Facebook Blog!

Hey guys super long time, no see! If you hadn't seen my explanation for this before I will let you know now. I have been currently using a Facebook page called Meghan's Rotary Youth Exchange to update people on Bolivia since I find it a lot easier to update on a regular basis. So for any of you who may not have Facebook or have not heard of the page, here are a bunch of posts labeled by date, going from oldest - newest. Also if you have Facebook and would like to keep updated a lot more regularly, go check out the page at http://www.facebook.com/MeghansBolivianExchange

There are also loads of photos on the page @ www.facebook.com/MeghanRuthAnnaPhotography

November 13, 2013

Hi, and welcome to my new page for exchange! I will post as often as I can, and especially after my upcoming Bolivia trip in December  Today I will be updating the page with past pictures, so stay tuned!

November 18, 2013

Figured I would give everybody a quick update today! So the past couple of days have been pretty awesome. Starting Friday, because before that, all I had been doing this summer was laying in bed and then going to Zumba. Friday, early afternoon, I went market shopping with Emily, another exchanger from Alaska, and we went looking for cheap clothes for the Bolivia trip, and just in general, and after not being able to find many clothes, we realized the market was sooo much bigger than it appears and stumbled into a plethora of clothing "stores." Because of the size, we got lost for a short period of time, and that was interesting. But Emily found our way and we walked to the plaza to meet up with Kate & Michael, two other exchangers, to eat and just relax for the day. The next day, I invited Kate to the country side for a birthday party of a family friend. There was music, decent food, and Kate and I talked a lot. Probably my least favorite thing about some of the food, is the way it is served. I could not eat the meat at this party after seeing the completely dead pig laying on a table, head just cut off and everything. But other than my disgust at that, it was good. After the party, Kate came to my house to spend the night, and being typical teenagers, which doesnt change in Bolivia, all we did was talk, use the computer, and watch TV, until it got abruptly changed to Spanish, without subtitles...., and even though I could understand, I was too tired to do so. Then Sunday, we woke up at about 10:30am, and then around 12, we went to my tennis club to eat a less than satisfactory lunch and then enjoyed the pool and sun until about 4. After that we went back to the house and enjoyed a movie until a party that was supposed to begin at 6, began at about 8. This party was to celebrate my host dad's 50th?? (Questions mark included because instead of numbers there were ?? on the cake..). We talked with some family friends for a long time and at about 12 am or 1 am we were given permission for Kate to sleep over again. We talked to about 2 and then crashed. Cake and milk for breakfast, and luckily, we are now back to the nothing of summer.... Yay....

December 1, 2013

So, I will most likely not be on Facebook for the next two weeks, as I will be on my AMAZING trip around Bolivia, but be ready for tons of cool photos, statuses, and blog posts when I return! Good night, and see you tomorrow, and then in two weeks.

December 17, 2013

Hey guys, so I am almost at my 4 month mark in Bolivia! A lot has happened in the past month. On November 24, I experienced a terrifying accident as I was in a bridge collapse and got slightly injured, but everyone has improved, and I am perfectly fine. Shortly after, I got sick, but quickly got over that, and celebrated my 18th birthday here in Bolivia on November 26th. My birthday was well spent with family, close friends, and all of the exchangers. Shortly after my birthday, another exchanger, Kristi, spent a couple days with my family, and we went to Buena Vista for a fun weekend. That Monday, I left for my RYE trip around Bolivia which lasted until December 14th and was AMAZING. I will post photos when I have time, but as of right now I have them all up on my personal page. And last of all, tomorrow is my last day in my current house, and tomorrow evening I will be changing host families. I will put a more detailed post about the trip and other stuff on my other blog soon. Love you guys! Check back soon!

