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Off to the Czech Republic

Photo by Len Villano.

A search of the internet will tell you that the Czech language is a very difficult one to learn.

Marcy Desotelle, who lives in Egg Harbor, agrees. “I’ve been working on it all summer,” she says, but it is hard, with a lot of sounds like…” (She demonstrates with a guttural sound like clearing one’s throat.)

Czech is a Slavic language, spoken by 96 percent of the people in the Czech Republic, which is about the same size of Wisconsin. Since only 20 percent of Czechs – mostly young people – speak English, it’s important that Marcy learn to communicate before she leaves on Aug. 22 for 11 months there as a Rotary exchange student, sponsored by the Door County North Rotary Club.

Marcy will be staying with the Bartova-Barta family in Hradec Krلlové, a university town of more than 90,000 located at the confluence of the Elbe and Orlice rivers, about an hour’s drive from Prague. The Bartova-Bartas have a 16-year-old son, who will be spending the year as an exchange student elsewhere, and a daughter who’s in college but will be home on weekends.

While Marcy doesn’t know the occupations of the couple who will serve as her foster parents for nearly a year, she has learned that they enjoy traveling and outdoor activities, interests she looks forward to sharing.

Marcy has always wanted to travel, especially after her cousin, Kiana Desotelle of Sturgeon Bay, returned a few years ago from serving as an exchange student in Bolivia. “I got really excited and begged my parents to let me apply to be an exchange student, too,” Marcy says, “but they thought I should wait until I was older. They finally agreed, and the Rotary Club chose me. I was given a list of 45 countries with which Rotary conducts its exchange program and was told I had to pick my top 40, ranking them from first to last. The Czech Republic was not my first choice, but I am delighted to be going there and hope to be able to travel to other countries, too.”

Marcy finished her junior year at Gibraltar in June. She was involved in sports, music and theater and hopes to continue with all of them during her year away. She has a 4+ GPA and has completed all but two of the credits she needs to graduate.

“I’ll be taking social studies and English in Hradec Krلlové,” she says, “and it will be interesting to see how the classes are different from Gibraltar.” She’s spent much of her summer, when she’s not working at the Egg Harbor Marina, studying Czech culture and learning what to expect.

A recent conference in Grand Rapids, Mich., for returning exchange students and those preparing to leave was very helpful. “I got a lot of information about traveling and learned some interesting things. For example, the typical breakfast meal consists of sandwiches. People use both their knife and fork to handle their food and are very neat, so napkins aren’t necessary. A student who just returned from the Czech Republic said the temperature last winter never fell below 35 or 40 degrees. I guess I won’t see snow for Christmas.” (A bit different from Door County’s winter of 2013-14.) She also learned that the schools there teach British English, rather than American.

Along with getting used to a new culture, a new language and a new family, Marcy will have to get used to being away from her parents, Paula and Larry Desotelle, and her brothers, Joe and Benjamin. When she returns next July, she’ll be ready for college, planning to major in chemistry or biology. Before she leaves home again, though, she’ll have a few weeks to spend with family and friends. Perhaps they can recognize her by her veddy British accent.