‘I love to travel, to meet new people’
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- Published on Thursday, December 24, 2015
Photo by Kira Paterson. Cristina Pichardo Lapetra is spending a year in Neepawa on a Rotary exchange.
By Kira Paterson
Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press
This school year, the Neepawa Rotary Club welcomed an exchange student from Spain. Cristina Pichardo Lapetra arrived in Canada on Sept. 4, 2015. She is 17 years old and in Grade 11 at NACI. She is from a small town of 7,000 people just outside of Seville, Spain, called Villanueva del Ariscal.
Just two months before leaving for Canada, Cristina arrived home from a Rotary exchange to Germany. She had wanted to do an exchange to somewhere that spoke English the year before she came here, but there were no English-speaking countries available. So, she chose to go to Germany because German is spoken in many places in Europe.
Because she didn’t get to go to an English-speaking country that year, Rotary offered her another exchange opportunity this year. “At the beginning, Rotary said to me ‘you’re going to be going to Texas, in the United States.’ But the Rotary club in Texas said that I can’t go there because I have already done an exchange, so they want to give the opportunity to another exchange student. But the Rotary club here in Canada, they said ‘that’s fine, come here to Canada,’ and I’m here, and that’s why!” she explained.
“I love to travel,” she said, “To meet new people and new cultures.” She also loves learning new languages. She wanted to do this exchange to practice her English, but she said she is also learning a bit of Tagalog from the Filipinos she has met in school.
While she was in Germany, she met a lot of other exchange students and made a lot of friends from other countries. She hopes that she’ll be able to go to Mexico, Chile, Venezuela and many other countries to catch up with friends she’s made and meet new ones. She said that she also wants to go to Africa to volunteer at an orphanage for a month, after she gets home again. However, she would like to stay in Spain for a while after this exchange, since she has been away from home for basically two years now.
At NACI, Cristina is a member of the HOPE group and volunteers for different activities that go on in the school. She said that she wants to do some sports too, but she isn’t on any teams right now.
Since arriving in Canada, she has been to Churchill to see the sights and the polar bears; she’s been to Winnipeg to watch the Cavalia horse show, a Messiah concert and go shopping; she’s also been to Dauphin, Minnedosa, The Pas and visited Big Valley.
Cristina said she is excited to go cross-country skiing and try other snow sports with her host family that she wouldn’t be able to do where she lives. “I want to learn how to snowboard,” she added, “I have no idea how to do it, but I will learn.”
She said that one of the things she noticed most about Canada was how multicultural it is. There are many cultures even just in Neepawa itself.
There are a few differences between Canada and Spain that Cristina noted. She said that in Spain, when you greet someone, you usually give him or her a hug or a kiss on each cheek. Whereas here, the most you’ll get is a handshake. She said that it’s not a bad thing, but people here just think it’s weird when you hug them. She also said it’s much safer in Canada than in Spain. When you’re in Spain you have to be a lot more careful.
The obvious difference is the weather right now. She said that in Spain, their winters are usually around 15ºC. She said that right now, her friends back home are complaining about how cold it is, when it’s only 9º. She noticed that everyone here has been wearing t-shirts up until now, saying that it’s really warm compared to usual, but she feels really cold all the time. Cristina said that she doesn’t like the cold very much. “I like snow, but like one week, two weeks. Not for three months, or six months,” she said.
She said that in Neepawa, she really feels part of the community. When Cristina was in Germany, she was in a big city, so she was always out and about doing something. Here, there are no malls or big theatres that are open all the time, “I feel more in the community because I can’t go anywhere,” she said.
One thing she wishes Neepawa had is public transport. One of the rules of a Rotary exchange is that you can’t drive, so in Germany, she used public transport to go everywhere. Here, because she doesn’t have access to that, she can’t go anywhere as often as she’d like.
Cristina thanks Rotary Canada for letting her come here even though she’s already done an exchange. She is excited about the chance to practice her English and meet new people.
She can stay in Canada until July 17, 2016, but if she wanted, she could leave earlier. She said that she wants to get the most out of her experience here, so she plans to stay as long as possible. “It depends how winter affects me, but I will try my best,” she joked.
