Despite this, I was a bit upset: I really wanted to finish the 11th grade with my friends. I took part in the contest just for company. But it would have been foolish to turn down the opportunity that presented itself. And being a pessimist in life - a person who always prepares for the worst-case scenario - so as not to be disappointed, I quite allowed that a mistake could have occurred, that I was mixed up with someone else, and everything would later be cancelled... Like, it was too early to rejoice.
But now I'm already flying over the ocean, and they still haven't put me off the plane. The situation is starting to make me wary. I fly and imagine what my new place of residence, family, school, friends will be like. It's good that everything I made up didn't come true. And in general, this year turned out to be completely different from what I had imagined.
My family
I was placed with a family consisting of two middle-aged, rather nice people. Their children had grown up and moved away long ago, and they had often taken exchange students before. They had never had any Ukrainians before me. Both Pat and Bob treated me well: they took care of me, showed me the local sights. If I'd had friends my own age then, I would have had a wonderful time. But lacking such company, I wasn't having much fun. Pat and Bob apparently realized that I wasn't entirely comfortable with them, and on their subtle initiative I moved to another house.
The family living here was large, and despite the fact that there were plenty of problems, a friendly atmosphere reigned in the house. The mother of the family, Susan, a sweetest, cheerful woman, was often ill, sometimes moved in a wheelchair, quickly got tired, but despite everything, she maintained her optimism. Her husband Tom is a big, kind and hot-tempered man. They both are trained as mid-level medical workers. Tom also finished seminary, but he did not become a Catholic priest because he wanted to have a family. He had once been a firefighter, but for a fat man who is also afraid of heights, that job is not very suitable.
There were three children in the family - Greg, my age, Angela, two years younger, and seven-year-old Katherine. While the two older ones were Susan's biological children, Katherine was Tom's biological child, and I was to become their common Ukrainian 'child.'
With my 'brother' Greg, unfortunately, the relationship did not work out. He spent all his time either at school, or at American football practice, or at work, and in rare hours of leisure he lay on the bed playing video games - we had little in common. Angela and I became good friends, she told me school gossip, shared information about her crushes, we played tennis together, went to golf practice, and went for walks.
I went to the same school as Greg and Angela. And I shared a room with the youngest, Katherine. But most of the time she lived with her mother, coming to this family about twice a week. Katherine was a big, noisy, sometimes annoying girl. My duties, among other things, included making sure she did not drown while bathing in the bathtub.
I would never have guessed how much my ordinary name Katya could change. I could not be Kate, as I had been called in the first family in the American manner. First, Katie was the name of our grandmother, a neighbor, and also a dog. I couldn't be Katherine either - that was the name of my 'little sister.' It was difficult to pronounce 'Katya.' So I turned into Kacha. The name stuck to me at school too. There, the main thing was to stop attempts to call me 'Kasha from Russia.' First, I did not agree to be oatmeal, and second, to be a Russian.
I should note that an exchange student brings no material benefit - the family is not exempt from taxes, no benefits are given. Moreover, my family was of average means, and if you consider that Susan did not work and was ill, and there were also three children... And yet this did not stop them from deciding to make me a member of their family. And this despite the fact that an exchange student involuntarily causes various inconveniences. In any case, that's how it was with me. For example, I would flood the bathroom, hopelessly stain a favorite blanket with ink, get sick at the wrong time. I also often needed help getting around the state.
My family treated Ukrainian culture with great interest and respect: they listened, asked questions, found everything that was in any way connected with our country, and rejoiced terribly at it. They found, for example, a Ukrainian Orthodox church and took me there. They celebrated Orthodox Easter and Christmas together with me, facilitated meetings with friends, organizing parties, and also trips. In everything else, I was practically on equal footing with their biological children: I did household chores in turn with the others, participated in family activities - trips to relatives, church, stores, football games in which Greg played, concerts and performances in which the girls took part. We also went to Disneyland together, held yard sales. I still have warm relations with my American family; Susan even came to Kyiv.
Overseas high school
Let me note right away that the secondary school where I studied was ordinary. And compared to our domestic one, in my opinion, it was even somewhat primitive. Classes were not always interesting. After all, every day we had to attend six of the same subjects in the same order for half a year - like it or not, you get bored. Although in addition to the required subjects, there were also electives, but they too did not always live up to expectations. In my deep conviction, our school education system is much more effective and, oddly enough, more democratic. After all, if you skipped a lesson or even a whole day, that does not mean you are an incorrigible loafer and a lost cause. Here, attendance and not only that are treated much more strictly. You may not believe it, but in order to leave the classroom, pardon me, to go to the toilet, you need to get a pass! It states your first name, last name, class, destination, and departure time, so that you can show it to the security guard in the corridor.
