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The International 4-H Youth Exchange (IFYE) program in the United States is conducted by CD International Program Services, L.L.C., in support of 4-H programs of the U.S. Department of Agriculture- Extension Service and the U.S. IFYE Alumni Association. |
Vol. 2 No. 1 August 1998
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Hello, 4-H friends and family! Guten tag from Germany, Deutschland. I started my adventure June 20 at the National 4-H Center. All of the U.S. IFYEs and the IFYEs to the United States
met for three days for orientation. On the 23rd we all left for our own host
countries/families. I am one of four IFYEs from the United States in Deutschland. We arrived in
Frankfurt, Germany, on the 24th. That evening we had the opportunity to explore
Frankfurt. Our first adventure was finding something to eat for dinner. We found a restaurant
and spread our dictionaries across the table and attempted to order in German! We were
successful and ate very well. On Thursday we had another orientation with the IFYE director in
Germany. Friday was the real beginning of our adventure.
We took the train from Frankfurt north to our first families. We quickly learned why everyone had told us to pack light! The train ride was about five hours. It was fun to ride the train and see the German countryside. My family lives in the northern part of Germany in the small village of Talkaw. Talkaw is located between Hamburg and Mollm, in the Bundesland, state of Schleswig-Holstein. My host family, the Humpels, have a 172-acre farm. My host father raises hogs and grows barley, winter wheat, and rapes. The rapes are sold and made into oil. The family has three children, ages 8 months, 4 years, and 7 years old. This part of Germany really reminds me of West Virginia and Pennsylvania. The plants are very similar. In fact, in front of the house are rhododendron! This part of Germany has rolling hills, not the mountains of West Virginia. The weather has been very cool the past week. It has been 13-16C, which is 55-59F. It was strange to wear jeans and a sweatshirt on the 4th of July! I have been fortunate enough to be able to visit three different German schools. One day I went with my 7-year-old host sister Henrike to her first grade class. What an adventure! We had to meet the bus at 7 a.m. The school bus was nothing like in the United States! It was a regular bus, like a town bus, or one you would take in a city. The children have passes so they do not have to pay. They school was just like our West Virginia schools. The children were studying math and German and learning to write. |
As part of their German lessons, the children had been writing to a mouse
in the United States. On the day I visited, a letter arrived for the students from the mouse in America. It
was fun to watch the children listen to the letter from the American mouse. By the end of the
day, I had 25 new 7-year-old friends!
After I had visited Henrike's first grade class, I went with 5-year-old Hannah to her kindergarten class. We had fun playing and reading books. The third school I visited was a middle school. The students ranged in age from 12 to 16. I spoke to five English classes. The students asked questions ranging from: "What is your favorite color?" to "What do you think of President Clinton?" I was very impressed with their English skills and their knowledge of American politics. The one very interesting thing about the middle school was that the students do not change rooms for each subject; the teachers change rooms! Exactly the opposite from how most U.S. schools operate. One afternoon I was able to go with my host father to Landwirtschaft Schule. This was what we would call a field day. The local farmers come together with several university professors to look and talk about different varieties of corn, barley, rapes, and wheat. The corn had been harvested the previous fall. I was the only female among 30 or so farmers. |
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