December 18, 2013

In the new house! I now have host siblings, and even though I sadly had to say goodbye to Branco & Terry, I now have a new dog, Luna, and she is beautiful and cuddly! I just received the wifi password, so all is well  Just kidding, but now I need to make sure I still know how to work the shower 

December 21, 2013

So, I have officially been in Bolivia for 4 months. Its one of the strangest feelings ever, being away in a different country. Calling your exchange house your home, having completely different friends and family, and wondering what will be the same when you return to your host country. And yet as Christmas comes around the corner, I realize I still have 6 months left. Sometimes it feels like I have a century to go, and others it feels like exchange is going so fast. I cant decide how I like or dislike either feeling, but what I can say is that Im excited to spend the time I have left here, especially Christmas and New Years, with my new family and all my amazing friends, but even then Im excited to spend Christmas 2014 with my family in the US, and am excited but also nervous to say that I will finally be done with High School next year. Also for me, I feel like I'm an adult, and legally I am, but Im hoping after this year, I will be able to firmly say "I am an adult and because of exchange I matured more than I ever could have otherwise."

January 1, 2014

SO I am off to Brazil until about the 20th starting tomorrow AM. SO I will most likely not be posting for a little while. I hope you all had a great new year and are starting your years off great by following through with your resolutions. Be sure to check out Meghan Ruth Anna Photography to see some of my photography and some photos from exchange. See you later!

Ah, mañana estoy yendo a Brasil hasta el 20 de enero empezando mañana por la mañana. Entonces probablamente no voy a escribir por un rato. Espero que todos tuvieron un buen noche ayer y que empiezan sus años muy bien siguiendo a través de sus resoluciones. Asegúrese de revisar Meghan Ruth Anna Photography para ver algunas de mis fotografías y algunas fotos del intercambio. Nos vemos!

January 30, 2014

So I officially have less than four months of my exchange and so much has changed it is ridiculous. Before I went on exchange I was starting to get bored of my normal life and my town and the US, and now Im living in a 1.5 million population city, more or less, over 4000 miles away. After having never traveled off the east coast of the US, I have now been in 3 different countries (Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil), and I hope to travel to even more. I can almost speak Spanish fluently and am working on learning some Portuguese and possibly French in the future. I have friends from all over the world, and I have seen some of the greatest wonders out there, including Salar de Uyuni and Foz do Iguacu. Instead of having lived in the same town and school my entire life, I have gone to two different high schools with a grand variety of people and in just a few days I will be starting a new school. I have now lived with two different families other than my own for longer than a month (approx 4 months with my first), and can proudly say that my second family is starting to feel like a real family even though like every family there are some things to work out and we do have our off days. After a short period of nothing, what I like to call summer vacations, I am finally spending more time with friends again and getting prepared for what I like to call the third chapter of my exchange, and hopefully the most exciting time. The time when more and more people begin to accept me as a part of this culture and the time when I feel that I really belong and that Im not still some weird outsider who has no clue what they are doing here. I had great great downpoints in my exchange where I felt horrible and had no clue what I was doing here, but right now Im just really looking forward to meeting my new classmates, spending more time with friends, and finishing the rest of my exchange. A little over 100 days left and I am going to make the most of it! (MAKE SURE YOU GUYS SEND IN MORE QUESTIONS AND I WILL TRY TO POST AT LEAST TWICE A WEEK, AND I HAVE ABOUT 16 WEEKS LEFT SO THAT = ABOUT 32 POSTS.)

February 11, 2014

Hey guys! New update!

I have been in my new school for a week now, and however great, I am finding it slightly difficult to adjust. I'm having to try a lot harder to make friends now that it is so much further into the year and they already knew some exchange students before me. When I went to my first school literally everyone would talk to me, sometimes even if I didnt want them to, and I guess now people just arent as excited and only a few people talk to me and normally not for very long and only about certain things. Other than the social boundaries though, it is pretty good. I still have to go in the afternoon sometimes until 5:30 but right now I am trying to plan volunteering around that time instead so I will be helping and doing something I enjoy rather than doing courses I have already completed. The one thing I like about school though is I have a lot more opportunity to see friends and set up plans than during the summer. The only way I could really set things up during the summer was through the internet and it could be quite difficult to connect with the people I wanted to. Im really excited though with this new year and new start. There are new opportunities popping up everywhere. I am currently applying to volunteer at the Oncology Hospital for children and am hoping to get accepted as it shall be great opportunity before I start nursing at college in the fall. Im also hoping to teach English to the younger students in my school during regular classes, and I will probably be going on a trip to Machu Pichu. Im really excited and even though I still really really miss home, Im starting to realize how little time I have left even though it still seems kind of long. I have 103 days or 14 weeks left of my exchange. Wow! I hope you enjoyed this post! Please check back soon and let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks for checking in and make sure to check both links if you get a chance.
Also feel free to email Meghan.95.Dushko@gmail.com if you have any questions.

