Courtney Schafer is slowly adjusting to learning a new language and the customs of a foreign country.
The Olds High School graduate is on a one-year Rotary youth exchange program in the south of Belgium. She arrived in the country in late August and will come back to Olds sometime this summer.
ìIt is so humbling how patient people are in helping me and accepting me when it would be so easy (for them) to just let me figure things out on my own. To be invited to live in another (family's) home and be part of the family with them is also extremely humbling as they show me what life is like in their country,î Shafer wrote in an email.
Schafer is studying a Grade 12 curriculum at a school in Chimay, a municipality in southwestern Belgium. She is finding the language barrier difficult to overcome, but picked Belgium because of the predominance of French in the country. She is studying French at a Grade 7 level.
ìFrench is probably one of the easiest languages I could learn but at the same time just to try to think, to write, to make relationships, to ask for things all in a foreign language when you're not exactly sure about the pronunciation can be tough, but it's getting easier all the time,î she wrote.
Schafer has been learning about different customs and foods that are popular in Belgium, including a penchant the Belgians have for beer. Each region has its own beer, including the town nearest to where Schafer is living. She has eaten snail, caviar, duck liver and oysters. On Dec. 6, tradition holds that Saint Nicholas hands out candy to all the children, Shafer learned. But St. Nicholas has an evil companion known as ìPÈre Fouettardî (Father Whip) who does mean things to the bad children.
ìMy experience here has been incredible so far. It's true it isn't easy a lot of the time to try to adjust to a new culture, new family, new community. You really have to make a whole new life for yourself within the course of the year but the harder times of my exchange have helped me to gain a new sense of confidence in myself,î she wrote.
Schafer also said the country is divided into the French side (Walonie) and the Belgian side (Flanders), with the two groups not mixing together all that much.
ìNeither enjoy learning the other's language but somehow they make it work!î she wrote.
The best part of the entire experience, Schafer said, is the friends she's made from all over the world, including Japan, Finland, Mexico, Australia and Argentina, among other countries.
ìBeing in such a small country with an efficient train system, it's fairly easy to meet up with other exchange students and it is pretty amazing because I now have close friends from (all over the world). These are relationships I'll have for the rest of my life of a year totally different from any other that I will experience.î