Homework is assigned little here; many manage to do it right in class. American schoolchildren are not used to sitting at home and studying.
Teachers highly regard tests as well as interactive teaching methods: group work, presentations, etc. In most cases, single-seat student desks - this must be a trend of Western individualism. By the way, it also manifests in the fact that cheating is not accepted here... Can you imagine how hard it is for a person from the CIS to survive? But I still managed to do it - for example, I cunningly wrote down the necessary information in an English-Russian dictionary that I was allowed to use. Inconvenient, of course, but what can you do...
American leisure
But school, as everyone well knows, is not only classes, but also various clubs and sections, particularly sports. I chose the most exotic sport for myself - golf. I can't say I achieved any significant success, but why not try something new?
I also had the opportunity to participate in such school-wide events as the prom, carnival, concerts, football games, and other sports competitions. In addition, there were trips to the cinema, theater, museums, including the house where Hemingway lived. I visited one of the smallest post offices in the world, a national park, a water park... And, of course, Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter, and Independence Day were actively celebrated with all their inherent attributes.
But if you are an exchange student living in a small American town, two things hold you back from a closer acquaintance with America. The first is means of transportation. The fact is that public transport here is practically nonexistent. This means that if you are going somewhere, you have to ask either family members or friends to drive you. And they, of course, may have other plans for that time. Young people can drive a car, if I'm not mistaken, from the age of 16. But personally, that didn't make it any easier for me; I didn't have a license. An exchange student from Denmark came up with an interesting solution: she drove around our town in a golf cart.
The second restraining factor is lack of money. Yes, of course, I was paid a stipend, and I was very glad of it. But if you call home a couple of times and buy a few necessary things, it unexpectedly runs out. And you want to travel and have fun. At the same time, according to the contract signed, an exchange student is forbidden to work. My American classmates worked en masse at McDonald's, stores, movie theaters, parking lots, video rental shops, etc., and I wouldn't have minded, but alas... Americans are very law-abiding citizens and do not want to break the ban. So I had to only do odd jobs (I really wanted to go to New York, but there wasn't enough money).
I did "babysitting" - that is, I looked after a neighbor's child who was afraid of thunderstorms. I also distributed booklets, tried washing cars. But what I never expected from myself was that I would earn money through Petrykivka painting, which I did at home with varying success. But here necessity drove me, and I painted 10 large panels. And interestingly, my American parents successfully sold them at work. Moreover, I even managed to combine my painting with looking after the child.
And all this for the sake of a passion for travel. True, we, as exchange students from the former Soviet Union, were taken centrally to Washington for a week. Free of charge. We were, of course, very happy to see the Capitol, all those white-stone monuments and other sights, and, of course, to hang out with compatriots. In addition, I visited New York, Philadelphia, and the Key West islands - the southernmost point of the United States.
And in general, we must give credit to the organizers - they took care of us. Everyone had a curator - a person to whom you could turn with any problem. Regular meetings, so-called orientations, were also arranged for exchange students, where they talked about the difficulties awaiting us, discussions were held, and we had the opportunity to simply communicate with the same "aliens" as ourselves.
It is worth noting that American youth have a specific concept of friendship. Friends here are, rather, just acquaintances. Perhaps, to find real friends you need more time. Almost everyone around is very nice, smiles radiantly in the American way, but everyone has their own life. And I, for example, lacked close friends. Especially at first, until at orientation I met people from different countries living in my district. In total, there were 11 of us: from Germany, Finland, Japan, Argentina, Poland, Slovakia, Russia, and Ukraine. We were united by a lot: problems with American slang, mishaps that happened to us at school and at home, sometimes homesickness, a desire to see America from all sides. Everyone knows that no one understands you as well as someone who has been in your shoes. All this brought us together, and we often spent time together: we visited each other, went on picnics, celebrated holidays. And when, leaving for home, some cried (like I did, for example), it was connected not only with parting with family and America, but also with saying goodbye to international friends.
Now, looking back at my “American” year, after the somewhat subsided raptures, I can more soberly assess what it gave me. Undoubtedly, knowledge of one of the most popular languages. Acquaintance with another – Western – culture. No less important was a significant reassessment of values. “Pulled” out of my familiar world, I was able to look at many things with different eyes and decide what I need in this life and what I can do without, in which direction I should change. And oddly enough, having seen how they live in the States, I wanted to live in Ukraine, and my opinion has not changed to this day.