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 Grant
Ryherd, our student to Belgium
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 8:49 PM
Subject: hI (from Grant)
Hi Im not dead, hurt, in jail, in need of money, or married so I think
im alright (however i am kind of hungry). I have been trying to send
pictures but my brother's computer won't let me for some reason, but
tomorrow the family's computer will be back so I will try then (and
no i did not break it). I change families on the 2nd or sometime around
then. School's fine today; I had French with troieieme (13 year olds)
more or less freshman. There a year younger than the freshman in WCHS
but they have a far more advance classes than the freshman back in
WC. I also had english with cinqieme (15 year olds) which is more normal
grade. Wednesdays here, if I haven't told you are half days, so I went
to Liege today meet some friends and went to the movies (we say Alien
vs. Predator). Were playing rugby in PE also. I think they celebrate
Valentines Day, BUT NOT PIE DAY. In fact there is no pie in Belgium,
I tried explaining it and my English teacher understood, but when she
translated the word, my class just looked the same, like a cow looking
at an oncoming train. Also, carnival week is the first whole week of
Feb. but I think I'll be in France skiing (again, not sure because
the parents of the second host family are in Thailand). That's all
for now, bye.
Grant
Please send pie (or anything else that taste good examples: popcorn
(w/ salt), Baby Ruth, Reece's, beef sticks, Spam (hickory smoked), moutain
dew, party dip, baked beans, ranch salad dressing, applesauce (exsists
here but is served hot and chunky, ok but usa styles kicks its butt up
and down the block), BBQ sause, Skippy (the JIF you sent is 9/10 gone,
pepper jack cheese, chicken noodle soup, easy mac, parmesan goldfish,
Cheese-Its (these I want really bad, please bring a box when you come)
oreos, choc chip cookies (example: chips ahoy), fruit roll ups, brownies,
frosted flakes (though here I have a hard time finding), Gatorade/Power
ade, lemonade, Life cereal, bagels, Fastco ginger ale, cookie dough ice
cream, pizza hot pockets, combos, and trident gum and yes there are no
of these in Belgium).
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 7:55 AM
Subject: Photos from Grant
Attached are recent photos from Grant in Belgium.
First photo is me and my brother, Pierre, making crepes.
Second & third are my birthday. The people in the second are an aunt,
a uncle, me, Charlyne (sister in 2nd family) Adeline ( sister in 1st
family) and then the people in the third one are Nickolas ( 2nd family
) Pierre (1st family) my grandma (1st family) Jean-Lambert (dad and YEO
2nd family ) and his wife Christine (2)
The pictures were taken celebrating Grant's birthday last weekend. Grant also
took the train over to Germany for a Rotary gathering on his birthday. He is
doing well getting around on his own by train.
We talked to Grant last Friday and he said they celebrated St. Nicholas Day
(Dec.6) with St. Nick arriving on horse back and throwing out fruity candy
to the students at his high school. His family also gave out several candy
bars to him and brother and sister. Grant mentioned there is a Christmas tree
up at school, but nothing in the homes yet. He has not been to a shopping area,
so did not know if they were decorated or promoting Christmas gift buying.
Grant also talked about wearing his belt on his last hole to tighten. He says
they are not vegetarian, but close to it. Servings of meat are smaller and
less frequent than Iowa. He does get ham sandwiches for school lunch everyday.
There is no hot lunch program, all students bring lunch from home
Grant is planning on taking semester test for his classes to receive credit.
They will also have a holiday break between Christmas and New Year's Day. Thank
you if you sent Grant a BD email. He did appreciate the attention from a couple
of dozen of you. Email him anytime.
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2007 6:45 AM
Subject: Photos from Grant in London
Attached are a few photos from Grant taken while he went to London last
week.
Grant is well in Belgium. I got to speak with him on the phone on
Thursday. We talked about his recent trip to London. He and 65 other
exchange students went during a week long school holiday (All Saints).
Business and schools close in the Catholic communities. They went by
bus
(and ferry, yeah I know London is on an island) You will recognize Tower
bridge, Big Ben, the Bobbie, and the Guard at Windsor Palace with two
crazy
tourist, one being Grant. They also went to Piccadilly, and a sports
stadium. He bought an "Underground" t-shirt (subway). I asked
what food he
like there. The answer, "McDonalds". Yes, he could understand
the British
English. Next big trip is Greece in March.
