Exchange Students

There's something different about exchange students. There's just a feel to them that's... right. They talk a certain way, have certain body language and they're just so easy to get along with. I'm not talking about the exchange students in Thailand. I'm talking about the Thai exchange students who have been on exchange.

A normal Thai teenager is shy, conservative and usually unwilling to phone you unless you call them first. They are afraid of rejection, what their parents might think and most of all, they are worried they won't be able to connect with you because of cultural differences. However, Thai exchange students who have been to the Western world are just the opposite.

They wear what they want, say what they feel and love to go out late at night. They drive through red lights (not that anyone really follows red lights in Thailand), leave school if they don't have class (usually a big No No) and are the first ones on the band wagon to call a falang. I don't have to call them, they will call me. They want to practice their English as much as I want to practice my Thai. So we come to a consensus and speak a mixture of both languages, always with complete understanding. It is always a good time with an exchange student, whether we are watching a movie at their house, eating at a restaurant, singing karaoke or just driving around looking for somethign that sparks imagination for our next destination.

The two AFS exchange students who have just come home from America are "Art" and "Kate". The past few days we have spent time together continuously; driving around on their motorbikes, leaving school to rent ghost movies or eating lunch together in the cafeteria. Now that most of my friends have left for University (or in Suzanne's case, another country) they are my new best friends; the people I spend the most time with and the first faces I look for when I get to school in the morning. They are the new Kate and Klao, the new Noo and Sing.

Sometimes I think this entire year has been a test; a test of letting go and moving on. Rotary tests us by putting us with other falangs for 14 days straight until we are not just friends, but family. Then they send us home to our cities and only let us visit each other under extreme circumstances. Then they push us together for a spare weekend before sending us home. The school puts me in M6 and then halfway through the year my friends leave me and I cannot go to University with them. All of these small tests are strengthening us and testing us so that when it comes for the real break, the real departure, where we truly need to let go and move on, we are ready. I can't say that I am ready to go back to Canada, but I'm used to leaving my friends. I've passed the point of crying for hours, moping around the town and steering clear of anything that reminds me of the gradually decreasing time (which, by the way is 18 days). I have adapted, I have made new friends; though I am scared to leave them, the doom is not as impending as it once was.

"Never before has someone been more unforgettable in every way
And forever more, that's how you'll stay,
That's why, darling, it's incredible that someone so unforgettable
Thinks that I am unforgettable too"
- My twin sister's Facebook page :)