Tierney Elison looks through one of three photo albums she compiled during a year's stay with a host family in Brazil. Elison, 16, visited Rio de Janeiro, rain forests, the waterfalls of Iguassu and neighboring Argentina and Paraguay. -- Special

'An intense experience'

Fruit Cove teenager studies in Brazil

By Dan Scanlan
Staff writer

When people ask Bartram Trail High School student Tierney Elison what she did on her vacation, the Fruit Cove teen can truthfully say she flew down to Rio ... and fished for piranhas, visited the waterfalls of Iguassu and hiked in jungles and caves.

The 16-year-old took part in a year-long Rotary Club Youth Exchange to Brazil, and said it's "kind of weird" to be back home. But ultimately, she said, she's been changed by what she called "an intense experience" in the Portuguese-speaking South American country.

"I think I am more outgoing and more direct. I think I know myself a lot better, know what I want, and I am not afraid to tell them what I want," she said. "It was a lot different than I expected. I didn't take into account that I was going to a third-world country, and there is a lot of poverty there. I was too naive to realize that poverty like that affects everyday life."

Her mother, who visited Tierney in February, agreed her daughter has changed.

"She is very confident. She picked up Portuguese and was very fluent and always being complimented on her accent," said Cathy Elison. "I kind of blocked it [missing her] when I let her go, because I knew the family she was with ... But when I saw her, we had such a good time and went to Rio by ourselves and went beaching and shopping."

About 8,000 high school students from around the world participate in Rotary youth exchanges annually, learning the language and culture in their host communities. But the program hadn't been done in the 52-club Northeast Florida region for a decade when program chairman Al Kalter moved to Fruit Cove from Syracuse four years ago and proposed the idea.

Area clubs helped seven students go overseas in 2001, three from the Jacksonville area. Seven more headed overseas last year, with Tierney applying after Kalter spoke at her school. Now, he credits Tierney for "breaking down the barriers" between countries.

"She certainly became part of the family in Brazil, but it was a hard thing for her to leave," Kalter said.

This year, the program is sending out 10 kids and taking in 17, he said, "and that is a dramatic increase from this year. We visited five high schools and had 16 applications. I wish I could visit more schools."

As for Tierney, one of the first things she did was learn Portuguese.

"I think I left speaking pretty fluently," she said. "A week after I got there, I started private classes with a Portuguese teacher who didn't speak English, taking four classes a week, 1 1/2 hours per day for a month and a half."

But it wasn't all school work.

She embarked on Rotary trips all over the country as well as neighboring Argentina and Paraguay, and then joined 60 exchange students from 22 countries Nov. 26 for a monthlong trip to Lenois, Maceio, Fortaleza, Natal, Recife, Salvador, Porto Seguro, Rio de Janeiro and Angra dos Reis in northeast Brazil.

"The first trip was to the world's biggest swamp, and another was to an area that has a lot of waterfalls and caves. The third was a lot of beaches, and laying on the beach with all your best friends is not a bad way to spend the start of my summer vacation," she said with a laugh. "The last was an 18-day trip around the south of Brazil, which was amazing. I went to the falls of Iguassu, a series of waterfalls that spill into a point where Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil meet."

She said she experienced culture shock sometimes, such as when students dressed in army boots and camouflage gear for a science fair presentation at her adopted school in October, and one revealed a fake bomb.

"I knew things were different because they didn't have the security problems the U.S. had," Tierney said. "They didn't go through Sept. 11 or have problems like [the shooting spree at] Columbine High School. It didn't make me uncomfortable. But if we were in the states, she would have been taken home by a SWAT team."

She also saw lots of poverty.

"There are kids all over the place in very poor neighborhoods, and it was incredible how many small children you see on the street trying to panhandle or sell something," she said.

Home since last week, Tierney said she misses her Brazilian family, and her mother says they [the Brazilian family] miss her.

"I had an e-mail from her host mother, who said she couldn't go to work the day Tierney came home because she was so sad," her mother said. "She said love has no borders, and that Tierney will always be her little girl."

Tierney plans to speak at area Rotary Club meetings about her trip, and will train future exchange program members. As for the next round of exchange students, the Mandarin Rotary Club chose Bartram Trail High School students Hayley Derryberry and Michael Smith to go to Germany later this summer.

Staff writer Dan Scanlan can be reached at (904) 359-4549 or via e-mail at dscanlanjacksonville.com