US Travel Diary 2

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    MAGIC MOMENTS IN Minnesota XVI!

    (Or more correctly: Amazing Adventures in America " FINAL?

    (20 November 2001)

    It's a couple of months since I have written at length, and so much has happened from the more mundane

    domestic front to the world events of 11 September and how that effected everybody. As our stay in the

    United States draws to a close, it is probably time (at the risk of boring you all) that I try to draw some of

    the strands of our life here together and to make some sense out of it all. This is as much for me to

    organise my thoughts and impressions as it is for you, the poor readers who will be inflicted with myramblings.

    Living and working in another country has been a fascinating experience. After a little bit of initial

    disorientation and even terror, subtle changes occur over the months, concerning getting about in a

    different society. They sneak up on you really. One day you suddenly find yourself completely

    comfortable, know your way around and can operate on all levels, from shopping to experiencing the

    best the new environment has to offer. You start to fully understand the environment you live in, to the

    stage where many days, you don't even consider any differences from home. You are accepted and begin

    to be part of your new "home away from home". The US is a very easy place to do this. Then, just when

    you are at your most comfortable and having developed a full understanding of your adopted home, it's

    time to leave!

    I think the experience has effected us all like this. The hardest part of leaving will be saying "good bye"

    to our American friends. Jessie certainly found this when her friends from Olsen Middle School

    "sprung" a surprise farewell party for her. It will be hard to part from so many wonderful people,

    perhaps forever. Ce La Vie!

    For me the people who I shall miss are the wonderful colleagues at Hidden Oaks Middle School. For the

    family, it will be our particular friends Alan and Mary Poulsen, Paul and Mary Ahern and

    neighbourhood friends.

    We had our big farewell last Saturday at a most enjoyable Thanksgiving "do" north of Minneapolis.

    About fifty people came together. Australian (SA, QLD, VIC) and New Zealand exchangees and

    Americans who have been to Australia and been "Australiansed" (a partial lobotomy?). By now,everybody from Oz & NZ are looking forward to heading South, like the Canada geese.

    Our American hosts, Chuck (yes!) and Julie Hedstrom are very nice people indeed. Chuck had been a

    ruckman for one of the funny little Aussie Rules country leagues up around Lake Bolac, where he'd

    taught in 1997.

    The weather was wonderful (65 F) in the evening on their large country property, and all the kids (a

    mini-United Nations) ran wild outside. We chatted and compared notes on our travels over good Aussie

    red! It was great.

    Jessie found a new friend in the host's daughter Kassie and she likes the oldest girl from the family who

    will be in Colac next year. (Our social butterfly. Today she is off to another birthday party. Life is hard

    being a teenager.)

    I feel that some of the people who we have met here will end up being friends for life. The effects of this

    exchange will be with us for years to come.

    Impressions of the USA and how have our thoughts been changed by living here? Where do I start? I

    think some of my ideas have remained essentially the same, although have been softened by this

    experience.

    Firstly, there are some very different aspects to the American psychology. Differences, subtle and

    sometimes not so subtle, from other places on earth to which we have been.

    Secondly, though we are no longer amazed by day to day things we have found, we remain very

    impressed by every aspect of American society. For me is that it works so well!

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    On the first point, I mentioned above that the experience of living in the USA has taught us something

    about the American attitude to their place in the world and to their country.

    Earlier in the year I took a second job with Berlitz, the language people, as a "corporate resource" on

    Australian cultural differences. (putting "Australian" and "cultural" in the same sentence maybe

    somewhat of an oxymoron!). The idea was that I was to help American corporations who send people to

    work in Australia. It was very interesting.

    I met the corporate psychologist person who was the main consultant for Berlitz in the course of this

    work. She was a very knowledgeable Welsh lady who is married to a Japanese, had lived in Tokyo,

    Sydney and currently New York with a flat in London.

    With apologies to Max Weber and the people I have already bored with this story, one of her

    psychological/sociological theories I found quite interesting and with a touch of truth to it. I would

    emphasise that such theories are certainly not true in all cases, as they are only "ideal types" I daresay

    with plenty exceptions. Nevertheless I think it provides some insight.

