September has been a great month, and certainly one of the most positive aspects has been my relationship with Rotary. Rotary has been amazing! I had a meeting with my advisor, who created an account in his name for me to receive my allowance. In addition, I visited museums with Rotary members, played golf with them, and tonight I’m having dinner at the house of a Rotarian from my club. I believe this good relationship is due to the presentation I gave, where I spoke as much Dutch as I could.
As for Dutch, I’m taking lessons three times a week at home, I have classes at school, and I’m also studying on my own. Daily, I practice conversations with my family, at school, during soccer, or when I go to the market, so I’m always speaking Dutch. It feels really good to see this progress. I also participated in an intensive Dutch study week with other exchange students.
Regarding friendships, I’m friends with all the exchange students. There are only 25 of us in all of the Netherlands, and we’re very close-knit. I took advantage of the last week of summer and went to the beach with an exchange student from Chile and one from Ecuador. I also visited the city of an exchange student, which is an hour away by bike (I’ve already gotten used to that mode of transportation).
I also spent 5 days with my host family in Amsterdam, in a camper van. It was a new experience for me since I had never slept in a van before. I visited almost all the famous spots in the city, and somehow, sleeping together with them improved my relationship with the family even more. I’m still with my first host family, but I already have a set date for the family swap: it will be on 12/07. We chose this date because it’s right after "Sinterklaas".
Currently, I’m focused on raising funds for the "End Plastic Soup" initiative. We received instructions from Rotary to work on this project. I’ll also be giving another presentation about RYEP and myself at another Rotary Club in December.
This is a summary of my exchange so far, up until the third month. I’m really enjoying it!
Renan Thome
17 jaar
Brazilie
Logeert bij RC Oosterhout de Warande
