A sunny day with Luiza and Jan. Peace River bridge in the background
Luiza is our inbound exchange student for 90 days. She was in Tokyo when the earthquake hit and had to leave. Grande Prairie Rotary Clubs let it be known we would accept any Brazilian exchange student that had to leave Japan, this after the Brazilian Rotarians accepted ANY exchange student that had to leave Japan, as well.
Luiza has been here for a few weeks and doing terrific. I think because she has had a rare “second chance” to do a Rotary Youth Exchange – she has a fantastic attitude. We are lucky to have her. Luiza is 17 and attending high school here and will be here till early August. She has one host family, I am her counselor.
Today we all went for a sunny day to Dunvegan Park near Fairview, Alberta. It’s always so much fun to show off the area to foreign eyes. Luiza asked “What’s that?”, pointing to a cement grain elevator so common on the prairies. She says “Everything is so big in Canada”.
Jan and I are proud of the Rotary members in Grande Prairie that were so quick to accept a young person into their homes and lives when tragedy hit Japan. We are enjoying Luiza so much we feel we are the lucky ones.
Every year 8000 young people travel the world with Rotary Youth Exchange, We have a local web-site here if you or someone you know is interested. The international info details are here.
Kevin Hilgers 