    She contrasted Europe, the US and Australia by analogy. Saying that Europeans (including the English)

    were like a coconut. The hard shell on the outside proved to show that they were difficult people to get

    to know, and put up social barriers. Once you got past the shell however, the inside was an open book(to mix my metaphors) and they were easy to talk to about anything: family, region, politics, history and

    morality.

    SOME Americans on the other hand were like a peach. (They are rather "peachy"!) These Americans at

    first meeting appear open, egalitarian, welcoming and unreserved. All this in obvious contrast to the

    Europeans. However, once you delve deeper, there seems to be a hard kernel of social or ideological

    distance that is hard to fathom or breach. Such an American finds it difficult to talk about the "biggies"

    such as their history, culture, place in the world, relationship to other countries, religion, politics and

    morality etc. without being over-sensitive about these things and very defensive, or offended that an

    outsider dare comment on them. They tend to lack a self-critical facility.

    According to our Welsh lady, Australians are neither of these, and are just "squishy". (maybe meaningthat we really lack all substance).

    Anyway, I have certainly found a good measure of truth in her metaphor. I think that much of this has to

    do with the fact that in so many ways, the USA really is the biggest, best and brightest, and so relatively,

    Americans know little about the rest of the world. They therefore have a tendency to become intimidated

    when they find that many foreigners know so much about the United States, perhaps even more than

    some Americans. I think this may account for the apparent sensitivity and quickness to take offence.

    The recent crisis of the terrorist attack on 11 September has confirmed these thoughts. Not many

    Americans knew anything about Afghanistan or the Middle East prior to the tragedy.

    Americans remain fascinated by Australia, or the idea of Australia, and some ask good questions. Mostly

    however, their questions indicate a near complete ignorance about Australia. This is both

    understandable, excusable and not their fault!

    The whole rationale for such exchanges in a small way addresses some of these problems. That is, that

    we all have the opportunity to learn from one-another in a frank and honest exchange of observations,

    warts and all, free of rancour, free of fear of offence and of imputing other than honest motives to the

    correspondents. Only in this way, do I believe we can develop genuine insights and learn from one-

    another at a level deeper than a tourist watch a "strange" country pass by through the bus window.

    Most importantly, we have to be willing to learn and to change our opinions based on what we learn as

    we go. After all, this is what life should be all about. We never stop learning, we never stop changingand we should listen to others without cultural blinkers, hidden agendas or closed minds. For me, this

    was the real point of this exchange and what I will take with me about America when I return to

    Australia.

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    No self-censorship at all and this correspondent may say the occasional thing that others may disagree

    with, but it's just my opinion after all, and may be cheerfully discounted as "that's just Rowan." My

    opinions are honest ones, written mainly for myself, but hopefully of interest to others. "You gotta take

    the good with the bad!" otherwise my observations such as they are, have a danger in becoming so

    sanitised that are meaningless and are not worth saying.

    So where does this leave us talking about the United States? I have said that it is a wonderful and

    amazing country, full of opportunity and the very epicentre of the good things that our Western politicaland economic system can give. Many other Western countries, of course, have essentially the same

    values, and the US is not unique by any means in this regard. It is just that the US is the most important

    and influential example of Western values in the world today.

    Although the values between Americans and Australians are very much alike in most important ways,

    America tends to be big and inward looking whilst Australia is largely the opposite. The US is a little

    like the ancient Chinese Middle Kingdom. It sees itself as the biggest, best, strongest, most advanced,

    most important and most democratic country on earth. It is! It sees itself as the hope of the planet, the

    "grand experiment" without peer in history. Maybe!? It therefore looks inward, seeing itself in most

    ways as THE world. Apart from the three week vacation to Europe, when Americans travel "the world",

    it is within the United States (and sometimes Canada and Mexico)

    All this is quite understandable. The US is HUGE and so diverse, Its "lower 48" are like "the world".

    There is so much going on and there are just so many people, that it holds the interest almost exclusively

    of the American media and the education system. For these reasons people here cannot be blamed for

    knowing little about the rest of the world.

    This I'm afraid has compounded the problems of the terrible events of September 11. Many Americans

    seemed incapable of understanding why they are disliked in some parts of the world. They were caught

    by surprise. There is minimal media coverage of this and there is precious little light being shed on it due

    to continued preoccupation with what is happening on the domestic front.