Summer!

So, I totally forgot to tell you guys this, but it is officially summer here in Bolivia! I got out of school November 6th, and Summer lasts until the 1st or 2nd week of February I believe.  This is so great for me, because I will finally have more time to get out of the house and take classes and volunteer if I wish. Also, our Rotary trip around Bolivia is this summer. It starts the 2nd of December and lasts until the 16th. That is the reason I am making this post. For those two weeks, I will most likely not be on either this blog or my Facebook pages (Photo & Blog Pages), but if I manage to put credit on my phone, I will post slight updates to my Facebook page every other day. Another update on that, is that some people who don't have Facebok have told me that they have been having difficulty seeing my photos. Because of this, I am planning on opening up a separate photography portfolio on a different site. This site will include all my photography and not just my photos from Bolivia, and there will still be some photos that can only be seen on Facebook, but I hope this makes things a little more convenient for all of you. This site will probably be up and running in two weeks to a month. It will take a while as I need to find a site with reliable upload speed that will upload my size pictures. Anyways, I hope everybody is having a great summer/winter/day :) and  I will make sure to update both my Facebook pages and this blog following our trip around Bolivia in December! Thanks for reading!

P.S. My 18th birthday is this month! :D :D :D    <3 November 26th

Facebook Blog: https://www.facebook.com/MeghansBolivianExchange

Photography Page: https://www.facebook.com/MeghanRuthAnnaPhotography

Email Contact: Meghan.95.Dushko@gmail.com

Quick Blurb!

Here is just a quick little note, if you would like to get email updates whenever there is a new blog post, please comment on any post and let me know, or email Meghan.95.Dushko@gmail.com. I can also email people when there are new photos up on the Facebook pages, thanks!

New Blog?!?

Don't freak out just yet, but I have a new blog now. This new blog is located on Facebook for the convenience of my 400+ friends on there, but I will still post on here every time there is a big trip, or rotary meeting, etc.. However, if you are looking for more pictures or more detailed accounts of my days, etc., go look at the following pages on Facebook. I'm pretty sure you can see them even if you don't have a Facebook, but I am not sure.

Meghan Ruth Anna Photography: https://www.facebook.com/MeghanRuthAnnaPhotography

Meghan's Rotary Exchange to Bolivia: https://www.facebook.com/MeghansBolivianExchange

2 de Noviembre

Hola!

I know it has been a long time since I posted, but here I am! A lot has been going on, so I have 

been really busy and have not had time to write. Also, I have a kind of bad memory so Im not

 really good at recording past things. But I am going to start off blogging again, starting at the 

date November 2, 2013.

Yesterday was November 2, which here is known as Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. 

Just in case you don't know, the Day of the Dead is a date in the Catholic faith which takes 

place on November 2, and is also known as All Souls Day. The day before, November 1st, is 

known as All Saints Day.  On Dia de los Muertos, families visit the tombs of their dead friends 

and family sometimes with food, etc. Often people burn candles and bring pictures of the dead 

and lay them out in front of the grave. I dont have too many details about Day of the Dead, but I

 do know it is very important to many Catholic families here in Bolivia and the streets and 

cemeteries were crowded yesterday, and many families were busy. My family got up early, and

 my mom left the house at about 8 to go make a flower arrangement to put around her fathers 

grave. At around 10, she returned with her niece, and we then went to the cemetery to set the 

flowers, and at the point we organized the flowers that were already there and set the new 

ones. 

My host mom and her niece prayed for a moment and then we left to retrieve my host dad 

before going to have lunch with my host aunt, her kids, and my family. It is normal on Day of the

 Dead, to have lunch or dinner with your family. Some people even bring the food to the

cemetery. After lunch, we went home to rest, and at about 4:30, we returned to the cemetery

 where we stayed eating, sitting, and talking around the grave as some candles burned until 

about 8:30 more or less. At the end, they left the candles burning and my family prayed for 

about 3 minutes or so before we went to eat dinner and return to the house.

