Emo student back from year-long exchange

For many district kids growing up in small towns, the desire to get out and see the wider world is a constant in their lives. For most, though, going to Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, or Minneapolis is as good as it gets.
But that wasn’t nearly good enough for Allison Williams of Emo, who had her sights set much farther afield. So she got on the Internet and began to search for an opportunity to fulfill a life-long ambition—to travel to a foreign country and learn the language there.
“It’s [travel] the kind of thing I’ve always wanted to do,” she explained. “For me, the most important thing was to learn another language.”
Williams narrowed her search to Europe and through an organization called Youth for Understanding, she made contact with a group in Germany which matched up potential exchange students with host families.
She eventually was matched with the family of Norbert and Dorothee Roettger in the village of Walmuehlen in the Rhine District, not far from Frankfurt.
Norbert is a software engineer for Motorola. The Roettgers also have two daughters, Lisa, 13, and Mona, 11.
Why Germany?
“I find the history of the Old World interesting,” Williams said. “Also, I have German roots on my mother’s side.”
Williams’ mother, Bonnie Bender, who owns the Hair and Body Care Shoppe in Emo, helped raise some of the $8,700 necessary to finance the trip, with help from a $500 scholarship.
With lodgings and finances squared away, Williams left last July 17 to spend the next year with a new family in a new country and learning a new language.
She was all of 16.
At first, the language barrier was a bit awkward, but not as much as Williams had anticipated.
“I discovered that English is universal in Europe—especially in Germany—but I was there to learn the language, so my host family took an orientation that emphasized the use of German with me,” she recalled.
“We started with simple things, like food, drink, household things, and went with the flow.”
Now she is fluent and speaks the language like a native.
Williams soon learned the Germans put a tremendous emphasis on education and immersed herself in what at first seemed to be a alien system. She said traditional discipline is demanded and strictly enforced—there are no class clowns here.
“There are three different school systems over there,” she explained. “From kindergarten to Grade 5, everybody is in the same stream. Then they are separated according to their academic potential.”
The Hauptschule is essentially a trade school that takes less academically-inclined students and teaches them skilled trades like carpentry or auto mechanics.
The Realschule, or middle school, teaches applied arts like computer skills, data processing, and bookkeeping. The Gymnasium, or advanced school, takes students destined for university and teaches all the arts, sciences, and languages, including Latin.
Williams, who completed Grade 10 at Fort Frances High School with a 95 percent average, was sent into the Gymnasium program, where she also worked as a volunteer tutoring her German peers in English.
She said the academic standards were very challenging, although her teachers did cut her some slack with regard to language. She did, however, have to keep pace in math, science, and most of all, history.
Although the Germans are active in sports, there was no time for that for Williams.
“At first, I didn’t know the language at all, so I didn’t feel comfortable in sports,” she said.
Furthermore, unlike in North America, sports are not part of the school curriculum. Instead, each village and town has its own sports clubs, which are financed and operated locally.
Williams was fascinated by the way towns and villages are laid out in Germany. Here in Canada, towns pop up at random, but in Germany, there is order and predictability.
“The villages in Germany are different,” she explained. “Here, I live in a village [Emo], but in Germany, the next village is always exactly three kilometres away.”
There also are other profound geographic differences.
“Germany is a large country by European standards, but it is so different from here,” Williams noted. “You could fit two Germanys into Ontario alone, but the population is over 80 million people.”
Because of the large population and limited land, the Germans not only are extremely efficient farmers, they also are more environmentally-conscious than most Canadians.
“The public transportation system is much better than ours,” Williams said. “They recycle so much more and water conservation is important, too. We tend to take water for granted here in Canada.”
While there, Williams had the chance to travel throughout Germany as well as Italy and France. She was in Berlin when the war in Iraq broke out and found herself among friends since Germany—like Canada—refused to participate in the U.S.-led attack.
“That was the first time in my life when being Canadian meant more to me than not being American,” she said. “The Germans made me feel my country is something on it own—something special.”
Perhaps the most profound experience she had was seeing how the Germans dealt with their history—particularly the Holocaust.
For decades, the era of the Third Reich was never spoken of in public, let alone taught in schools. But with the end of the Cold War and the reunification of the country, Germans at last are coming to terms with that dark chapter in their recent past.
Williams said the older generation (those who were alive at the time) still live in denial while the post-war generation (baby-boomers) shrug it off as if to say, “It wasn’t our doing. We weren’t even alive then.”
“It was so interesting when I was sitting with my host family and my [host] grandparents would say, ‘We didn’t know.’
“My host family would nod at me. They knew. They all knew.”
But the new generation is not being allowed to forget.
“The Germans are now very, very in touch with their past,” Williams stressed. “Today, the German school system teaches its young people that even though they are not responsible for what happened [to the Jewish people], they must take responsibility and make sure it never happens again.”
Williams said Germans are extremely sensitive to how they are perceived by the outside world. Although proud of the many achievements they’ve made to art, science, and literature, they are concerned about openly demonstrating too much national pride.
“They are much different from North Americans,” she noted. “They rarely fly their national flag except on special occasions.”
In the year she spent there, Williams made many new friends, which, in turn, made coming home a bittersweet experience.
“I made many, many friends and it made it difficult to come home,” she said. “I actually cried more when I left Germany than I did when I left home.
“When I left last summer, I knew I would be seeing my family and friends again in a year, but when I left Germany, I knew I might not ever see those people again.”
That may not be the case, however. Williams stays in regular touch with the Roettgers by telephone and they have assured her they intend to see her again next year.
In fact, she was presented with the keys to the Roettgers’ house at her going-away party to remind her she always has another home.
In any case, their weekly conversations allow her to keep up with her German.
Christmas away from home was a unique experience for Williams, who noted Germans do not celebrate the holiday quite the way we do in North America. It is far less commercial and more intimate.
Instead of everyone gathering at one home for one big meal, the tradition there is to celebrate at home and then go around to visit friends and family.
The traditional Christmas dinner consists of ham, beef, or pork instead of turkey, which is a North American bird, not indigenous to Europe.
She admitted it was a little strange, though.
“Christmas is all about snow and being at home,” she remarked. “Well, we didn’t have any snow and I wasn’t at home.”
One of the most pleasant experiences for her was the food. German cuisine is thought to be heavy on sugar and fat, but Williams said it actually is healthier than North American food.
“I loved the food,” she exclaimed. “They make real bread there, from whole grains and raw sugar. I had cake almost every day. In fact, I ate more cake there than I ever had in my life.”
Now that she’s home, Williams has her sights set on finishing high school at Fort High and perhaps pursuing a career in the theatre or politics.
At 17, she already has more experience on the world stage than many acquire in a lifetime and she feels that will stand her in good stead—regardless of where her career path takes her.
“I have learned I can trust myself to go out in the world by myself and deal with people,” she explained. “I’m sure it will help me adapt to new experiences.”