Digital News AFS Reconquista Local Chapter - November 2011

Digital News AFS Reconquista Local Chapter

Number 11, November2011

“If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity” John Fitzgerald Kennedy

AFS in Reconquista E-mail: rl.reconquista@afs.org  1544-4471

Ida Aagaard Anderson, AFS Denmark student who lived in Avellaneda (Santa Fe), having mates in Nyhavn (New Harbour) in Copenhagen (Denmark).

Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

AFS visits ACIR

To introduce Faroe Islands, Denmark, Germany and Austria Academia de Cultura Inglesa Reconquista (ACIR), invited Bára from Faroe Islands, Augusta from Denmark, Ronja from Germany and Laurin from Austria to give a talk about their countries in English.

It was on Friday, 4th November in ACIR premises, where a group of students from ACIR were waiting for the AFS exchange students. Each exchange student delivered a talk with a PowerPoint presentation, and then it was time for them to answer questions to the eager and curious young guests.

AFS and ACIR have been holding these kind of meetings for many years now, allowing the exchange students to share their experience of living abroad and away from their families, and the difficulties they have when dealing with a different culture and customs.

At the same time, ACIR’s students have the chance to practise their English, not just speaking but also listening to different accents and pronunciations of the target language, which varies according to the nationality of the exchange student.

Sergio Sanchez and José Manuel Buyatti, AFS Reconquista volunteers, talked about the AFS Mission and invited everybody to join the cause by offering their families as Host Families for the new AFS exchange students who arrive to our Local Chapter in February 2012.

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Tradition’s Day!

AFS students participated in it thanks to the invitation made by EFE English Language School from Villa Ocampo Last November, 11th Academia de inglés EFE in Villa Ocampo invited the AFS exchange students to a party in that northern city. Every year, EFE’s teachers throw a party which aims to the integration of cultures. It takes place on Argentina’s Tradition Day but students also celebrate Halloween, thus mixing two important traditions. Students are asked to dress with whatever they like and they also sing and dance songs from different cultures. This year they celebrated “Traditions” day, and they wore clothes from different countries around the globe and they also cooked some national dishes which they shared with Siripattara, Ronja and Timothy. The AFS students helped the teachers with the activities and also talked about their different traditions back home to the different groups of students. Later at night, they answered questions EFE’s students had to ask.

All students at EFE were very happy and thankful because AFS could participate in their event, and also were surprised to see how quickly and easily the AFS students have learned Spanish.

We also received very good comments and feedback from parents who think these kind of activities help integrate and stimulate their children.

Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

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Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

The second semester has finished in my Argentinian school, and the school system is quite different from the one I was used to in Germany. Not only the grading system and some subjects are different, but also the way teachers teach,

By Ronja Fischer (Originally written in Spanish) discipline in the classroom, etc.

Many subjects are different, like the way you do calculations in Math. But the important thing is the result, though, and that is the same here and there.

Leaving aside the different language, the first part of the year was a bit hard. On top of that, we had dictation in Language (Spanish, obviously!) and if it had not been for the teacher who took into account my corrections and gave me a 6, my mark would have been really low. From the very first day, I have the same rules as the other students, even for tests!

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School: one of the most different things of all!

I have never had a different test, but I sometimes could use a dictionary or, if a teacher did not want me to use one, she would explain the meaning of difficult words to me.

All my teachers helped me in the two semesters if I had some problems, not just with the language, but also with the subjects themselves.

Teachers normally dictate a lot, but at the beginning they copied everything on the board for me or lent me their books for me to copy directly from the source. Today, I just check if there is an accent or tilde in the words.

At school, many classmates asked me about Germany, for example: are buses punctual? Or what papers do you need to rent a house? Or what do Germans think about the British?

The Headmistress of the school asked me to give a talk about Germany, so I talked about my country, its culture, politics, the Patriotic symbols, religion, music, fashion, and more for a couple of hours. I think my classmates did not understand much of what I said because my Spanish was not good then.

When I read the same text today, it is really funny for me because of the mistakes it has. However, that talk meant the first top mark (10) in my life! In Germany the grading system is from 1 to 6, 1 being top-notch.

The second semester was much easier, and I got very good marks without making much effort.

My school organised a Camp weekend where I met my friends I have right now. A 3-day camp is part of a long tradition in my school. As my brother and sister had attended, they told me about it and their own experiences. When I had to go, I already knew a lot about what we were going to do, the games, the bonfire, etc. What caught my attention was the fact that parents went to visit their children during the 3 days! That is not even considered in Germany!

Another big surprise was my first rainy school day.

Without apparent reason, half the students did not go to school. I could not believe my eyes, but after listening to the same answer from my friends “I did not go to school because it was raining”, I was forced to believe it. That would never happen in Germany at all.

Another thing which is also different are the school celebrations. In Argentina there is always a celebration for each national holiday, which are a lot.

The National Flag comes in first, then everybody sings the National Anthem – something I had never done in Germany, except for a sport event – and then teachers and students talk about what they are commemorating, and sometimes they prepare sketches or dance traditional songs. Students from all levels participate.

I can not remember a school day in Germany, so maybe I will have a lot of problems adjusting back to the German school again. It will not be easy.

Unfortunately, it is less than 3 months left for that.

Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

Ronja with her classmates in Avellaneda’s Square (Santa Fe).

The Fenoglio-Morzán family with their daughter and sister Ronja

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Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

Intercultural Education Workshop for Volunteers 17th to 21st November in Panamá

The AFS Caribbean Region, offered the first workshop for volunteers on Basic Skills for Intercultural Learning. It took place in Knowledge City, in Panama, from 17th to 21st November. The premises were just about a few hundred metres from the Miraflores Locks in the Panama Canal.