    The country seems to have turned even more inward, and citizens take comfort from "showing the flag"

    and reminding themselves how great they are. Any moderating views are sometimes heard but usuallygiven short shrift in the media. The US media is being censured by many Americans for showing picture

    of people killed by American bombing or giving any airplay to the Taliban point of view. Talk such as

    of conspiracies over Azubaijan oil; half a million dead Iraqi children since the UN/US embargoes began

    ten years ago; the plight of the Palestinians; or the inappropriateness of a declaration of "War" against

    terrorists, in what should really have been an international police action, ARE sometimes heard but most

    often discounted. So we are left with total media saturation of "America Strikes Back" or the problems

    of "Homeland Defence".

    FDR's Fourth Freedom: "The Freedom from Fear" has gone out of the window and I fear in the long

    term this pre-occupation is deeply psychologically unhealthy for the country. This is far scarier than any

    anthrax hoax or attack. Custom at the Mall of America has fallen by seventy percent, and this weekend

    is Thanksgiving, but few will fly.

    A wonderful story from one of our fellow exchangees is worth re-telling here. Brett, a real "dag"

    (colourful character) from New Zealand and his family are from north of the Bay of Islands. The Kiwis

    are having a much worse time than us with the exchange rate. Anyway, they are posted ("stuck") up in

    northern Minnesota at a one-horse-town called Grand Forks in the Red River valley. He says its like

    living on a cold billiard table, being so flat and featureless. It's near the Canadian border and boring old

    North Dakota. Anyway, he told a very funny story about all this Anthrax bull... which says a lot about

    Antipodean VS American attitudes. They got this letter, with "Anthrax" written on it in a kid's

    handwriting. They just laughed, tore it up and put it in the trash/rubbish. The following day, on the front

    page of the local Grand Forks newspaper, in banner headlines, something like... "Major Anthrax Scare,

    Two letters found, one missing." They panicked a little, and rang 911. Next thing, about half a dozenFBI agents interviewed them and spent half a day trying to piece the bits of the letter back together

    again. I think they had visions of "disappearing without a trace". They are laughing about it now but

    were a bit worried at the time (not about Anthrax, but about the FBI).

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    If the media is no help to bring the country back to normal, then education may provide part of the

    answer and in my own little way I might be a help. I shall say more on education later, but my

    contribution such as it is really a teaspoon in the Pacific Ocean. My experiences teaching about

    American institutions and history do illustrate part of the problem. There is no doubt that Americans

    have wonderful institutions that they have every right to be proud of. However a real tendency for them

    is to be seen as uniquely American, and so we have more cultural blinkers that are beyond the control of

    we mere mortals. It is not the fault of the kids, their parents or even their teachers. It's just the way it had

    been for two hundred and fifty years.

    American history is even more problematic. American historiography is improving but suffers more so

    from the problem of Western history in general, being about the inexorability of White progress. History

    has too often been taught as hagiography and as a morality play. I think it might be a little worse in the

    US because textbooks tend to be written to market them to school boards who perpetuate THE view of

    history. I set slightly subversive "extra credit" questions for my kids. The better ones might develop their

    research and critical facilities a little. Next week we have Thanksgiving and my question for the week

    was to find out when the first permanent non-native people settled in what came to be the United States

    and why they are not well remembered. The second part of the question is more important of course. It

    was not our "Thanksgiving" Pilgrims in 1620, but African-(American?) slaves who escaped the Spanish

    settlement in South Carolina in 1526, forty years earlier than Roanoke, which the better kids can tell me

    about. The wonderful conclusions that some kids can draw from such questions are astonishing.

    At Hidden Oaks Middle School at least, heroic teachers plug along valiantly trying to provide a more

    balanced view of all of the above, and by doing so give some hope for the future of America's

    understanding of its place in the world. I'm sure it is a good example of a little bit happening in a lot of

    places around this great country.

    My second set of observations has more to do with day-to day living in the USA. Although we are no

    longer amazed by some day to day things we have found, we remain very impressed by aspects of

    American society. Not least for me is that it works so well!