This week the students toured a sugar refinery. Sugar beets are to his
area of Belgium as corn is to Iowa.
Grant enjoys going to the sports club with his brother. They run on an
outdoor track twice a week with a group of friends.
In school Grant finds Math, Gym and English the easiest to understand
(in French). Chemistry is harder, but the teacher likes him. French,
History, Physics and Geography are challenges in the French language.
He
sits quietly. He spends lots of time doing homework.
Grant commented that they eat less than Americans. He thinks he has
lost some weight. He misses Mountain Dew!! He will change to a second
family
in February.
Hope that helps you know a bit more. Grant is few on words, even to
his
parents. He assures us he is having a good experience and the
conversational
French is improving greatly.
Thanks for your interest in his experience.
Donna (and Dan)
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 6:54 AM
Subject: Photos from Grant in Belgium
The latest update from Grant:
Here are some photos of my room, some of the other rotary kids, (image 
DSC00754.JPG The name of the kids are Brian from NY, Cal from NM and
Thersea
from Montana) and a rabbit that's even hairier than CoCoa.
School is ok. A couple of weeks ago I got to see parts of Life Of Brian
in
English class to help understand British comedy. I am starting to understand
better, but I still have trouble understanding the teachers. In History
we're
studying Politics of the 18th century and the French Religion. In Chem.,
I am completely
 lost. In Physics, we're talking about joules and watts. In Gym, we get
to run 5-6k
tomorrow. Math is mostly stuff I've never seen, except last week it,
for some
reason, did a 180° turn and became really easy. And in English, we're
doing
present perfect and simple past or something like that; it's really hard
because I don't know them too well by themselves. I know how to use them
in a
sentence, but I don't know stuff like what's the present perfect of "forbid" or
stuff like that. I think it's "forbidden" if I remember right.
Grant
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 7:48 AM
Subject: Update from Grant
Below is the latest info from Grant in Belgium:
Everything is fine. School is still not too great, but it's better than
before. I'm starting to understand the math. My French is also getting
better. I miss the food; no ginger ale or Gatorade/PowerAde at the stores
here and also no Reece's or peanut butter either or doughnuts.
Grant Ryherd
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 9:07 PM
Subject: Grant update 9/13
Sorry, I haven´t emailed but I have been very busy. I am meeting
a lot
of people and making friends in school. I don't understand a lot of
the teachers because they speak fast and they write in cursive, bad
cursive, on the boards, but I'm a wiz in English! Luckily I haven't
had much homework because the stuff I do get takes me forever to do
and I have to ask for help a lot just to understand the instructions.
I do know that I'm studying Art and Politics after the French
revolution in history, English is about dating, in Dutch the teacher
has me translate the French exercise into English. Otherwise, I just
sit there (like I do in French and history because its oral or in a
book I can't read).
Grant Ryherd
Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 10:36 AM
Subject: Re: Hi Grant
Hello, I just return from France. I had a lot of fun. I went kayaking
and played "ball"; it seems to be a somewhat popular sport
here. It's like curling, but on ground with metal balls. I met a lot
of people from around France and one English couple. My "mom" here
is an amazing cook, she made eggplant that was, well not good, but decent
enough to eat. Yesterday, she made rabbit and it was amazing. They were
as surprised about me never having eaten rabbit as I was of them eating
it regularly.
