Article June 12, 2006 Issue

FOR TEENS

'BEYOND MY HOME BORDERS'

BY PATRICIA MYERS

MY PARENTS JOKE that our home is a kind of United Nations/Holiday Inn. That's because since I was four years old, my family has hosted exchange students. You might say it's become a way of life for me—and it hasn't just been about sharing my house, my parents, and two older sisters (not to mention my snakes, geckos, tarantula, two dogs, and two cats), but seeing the world as an extension of my family. We've been home to exchange students from countries like Spain, Italy, Thailand, Argentina, Denmark, Belarus, and Azerbaijan over the past 14 years.

One of the really cool advantages of this is that I feel as if I have brothers and sisters all over the world now. Even my really good friends at school here in Tennessee are all foreigners—one of my best friends, Sonja, is from Bosnia; and another good friend, Meng Meng, came here from China.

Last year, I finally had the opportunity to be an exchange student myself. I spent my junior year of high school in the small town of Anton, Panama. I have to be honest; my Spanish was pretty much a joke before I went on this trip. I mean, I'd taken two unserious years of Spanish in high school, but the extent of my vocabulary was limited to hola and si. That had to change—and fast!

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