    The US is indeed extraordinary! One quarter of a billion people live in an area not much bigger than

    Australia. Most other countries would collapse under the sheer weight of numbers. Yet the US works,whilst having to trade off some of the advantages that Australia seems to enjoy by virtue of its smaller

    population. Generally all these people in the US live in harmony, committed to their democratic system

    and there is still plenty of opportunity to do well. The so-called "American Dream" really does exist, and

    people can succeed in making money and attain true success if they have talent and work hard. If they

    lack these abilities, then perhaps this is another story. Just to be able to feed all these people is a wonder

    of infrastructure and marketing.

    America's supermarkets are something else! They are warehouses of wonders such as spray-on cheese;

    chemical concoctions approximating sauces for all occasions, and myriad convenience foods; snacks and

    sweet confectioneries. Sugar in manifold forms that defy the imagination. All the basic food groups: salt,

    fat and sugar! Fresh fruits and vegetables are limited in winter because of climate and population, but the

    marketing makes up for this in sheer imagination. For Thanksgiving you can buy for example, iridescent

    green and blue gems such as candied sweet potatoes with orange sauce as a side dish to the main course.

    Amazingly amazing!

    In the land that gave the world the wonderful Idaho potato (the most delicious baking potato you can

    imagine), potatoes come in scores of remarkable packaged "instant" forms including the ubiquitous Hash

    Browns. We prefer to buy them in their original state!

    We shall miss a few American foods such as the old Idaho potato, "Ruby" grapefruit; the plentiful

    variety of apples and pumpkin/squash, baby carrots, frozen concentrated orange juice. Other foods, such

    as cheese however, are just too processed for our taste with a "baby-poo" yellow colour. What the food

    dye is, I do not know. A teacher friend of mine has promised to bring back some real (crumbly, sharp,white and un-processed) cheddar from her home state of Wisconsin (America's Dairy state) when she

    visits her parents over Thanksgiving. So apparently you can buy non-processed cheese, but not in the

    ordinary supermarket.

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    US supermarkets are fascinating places and you CAN find good things to eat at the right price. Although

    basic food items are mostly twice the price of home (the pound price for most items tends to equal the

    kilo price at home!), US supermarkets have a COUPON-system! Thank goodness. Coupons are a great

    idea. You pick them up as promotions from the newspapers, and they discount items. A favourite of

    mine is the "Budget" microwave dinners that I sometimes take to work. These can be purchased five for

    five dollars (or about two dollars Australian each) when on "special". The Budget meals are good, but

    very small portions and I suspect the extruded plastic packaging is worth more than the food itself. The

    packaging of course joins the landfill. Nevertheless I think they taste okay and so I can live with theenvironmental degradation!

    On the environment, whilst there is quite a lot of waste in the US, Australia is not much better and it

    really is a question of relative population. In the US they are beginning to take recycling more seriously,

    but what a problem they have with packaging of their foods.

    Shopping in general for non-food items is much better than at home. The range and quality of goods and

    the opportunities to purchase just seem so much better because of the larger population. The USA really

    is the epicentre of capitalism.

    At one end of the spectrum you have a variety of choices available over the Internet to buy everything

    from Digital Cameras, books, household items, ornaments, clothes etc. The Net really centres on theUSA. We have recently purchased via Net an Olympus digital camera and a beautiful "Savannah girl"

    statue. The original statue was a grave ornament in Savannah, which became famous as book cover for

    the novel "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil". So much so, that the statue had to be removed to

    the museum because souvenir hunters broke of pieces.

    The other end of the shopping spectrum and on the recycling theme, the United States have marvellous

    "Thrift Shops" (Charity run Second Hand shops) as big as supermarkets. These are truly a wonder to

    behold. You can buy everything from "preloved" clothing of excellent quality and range, to second-hand

    household items and electricals. Caring people donate these items. Whilst Hispanic people make up a

    large proportion of the customers purchasing goods at Thrift Stores, you see all kind of people. At times,

    a visit to a large Thrift Shop is like being at the Vic Market!

    Apart from food in the US, which is of inferior price, freshness and quality to home, just about

    everything else you buy here (excepting woollens) is better quality, cheaper and there is much more

    choice. You really notice this in the Thrift Shops. American clothing particularly, even second-hand, is

    excellent. I think it has a lot to do with economy of scale. With a country of a quarter of a billion people,

    you can make things to last. In Australia with only twenty million people, if a company made things too

    well, they would kill any repeat business. A good measure of planned obsolescence has to be built in so

    things can wear out!

