My year in Houston
When I decided to go in the United States for a year as an exchange student, some people told me that they couldn't do it because they wouldn't resist so much time away from home.
But even if I lived for eleven months in Pearland, Texas, I was always at home because I found a new one across the ocean: since the first day they picked me up after the orientation, the Morell-Pachecos considered me as one of their family. They are five: my mum Susan, my dad Guillermo, my brothers Andres and Gabriel, and my sister Adriana. But in the house live also
3 dogs and a parrot and there is a huge salt-water fish tank. Plus grandpa Edwin and grandma Alba live next door.
At the beginning it was awkward for me to hear my host parents call me son or figlio, but in the end I got used to it and started calling them mum and dad as well. It was probably more confusing for my friends over there when I called Guillermo and Susan mum and dad:
“So who's picking you up today?”
“My dad is”
“What? Your dad? Or do you mean Adriana's (my sister's) dad?”
Because if you haven't lived in a situation like this one, it is hard for you to conceive that you will call mum and dad two people that are just hosting you.
Life in Pearland, a suburb of Houston, is very different from the one I have lived in Parma so far. To begin with, my house was in the middle of a huge residential area, and for kilometres I could only find houses. Not a newsstand, a bar, a supermarket, but roads and roads of brick houses that looked all more or less the same. You had to drive a car to go almost anywhere quickly: it took me 20 minutes to bike to the store if I needed anything. But all the distances in the States are bigger, especially in Texas (Texans proudly say that “Everything's bigger in Texas”).
Another big difference was their way of cooking: first of all, their meals are composed by a single main dish, not like ours that have a first entry, then a second one, than fruit or vegetables. Plus Americans rarely make just enough food for one meal: my dad used to cook an entire pot of meat or pasta even if it was just for three or four people: the rest went in the fridge ( that by the way it was huge). Also a lot of times when I was home for lunch we seldom had lunch all together: when someone was hungry, he simply went to eat on its own.
Another surprising aspect is the variety of foods and restaurants over there because there are a lot of restaurants from different countries: there are Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Brazilian, Mediterranean, Italian, French restaurants. And most of them are as popular as American foods.
The school I attended in Houston, St. Stephen's Episcopal School Houston, is a very particular one. To begin with, it is a very small private school (40-50 students in the high school), very different from the huge public schools that can arrive to more than 3000 students. Also, even if it was an Episcopalian (a Christian protestant church) school, it didn't stress at all the religious aspect: in fact among the high school students we had at least ten Muslims, all coming from Saudi Arabia.
The American school system is very different from ours, mainly for two things: students change classrooms during the day (every teacher has its own) and students can choose at the beginning of the school year which subjects to study throughout the year. Being in a small school, the number of students in each course was very small: in my physics and maths class we were only four students!
Anyway, one good thing of such a small institute was that I got to know everyone in the high school; also staying at school in the afternoon meant that I spent a good part of the day there so I had a lot of time to socialize with my schoolmates during lunch or breaks.
Finally, one of the most amazing things about my school experience was that I attended the 4th year, which is the last: this means that at the end of the year I graduated. Graduation is a big celebration for American teenagers; in fact they all invite parents from all over the nation, they receive a lot of gifts, and they have a ceremony at school during which they receive the diploma. Since we were only 8 graduating students, our
ceremony was short and simple compared to those of public schools. Anyway for me it was a great and very emotional moment (even if I knew one more year was waiting for me when I got back).
Sports are a very important part of school life, but unfortunately with such a small school we almost had no teams: the only two were the volleyball team for girls and the inside soccer one. I played in the soccer team as a goalkeeper, and even if we never won a single game, I really enjoyed myself.
Outside from school I also practiced tae kwon do, a Korean martial art, because in my family all the 5 of them were black belts. I took classes for most of my stay over there, and I arrived to the green belt just before I came back home. I have to admit it was very strange in the beginning to take part to these classes with my mum and dad, especially when we sparred one on one for practice: have you ever fought with your mother and got beaten up?
I even lived throughout a hurricane: in the morning of September 13 2008 Hurricane Ike landed at Galveston, a town on the coast near Houston. That night we all slept at the ground floor of the house, me and Andres on the floor of the family room: in the middle of the night I was waken up by the sound of the wind that I heard through the chimney and for a moment I was scared. But then it passed and I went on sleeping. In Pearland (where I lived) it was a strong storm that damaged roofs in some houses, but luckily ours was untouched. But in Galveston it destroyed entire neighbourhoods and it took months for the town to recover completely.
I have to say it was a very important experience for me, because I tested myself and my limits everyday, while broadening my horizons and ideas about the world.
In the end the most important thing from that experience is that now I have a new family that I love as much as my natural one.