from Camden Town Landing. See Bruce if you want to go. If there is inclement weather, they will meet at the Camden Yacht Club.
Ron Hall recognized Bob Stiehl with a sticker for Every Rotarian Every Year.
The annual dinner is June 30 and we will also have a regular meeting that morning. The dinner is at the Samoset with the Camden and Rockland clubs joining us for drinks at 6p.