    On energy and conservation, the housing is in a bit of a crisis. There is a real housing shortage in

    Minneapolis, and not a lot of attention paid to ecological considerations, though I think this is changing.

    Providing shelter for a quarter of a billion people cannot be easy. Out West, good land is gobbled up in

    new developments. The style of housing is dominated by "spec" builders who build instant estates with a

    few standard designs from quite "chinsy" materials such as aluminium cladding and stick-on tiles. With

    its great population, such alternative materials are maybe really necessary to build here. The houses are

    well insulated however. Houses are overpriced and leave a lot of people out of the market. Probably

    Australia is not much better in this regard, but we have the advantage of a smaller population and so less

    excuse to be architecturally unsound. As a counter to this in the US, there are many wonderful people

    who donate their expertise and labour to work with different church groups building housing for low-

    income people and the homeless. The problem remains a big one.

    School! Teaching in the States has been a privilege. I am well accepted by staff and students. Everyone

    from Charlie and Dave, the "custodians" in my area; to the ladies in the Cafeteria; Linda and Julie in the

    Office; the Media people, right on up to Doug Kern and Cory Lunn in the Principal's office, have beenwithout exception, wonderful to me and just so supportive. But most particularly magnificent, generous,

    helpful and tolerant have been my two closest colleagues, Lorinda and Chris, the two other Social

    Studies/Civics teachers. I shall really miss them all.

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    My students, by and large, have been great! The kids are similar to Aussie kids. As I discuss the bigger

    picture of educational difference, it is not "better" at home or in the US, only "different". To combine

    aspects of both education systems would approximate the ideal system! My bias, if any would be to have

    a little more of the American system (at its best) thrown into the equation!

    Firstly, a look at the "big picture" with regard to education. Interestingly, the states of Minnesota and

    Victoria are in many ways, mirrors of one another on the other side of the globe. They are about the

    same area and population. Victoria is more urbanised, with Melbourne being about 3.5 millions and theTwin Cities of Minneapolis/Saint Paul only a million or so. Minnesota is a place of small towns. So we

    have the same tax base. Spending on education in both places is about the same, although with district

    funding more common in the US, this is hard to determine exactly. There are roughly the same numbers

    of teachers in both places, yet in Minnesota there are approximately 800,000 students in the system

    compared with only 500,000 or thereabouts in Victoria. The pupil-teacher ratio then is much worse in

    Minnesota. Two of my classes have over thirty students each.

    How do Minnesota schools cope with these larger class sizes? I think the answer is that schools are far

    more structured than in Victoria. Which is both good and bad. The positive is that there are far larger

    numbers of ancillary staff to take discipline and welfare burdens away from classroom teachers. The

    Minnesota system has a big infrastructure of non-teaching staff (deans [year level co-ordinators],

    guidance officers, counsellors, special needs people) in a neat and well-understood hierarchy whereeverybody knows how they fit in. None of these people teach which I think is a mixed blessing, but at

    least they can devote their time wholly to the students. "Special needs" students have what is called an

    "IEP" or Individual Educational Programme. It can be a bit of a "cop out" at times for the student to

    avoid the rigours of the "main-stream", but sometimes good for the teacher to have them out of the

    classroom! The entire infrastructure certainly relieves the classroom teacher in many ways.

    Promotion in this hierarchy relates far more to qualifications than experience with students. This too is a

    mixed blessing, as some administrators, I think it is fair to say, could benefit from more experience

    dealing with students at the "chalk-face". Nevertheless, American teachers, unlike in Australia, can gain

    rewards from extra study. They have a far better career plan and many more opportunities for promotion.

    For the classroom teacher in Minnesota, it is rare that they teach more than one level or more than onesubject. The advantages are that it allows the classroom teacher to concentrate on kids rather than

    content. I am ever amazed how different the classes are, and how I must constantly vary the delivery of

    the same material to cater for the differences in my students.

    Classroom teachers are just as imaginative and professional as Victorian teachers if not better.

