Carolina (Eli) Cabral Gomez

2009-10 Inbound from Paraguay

Hometown: Ciudad del Este, Paraguay

Sponsor: Ciudad del Este Rotary Club, District 4840, Paraguay

Host: Ormond Beach West Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida, USA

School: Mainland High School, Daytona Beach, Florida

Bio

Eli's Bio

Hi … My name is Carolina Elizabeth Cabral Gomez, but here everybody calls me “Eli”. I’m 16 years old and I’m from Paraguay.

I live in Ciudad del Este with my parents; Berna and Jorge, my sisters; Grace (29) and Tamara (19), and my nephew Satoshi (7). It is a really nice city which is in the east part of my country. I go to the Sembrador School where I am in the last year of high school.

I am spending my year on exchange in Holly Hill, which is a beautiful town close to Daytona Beach, Florida.

I go to Mainland High School which is really big and I always get lost. I’m a junior there. I live with my host parents; Rosalee and Thurlan and my host brother Kyle. I had a host sister too, Shannon, but now she is Belgium.

I think everything is different here, but it’s okay. I try to adapt with everything, and in the short time I am here, I can tell I LOVE FLORIDA.

October 20 Journal

On 10 August at 5am I left the airport in Foz de Iguazu to San Paulo, where I waited a few hours, and thought a lot. Then I understood many things and understood what was about to happen, leave my family, my house and the rest, nothing seemed bad at first. After that I fly to Orlando. When I arrived at the airport, I met my host family and my counselor.

The first week was a little busy here, from all the papers we needed to complete and finish and also my host sister goes to Belgium, but before the trip we shared a moment together, we went to skate with her friends and also a Japanese restaurant because she loves Asian stuff. Also in the first week with my mom we visited the school, which was amazing to me because it's like in the movies, huge and all very different in comparison with schools at home.

Classes began Aug. 24, and it was the rare one that I seemed great, and it was really hard to find my classes, I was still getting lost after two weeks, but always found someone who helped me. In short, the school is awesome; everything is really different in a good way.

In September with my host family, we took a trip to Virginia for a family party, there I had the opportunity to know the whole family, I can tell, are very good people and treated me very well, being there we traveled, we went to the beach, the bridge where we had lunch and see the light house too.

Also while I was here I went to the Daytona Lagoon. It’s a water park where I had fun, because I love the water and the sun. One evening I went with my cousin to ride the Sling Shot on the shores of the beach. That was incredible, but too short, but it was fine.

At home, I attended meetings every Saturday for an organization to which I belong. The International Organization Rainbow for Girls (IORG) has an assembly in Deland and now I attend meeting here, which has been fun.

In October, as in every school we had our homecoming week, which for me was something to appreciate, they have spirit week where they have to dress every day as scheduled. The dance, for me it was awesome; I had a lot of fun.

A few weeks ago with my host family we went to Universal Studios for Halloween Horror Night. That was the best thing ever, and seriously scared me. It is really something that should be repeated, but is only a few weeks a year. I can say we spent a splendid day and a terrifying night.