Weekly Blog Post Official 1 :) - Trinidad/Michael's House/ Soccer/ Etc.

So guys Im going to try a new way of blogging - again...
Im going to choose the following categories, and Im going to write something about each one once a week either on Sunday or Monday.
Categories: School, Family/Friends, Food (If I can remember anything), Rotary/Special Events, Clubs/Outside of School Activities
I may add more but thats all I have for now. Anyways, here is my blog post for Sept 20 2013 - Sept 29 2013 ( A little longer span than it will normally be).
School:
School is great! I still dont really do much in my classes but it is a great place to see al my friends if I cant outside of school, plus it really helps me improve my spanish. I am also playing soccer at my school which is fun. I havent played too much, only practiced twice and I play in E.F. but still. Today there is supposed to be a game but I don't know when and I have spanish class today so I dont know if I can go. My favorite classes at school right now are English/Spanish and maybe Biology. Its hard to decide when I dont understand everything but our English/Spanish teacher is awesome.

Family/Friends:
So I haven't been with my own family for the past week because they went out of town for a week but on September 19th, I went to my friend Michael's house to stay. I stayed there until yesterday. And from September 20th - September 23/24th I went to Trinidad, Beni, Bolivia with his family and my friend Kate's family. Trinidad was awesome because I saw all sorts of cool animals and the great culture of Bolivia. I saw many cool animals and even rode motortaxis. The greatest part of that was having time to bond with my friends. When we returned, I spent Tuesday with other exchange students in Plaza Principal in Santa Cruz. There we went for ice cream at VacaFria - which was awesome <3, and we went to burger king, and then we got pizza (Special exchange student diet ;) ). On Thursday, I also went with Kate's family and Michael's family to Expocruz, a big thing kind of like the NY state fair with all sorts of vendor booths and such. It was pretty cool but we only saw like 30% of it :P
Rotary/Special Events & Clubs and Activities
Not much to say for these, so I put the categories together. I haven't really done anything for Rotary this week but I think I am supposed to have a meeting tomorrow and in about two weeks I am going with 18 other exchange students to San Javier for a flower festival and to see missionary churches of Bolivia and fun stuff like that. Im planning on asking my counselor about doing more stuff with Rotary here too, because the rotarians are awesome but I feel like Im not a big part of it yet. For clubs/activities, I havent really done much this week but normally I have soccer on Thursday and Sunday. I didnt go Thursday because I was at Expocruz, but yesterday there was some sort of opening for a championship I am supposed to be a part of. Yesterday 1 team play and then there was some sort of "parade" where we walked maybe 55 meters and then stood there while some rewards for something were presented. I didnt play yesterday but apparently the championship/ competition begins next week and there are 18 teams or so. Pretty excited for that.

I dont have much more to say right now, but as usual if you have any questions feel free to ask. Also, I will start posting in Spanish again in about 2 weeks :)


Weekly Pictures (There are a lot more but they werent loading, to see more check my photo page or personal page on Facebook ) :

Hiatus Explanation and Extension

Hey guys! I know this probably isn't the post you wanted, but whatever. I know I've had a hiatus from posting and I know everybody who comes here on a regular basis is dying to know whats up, but exchange is one of the most unexplainable experiences in life. I've only been here a month, but im already starting to feel the things every exchanger says they feel and more. It's so impossible to put into writing how exchange is and there are so many things I can't say. Exchange gets so personal and so deep and it becomes a part of you, whether you've been abroad for a month, 2 months, 6 months, or whether you've reached the end, etc.
Don't worry, I'm fine, but I do need to take another hiatus. Therefore there will be no promised posts until at the very least October, and then I may stop writing. Im thinking of doing youtube vlogs that I will share on here.

Anyways, please don't expect any further posts until at the earliest the end of the month or beginning of October. I may post if I feel I need it, but I feel I need to think for a while before I figure out how to explain all that I cannot.

Love you guys! Chao!