    Industrially they seem to be more accountable and less cosseted. They must regularly renew and

    renegotiate contracts, medical insurance, and so on. Probably less "dead wood" is carried in the teaching

    staff and incompetent teachers do not get their contract renewed.

    Teachers in Minnesota have great opportunities to make more money, being paid for extras (which are

    voluntary), hall and lunch-room supervision, coaching and supervising sporting teams, Saturday and

    Summer School. If only we had this opportunity at home!

    The teachers here also have less to worry about re-inventing the wheel in regard to curriculum.

    Curriculum seems to be centrally set by the school district based upon the purchase of a particular

    textbook. Perhaps this is a mixed blessing too. On the other hand teachers still have a large amount of

    professional freedom as to what happens in the classroom. Most seem innovative and few, if any,

    slavishly follow the textbook.

    At my school district of Prior Lake-Savage, facilities are wonderful and far better than I'm used to. Prior

    Lake is an upper middle class dormitory suburb. A formula calculates money available to education

    through property taxes; based on the value of private houses that no one here seems to fully understand.

    What it means though is that areas such as this are advantaged. There are referenda held in the localschool district at election time to increase education spending. The recent referendum voted an extra 2.5

    million dollars for a new High School. As well, there is evidently some federal government spending to

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    address disadvantaged school districts. How well this works, I'm not sure, but all I know is that Prior

    Lake-Savage is most well endowed indeed.

    I have my very own carpeted classroom, shared very occasionally with other groups. The crme d' la

    crme of technology at my fingertips, a new Pentium 4 computer in my room. The school's computer

    system is as fast as lightning, and fully integrated. We write our reports and grades as we go and shoot

    them to the office on the school Intranet. Internet E-mails are the main method of communication. My

    "stuff" is on the school server and I can access it on any computer in the school when I log in. I can

    therefore, for example, show my famous Australian "PowerPoint" anywhere in the school. Alsopermanently in my room is a large, new, colour television. It has a "magic" little black box attached to it

    and the computer converts a digital computer signal into an analogue television signal. I can therefore

    run anything from the computer on the big TV screen. I use this for everything from marks, to seating

    charts and PowerPoint demonstrations. Fantastic! Of course a video cassette recorder is also rigged up to

    the TV and even a stereo music system!

    I don't think American teachers (and specifically teachers in my school district) know how lucky they

    are or how good they've got it! We have the same odd staff room moan as we have at home, but such

    whining is really much less justified!

    And what IS being taught in US schools about the world? Whilst individual teaching and educational

    facilities are superlative, curriculum and what students learn does not quite match that standard. Greatthings do happen, but US students are chronologically six months behind their Australian counterparts as

    the American school year begins at the end of August. Australian kids begin in February.

    Other aspects of the US education system seem counterproductive to producing educational excellence.

    State testing does not bear a lot of relationship to what is taught in the classroom, and seems not

    accurately measure what the students know and can do. There is also a paramount emphasis on the GPA

    (Grade Point Average) which is the "magic number" to enable a student to pass and then graduate.

    Students and parents are so mesmerised by this, that there is little room for teachers to make constructive

    criticism and award realistic grades. Some students are given unrealistic expectations. The "C" student,

    particularly in the Junior and Middle years, tends to become a "B" or "A" student if they merely

    complete the work. The true "A" student doesn't get properly rewarded extended or enriched. Their "real

    A" tends to be devalued. The kids that fail do so usually only because they don't do the work.

    American schools do not have the luxury of jettisoning 15-year-old students for whom school is not

    working, as we can in Australia. This poses other problems that are partially solved by giving these

    students "IEP"s and removing them from the mainstream classes. If this fails, then the school has to rely

    on the "School Police" who are a unit of the local Prior Lake Police Force. Our local police officer,

    Officer Goldhammer is a great fellow and patrols the hallways in plain clothes. He is however armed,

    and carries his "piece" in a "fanny pack"(US)/"bum pack"(Aus).

    There's probably much more I could say, but high time that I spare you with further waffling. We've got

    nearly five weeks to go before we leave the US. Other observations might come to me. I daresay the full

    effects of the exchange will not be apparent in our family until well after our return. The friendships we

    have made and the unique experiences will be in our memories for years to come.

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