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Local student shares experiences of her year in Belgium

Weyburn student Hannah Bitz shared photos and insights from her year in Belgium with the Rotary student exchange program, as the Weyburn Rotary Club’s next outgoing student, Brayden King, was on hand to listen before he left for his year as an exchan
Hannah Bitz

Weyburn student Hannah Bitz shared photos and insights from her year in Belgium with the Rotary student exchange program, as the Weyburn Rotary Club’s next outgoing student, Brayden King, was on hand to listen before he left for his year as an exchange student in the same country.

Hannah presented her story on Aug. 21, and Brayden left on Monday on his exchange trip after he had the chance to talk with Hannah about what sort of things he could expect or look for during his time there.

Hannah lived in a town just south of Brussels, near the historic site of Waterloo, and she noted that there were a half-dozen other exchange students who attended the same school she did.

The country is small by Canadian standards, as Hannah said a person could drive across it in about three hours. She was able to travel around the country by train or by bus, and in addition her host family took her along for trips during the year, and she was able to see several sites in Europe with other Rotary students or with her host families.

Sharing about the food available there, she noted that there are two types of Belgian waffles, with the Brussels type being the one that Canadians are most familiar with. The other type she ate was made of bread dough with bits of sugar kneaded into it.

Other foods included fries, which a lot of Belgians eat with mussels, Belgian meatballs, Brussels sprouts, and about 30 to 40 different sauces that they eat with fries.

Culturally, Belgium was the home of Adolf Sax who invented the saxophone, and such well-known cultural icons as Tintin, the Smurfs and Asterix, and the “chicken dance” originated there, only it’s called the “duck dance” in Belgium.

Among the many points of interest she was able to visit included events organized by Rotex, which is an organization of former exchange students who want to ensure that current exchange students will have a good exposure to events and places during their experience.

One such trip was to take about 60 students to Paris, where they saw as much in two and a half days as they were able to, including the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral.

Her first host family took her on a trip to Spain, including Gibraltar, and after Christmas, her second host family took her to Anvers where they had a burning of Christmas trees. The tradition was a way of bringing good luck for the new year. At Christmas time itself, there was a St. Nicholas Day held early in December, she saw a Christmas march with her Scouts group, and she was able to visit a Christmas village market where people could do shopping for gifts.

In March, there were a series of Carnival events in the style of Mardi Gras, including Aalst, Binche carnival, both with lots of costumes and parades, then the Dinant carnival, which was fun but not as choreographed as the others were.

The second Rotex event she attended was to see model representations of the famous sites of Europe, all in intricate detail.

For the spring break, her host family took her to Greece, where she toured Athens and saw many interesting sights.

Later in the spring, her graduation class took a trip to Malta, and later on a trip with other exchange students, they visited Ypres, the Canadian War Memorial and Menin Gate, the Flanders Field museum and other war sites, and a visit to Prague and to various Jewish memorial sites.

Hannah wore her Rotary jacket for her presentation, and it was weighed down heavily with buttons and pins over every square inch. She said she received these from other exchange students that she met over the year, plus from the many towns and cities they visited. She brought home a Belgian flag, as well as the flag for the province she lived in, De Wallion, which had a symbol of a red rooster on a yellow background.

Brayden noted he will be going to Grez-Doiceau, which is about a half-hour drive away from where Hannah spent her year. After spending the last couple of years playing in bands, including most recently the highly-popular 7th Avenue group, he planned on taking a guitar with him to Belgium, a guitar that had been given to him by his grandfather, and is hopeful he will find people there he can play music with.

His introduction to Rotary included attending the Rotary Youth Leadership camps for three years in a row, and at one of them he met a counselor who was an exchange student to Belgium. Based on the experiences and comments this counselor had, Brayden made Belgium his first choice when he applied to be an exchange student.