Siberian Sabbatical

In a matter of hours I will be boarding an airplane and departing this country for the next 11 months. I have been constantly bombarded with the question by people who know my predicament, “Are you scared?” Hmmm, let me think about that…

Heck yeah I’m scared! I am going to Siberia for the next 11 months of my life.

I will face some of the most difficult situations of my life in this stretch. I will most likely experience a very severe case of culture shock that may cause my hair to fall out of my head. The home sickness I’ll feel will cause me to be physically ill. I will understand very little of the language. I will know absolutely no one. I will be living with a completely foreign host family which I am expected to trust and depend on for almost a year!

Yet strangely I feel an unfamiliar excitement about what lies ahead of me. The journey is in the early stages of commencing. I will be going way beyond my comfort zone and the part of my life’s map, that if written 600 years ago, early cartographers would write, “Beyond here there be dragons.”

To introduce myself, my name is Sam Kahr. I will be 16 September 10, and I am a Rotary Exchange Student. My sponsoring club is the Sturgeon Bay Noon Rotary Club, and my district is 6220. I will be hosted by the Lake Baikal-Eco Rotary Club, district 5010. I am officially leaving August 29, on the 12:30 pm flight from Green Bay to O’Hare, to Los Angeles, to Seoul South Korea, to Vladivostok, and finally to my final destination, Irkutsk.

When I tell people that I am going to Siberia, a blank, astonished look comes across most faces and I must remind them that I will not be living on a yak farm, eating Reindeer meat three times a day, but actually living in a metropolitan area. Irkutsk is a city of about 500,000 officially, but unofficially it is probably the size of Milwaukee.

However when I say I am going on a journey I am going on a hell of a journey. My host parents names are Nicholay and Svetlana Tocharev. I know my airline arrangements – leaving August 29, 2007 and coming back July 17, 2008, and I will attend High School #62.

When that blank astonished look comes over most people faces the first question they always ask is. “Why Siberia?”

Well, when I interviewed for Rotary Youth Exchange it wasn’t certain I would make the cut. Most students are 17 or a little bit younger when they leave, but I won’t even be 16. I was basically told I wouldn’t even have a chance of becoming part of the program. Eventually, due to a series of fortunate events I made the cut, though my age hindered me somewhat.

I had hoped to go to one of the Scandinavian countries, but they require you be 16 and a half at the time you go. I missed out by six months. On to other options. Austria? France? No luck. To go to those countries you are required to take French or German in school. After crossing those off the list I was left with Asia, South America, and Eastern Europe.

After a little research and persuading from Vladimir, district 6220’s only inbound exchange student from Russia, I put Russia at the top of my list on my application and sent it in to the coordinator. A few weeks later I got the call that told me where I was headed. Russia, I thought, cool, I have always wanted to visit Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

“How close to Europe will I be?” I asked enthusiastically. The answer wasn’t what I had expected.

“Sam, Rotary only exchanges with students from Siberia.”

That took a while to sink in.