30 volunteers from AFS Panamá, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and México came to the workshop. The objective of it was to provide the participants with tools and theoretical content on how to work with exchange programmes and students, thus enriching the quality of the AFS Programmes. At the same time, and as all AFS activities, the training also aimed at ‘exchanging ideas, culture and Opinions’ between the Caribbean Region Partners. They have all been working hard at training their volunteers with a huge focus on Intercultural Education as the key feature in all AFS Programmes .

The workshop was coordinated by Anna Collier, from AFS International, and it was delivered by a team of Intercultural Learning Qualified Trainers, who were recently trained by the AFS Intercultural Link Programme. They are Victoria Soto (AFS Costa Rica) and Manuel Soberanis Valdez (AFS México), both from the AFS Caribbean Region, and as a special guest from the AFS Southern Cone Region José Manuel Buyatti, AFS Reconquista volunteer. The logistic team was headed by Manuel Delgado, staff member of AFS Panama.

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Group picture of attendees: volunteers and trainers

Back in the family!

Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

By José Manuel Buyatti As we always say, AFS changes people’s lives. We are convinced that AFS has also changed our whole family positively.

We have been host family 5 times, and the first time was in 2003. We are really happy today because 3 of our children ‘have come back home’. They are Joel Goyette from USA, who lived with us in 2003/04; Grace Cunningham, from Australia, who lived with us in 2008/09; and Maxwell Collins, from New Zealand, who lived with us in 2010/11.

They are all active members of this big family!

They all chose November to visit us, and Grace and Max are staying with us to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s Eve, which makes us really happy. Max will take advantage of his trip to Argentina to be with his Argentinian classmates at Prom Dance.

Time was not an obstacle for us to be in contact with our children and to know about their lives. We all continue with the AFS experience communicating with Joel, Efe (Turkey), Grace and Max (our AFS children), and we hope it will be a lifetime bond. Even though they are not our natural children, we love them as our own, thanks to the AFS Mission. We celebrate their successes, we encourage them in their failures, and we support them through the distance. They know we are here, their family, and that we will always be here or there to help them 6when they are in need.

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Joel, Max, Grace, Fiorella, José Manuel, Gabriela and Lucía

Each of our exchange children has enriched this family, and has taught us – and teaches us still – many lessons. We treasure those lessons as they will help us in the future with our young girls.

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CPO: Pre-Orientation National Camp

Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

María Eugenia Mina, Mara Torossian and Franco Reniero, all of them about to start their AFS experience, participated in this national orientation and training in Buenos Aires.

From November 25th to 27th 2011, María Eugenia Mina, who is travelling to Costa Rica in an Year Programme, Franco Reniero, who will live in New Zealand in a Semester Programme, and Mara Torossian, who will have her AFS exchange experience in Germany in a Year Programme, together with other teenagers from Argentina and Uruguay said yes! to the 3day CPO organised by AFS Programas Interculturales.

The camp aims at  helping the future AFS students from Argentina & Uruguay get the tools, knowledge and develop

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the necessary skills to live a successful intercultural exchange experience abroad;  giving these students the opportunity to meet and know each other, especially those who will be having the AFS experience in the same host country.

All AFS Camps are organised and run by AFS volunteers, and Marisa Masin participated as volunteer from our Local Chapter (Marisa lives in Villa Ocampo, a town north of Reconquista).

Mara, Maria Eugenia and Franco, we all wish you the best!

Group picture of all the new AFS exchange students from Argentina y Uruguay, together with AFS volunteers at the CPO.

Sending Programmes

Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

AFS Reconquista took the last General Culture examination of the year.

It was in November 19th and it took place at the same time in all the country as planned in the National Sending Programmes Calendar. The exam corresponds to the programmes which start in August 2012.

One more time, it was in Dante Alighieri School. We would like to thank its heads and coordinators for all the contribution along the year by providing us with rooms for our AFS activities and meetings.

Under a summer rain and with few participants, Stefano Pividori, as Sending Coordinator, was in charge of taking the exam. 2 new students hope to live their dream of an exchange experience next August 2012.

Maira GonzĂĄlez and Leonardo Yapur spent about an hour solving and answering questions, the first necessary step to take in order to start the selection process.

Now, they have just to wait to be selected and start their local and national preparation, which will train them to live this amazing and lifetime experience.

New e-mail accounts to contact AFS Reconquista

AFS Argentina has moved all its e-mails accounts to a new server. The change has affected all accounts in the country. From now on, the new e-mail accounts are:

rl.reconquista@afs.org To contact all volunteers from AFS Reconquista

presidente.reconquista@afs.org To contact Sergio Sanchez, AFS Reconquista Local Chapter President

jose.buyatti@afs.org To contact JosĂŠ Manuel Buyatti, AFS Reconquista volunteer and AFS Argentina / Uruguay National Board Member.

Congratulations Mai and Leo! Page 9

The AFS mate from Copenhagen, Denmark

In the front page of this edition, we find Ida Aagaard Anderson, AFS Denmark exchange student in Avellaneda (2008/9), having mates in the Nyhavn Channels (New Harbour), famous district of Copenhagen for its restaurants and bars.

Søren having mates next to ‘The Little Mermaid’ statue

In this page Søren Olander Gravgaard, AFS Denmark exchange student in Reconquista (2009/10), is having mates next to The Little Mermaid Statue in Copenhagen, which is close to the Copenhagen's Harbour Bay. It was sculpted by Edvard Eriksen who got the idea from the famous fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1837, which is also called ‘The Little Mermaid’.

AFS Reconquista Contacts José Manuel Buyatti  1544-4471 María Elena Landi  421350 Claudia Lanteri  424507 Sergio Sanchez  1545-7527 E-mail: rl.reconquista@afs.org www.afs.org.ar AFS RL RECONQUISTA

Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures