A Life-changing Experience

By Ines Øverland, Norway

We are two weeks into our American adventure, with three more to go. And what an amazing, incredible experience this has been so far. Most of us have crossed an ocean or two to get here. Some had to travel to a neighboring country first to even get to an airport. Most find it difficult to call our families at home because when we get up, our families go to sleep or vice versa. Some of us are a bit homesick at times. Some are a bit out of their comfort zone. Some are going through culture shock because US life is so very different from what they are used to at home. Two or three of us (or more) are having a hard time finding the right food. Not that the food we get here is bad or anything – for one thing, the Amherst college dining hall offers an excellent choice of freshly prepared foods – but it can be a far cry from the spices and ingredients that seem normal to some of us. 

We didn´t know anything about each other before we got here. We have quite diverging mindsets and cultural backgrounds, with the one unifying thing that we´re all teachers, most of us English teachers, and that we are curious about American culture, politics, history and life. 

We have had so many excellent lessons, workshops and discussions so far that all this new knowledge now sort of seems to merge into one gigantic rainbow explosion of «American». We start to lose our accents. We eat the food. We drink ice cold drinks without getting sick. We buy American clothes, books, souvenirs. We have so many fascinating encounters with American people, both during lessons, field trips and on the street.

We become one. At night we sit together and share some tea and the many stories of our lives. What is life like in Bangladesh? What do teachers and students wear to school in Saudi Arabia? How is everyday life in South Korea? What does a classroom in Morocco look like? What does it feel like to live in a small village in the Botswana desert? 

We learn to listen to each other. We are curious. We suck up all the marrow of life, as Thoreau would have put it. We worry about our exploding suitcases as we acquire more and more stuff to take home. We try to save our pocket money. We spend all too much of our pocket money.

We learn to be on time. Sometimes we succeed, and other times we fail miserably. As Program Director, Katie Lazdowski put it, «if you´re just on time, you´re already late». This is new to some of us. «Eight o´clock sharp» might mean «show up at nine, shop up whenever you´re ready» elsewhere. But we grow as we learn. Next school year our students back home will meet a much stricter teacher in terms of punctuality, we hope.

We relax. Clothes and hairstyles get more informal. We see each other in pyjamas, with wet hair, laundry in hand, uncombed. So what. We´re a family.

We broaden our horizons. Boston this weekend. New York next. Arizona, Grand Canyon, Washington DC are awaiting us. I wonder where to store all these wonderful, magical, infinitely goosebumping experiences. My brain is already overflowing. 

And we LEARN. Never have I acquired so much knowledge within such a short time span. Intense, high-level classes fill the daytime, field trips, school visits, community service and reading assignments, the nighttime. Mind me, lots of reading assignments. This is good. This is so incredibly giving. We are freed of all our other grown-up duties for the time being, after all. Husbands, wives, grandparents back home are managing family life. Substitutes are teaching our classes at our home schools. Neighbors are watering our plants or tending to our pets. Paradise for a while.

Friends for a lifetime. Just imagine – we will always have someone to visit in all sorts of exotic countries, no matter how far away from home we travel.

And now the best thing. Our students at home will get to learn so much more about this beautiful, ever-amazing grand American country in the future. Other topics will just disappear from our curricula as we share our fascination for the U.S. and silently adapt our schedule to get across all this newly acquired knowledge and insight. I know for sure that this will happen at my school in Norway, at least.