BHS Student Exchanging Cultures

   Traveling abroad, meeting new people, learning a new language, getting adapted to different habits, traditions, culture and especially getting out of your comfort zone are 
some of the main reasons people decide to join exchange programs.
 Megan Dunaski, a senior in Brighton High School decided to live this experience when 
she was a sophomore in high school, she wanted to travel and thought that being an 
exchange student could turn out to be a good idea.
 Sponsored by the Brighton Rotary Club, Dunaski left the United States in October of 2013 to spend her senior year in Brazil, a country in South America.
 “I’ve know Megan since 8th grade and when she decided to go on exchange, I felt 
happy for her because she can experience a new culture and learn a new language but I was sad because she would be away from me,” senior Chelsea Bielicki said.
 In the interview, done in Portuguese and translated to English, Dunaski's first host mother, Daniela Giacometti, said how she appreciated having an exchange student 
living in the family.
 “We hosted Megan in our house and we opened not only our home but also our hearts to her, it was an amazing experience. Today, even if she is no longer living with us, she is considered a part of our family as if she was our daughter, we’ve learned how to admire and love her. She is ‘our Megan’,” Giacometti said.
 Giacometti also mentioned that hosting Dunaski was a unique experience and every kid should have the opportunity of going on exchange because she believes that it not 
only allows you to know a different culture but it provides maturation and independence.
 During the Rotary exchange program, students usually change their host families 
throughout the year in order to obtain the most different experiences possible.
 Dunaski is now with her second host family and she is completing almost 6 months living in Brazil.
 “I could never regret going on exchange. I only regret not doing it sooner. As people say, ‘It's not a year in your life, but a life in a year’,” Dunaski said.
 Dunaski said that at the same time everything is different it all feels normal and natural to her.
 Some differences she has noticed since she got there are that instead of having 
one big school there are many smaller ones, how people greet and say goodbye with kisses, how homes are closer and you can walk to the store if you need to, and how the 
weather is always so warm.
 “The weather here is amazing, except when it gets in the 100s because that’s when I just sit in front of a fan”, Dunaski said.
 Dunaski’s exchange year ends around August of 2014 and that is when she is returning to the United States.
 "I would recommend doing exchange for everyone. There is so much to be lived, and exchange lets you live it, it lets you experience something more," Dunaski said.