I'm suppose to go to Brussels tomorrow for my official initiation here
and I'll send pictures soon. mm
Grant
Rotary Report January 14, 2008
I would like to start my long overdue report with a story. One time
I
traveled along the bumpy roads of the Amazon region to Zamora, a small
town located near the Peruvian border because my host sister, the best
swimmer in her age group in Ecuador, was competing in the Amazon
Games. The pool was dirty and so the swimmers had to wait a day to
compete. While my sister and her teammates rested my host mom, other
host sister and I went to visit a frog farm. When we arrived at the
gate, the owner let us in, but told us that we had to enter in silence
because he didn't want us to disrupt the frogs. They are very nervous
creatures. With too much noise, they get stressed and die. So we
entered without talking, tiptoed to the first hog barn and looked at
the floor. It was filled with frogs jumping all over the place. I had
never seen so many frogs in my life. In awe, we walked from barn to
barn to barn, looking at the frogs – from the frog eggs to the
tadpoles all the way to the adult frogs. At one point the owner
fingered me over and showed me into a barn filled with mosquitoes that
he imports from Brazil to raise for frog food. The barn was dark,
musky and smelled like warm milk. He kept me in there for a while,
explaining to me about his prized mosquitoes. My host mom decided she
wanted to buy some frog to cook for dinner that night. So she picked
some fat ones and the man picked them up with a shovel and brought
them to a rock. He banged the first one's head on the edge and then
cut it's head off. While he did this, his wife held a cup underneath
the neck and the small amount of frog blood dripped into the cup. The
wife quickly drank the blood, telling us that the frog blood does
wonders for a person's health. The husband continued to peel off the
frog skin telling me that he will ship this to Europe where they will
use it to make swimming suits. He threw the brains in a pile and put
the rest of the body in a bag for us to take home. He repeated the
process, while his wife gave me the cup and left rapidly, walking
across a barn on top of a floor of frogs. As he cut the head off he
frantically had me collect the precious blood. I did it. And then,
answering his pleaful eyes, drank it. That night we ate the frog meat,
while sitting in our hammocks, watching the Ecuadorian sunset.
My life is the Amazon continues on. Every day is a new experience and
a new adventure. I am learning how to play the Andean flute and am
attending dancing lessons. Also, I am currently working on an
agro-tourism project with a group of my classmates and my tourism
teacher. We will be spending the rest of the school year developing my
host father's organic farm and eventually it will be opened it to the
public. We will be using the livestock, fruit trees and plants to
teach people about farming in the Amazon Region. We will also be using
the products on the farm to create a restaurant. I am planting a
garden of flowers native to the Amazon region with my host sister.
Through these projects, I am learning a lot about the plants and
animals in the region. My father's farm includes everything from
guinea pigs to orange trees. I enjoy spending time on the farm
whenever I can, playing soccer and ecua-volley with my host family,
feeding the fish, milking the cows by hand and picking the fruits. In
the evenings, I like to sneak along the path, where the snakes are out
for their nightly lurk, leading from the upper part of the farm down
to the river where a family lives with their 10 children. I enjoy
resting in the hammocks and playing with the babies. My other host
sister and I are building a tree house in a guava tree.
Christmas in Ecuador was a beautiful experience. The tradition in my
host family is to bring candy and toys to the children in the Shuar
communities surrounding Macas on Christmas Eve. We spent several days
filling bags with treats and then delivered the treasures to the
children. We spent the rest of the days of Christmas vacation swimming
and playing among the shining jungle trees.
A couple of weeks ago I went on a biking excursion with a couple of my
friends to an archaeological site where there are hieroglyphics dating
back to 2000 years before Christ when the Macas people lived in this
area. At that point the monkey population was incredibly high in this
part of the jungle. The pictures depicted this overflow of monkey.
There has been a lot of excitement in Ecuador lately because the
Tungaragua volcano in Banos is erupting.
I recently went on a trip to Quito. While I was in Quito, my friend
whose father grew up in Quito, took me on a walking tour of the
downtown area. He told about the fascinating archeological history of
the Cathedrals, houses and streets in the area. The Incas built these
buildings. Because of this, throughout the Cathedrals it is possible
to find icons and pictures depicting the Incan culture. For example,
in the Incan culture, the idea of opposites is very important,
especially in the cycle of the day. Therefore, it is easy to find suns
and moons imbedded into the walls, ceilings and floors. While walking
along one of the narrow street's of Quito my friend stopped me and
brought me to a stand where a man was creating some sort of sweet in
a
big cauldron. After listening to him tell us that for three
generations his family has been creating these sweets made from honey
and peanut butter with the same equipment in the same place on this
street in Quito, we indulged in a bag of some of the most delicate
creations in the entire world. Later in the trip I visited the middle
of the world. One interesting fact about standing in the middle of the
world is that your weight is less than in your country because of the
bulge of the earth. Thus being father from the center of Earth, the
force of Gravity is less. I also planted native trees in the
Chimborazo province with a group of Indiginous people in order to make
the land healthy again.
I will end this report now, but I hope all is well in Iowa.
Thanks again for this amazing opportunity,
Willa Simmet
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