Guilherme (Gui) Souza

2009-10 Inbound from Brazil

Hometown: São Paulo, Brazil

Sponsor: Barra Funda Rotary Club, District 4610, Brazil

Host: Bonita Springs Rotary Club, District 6960, Florida, USA

School: Estero High School, Estero, Florida

Bio

Gui's Bio

Hey everyone, My name is Gui, And I'm an Inbound exchange student from Brazil. I'm 16 years old and I'm living in Estero, Florida. I'm studding at Estero high school where I'm a Junior. MY school Is really great and I already have many friends. My favorite sports are Taekwondo, Basketball, and as all Brazilians, Soccer. This year I'll try out for the Varsity soccer team at my school. Back there in Brazil, I used to live with my mom, my dad, my sister and my two dogs.

My favorite thing is playing sports. Any kind of sport. I hope I will practice many different sports here and take a little bit of each back to my country. I used to live In the biggest city of Brazil, São Paulo, where you can find any different culture you want but nothing better than checking out with your own eyes.

I always thought about myself as a Free person and that was the main reason why I wanted to come to the US, also I wanted to learn another culture, language and meet different people so I can become a better person and help my community to grow even better. Being an Exchange student Is living a dream and for me it is becoming true. I'm sure this will be the best year of my life!!

I have a great host family and I can't see how could it be better. I have two sisters and one brother. Tina, Jackie and Rich. I really consider them as my brothers!! My host mom is excellent always do her best to make this work out and so far it's being Perfect. Mark (host dad) works a lot and is a very good dad. I'm learning a lot with him. He is also really funny.

To everybody that worked so this dream can become true all I have to do is thank. Thank you very much, for the trust, the patience and help. Thank you RYE Florida. Thank You United States!

September 1 Journal

Hey everyone, I'm Gui, exchange student from São Paulo, BRAZIL!!! And I'll tell you how are the things going so far in the fabulous sunshine state!

When I first got here, I met my Host family and their friends in the Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers, They were all very happy with my arrival and brought balloons and gifts to welcome me. My host family has six members, Mark (dad) Karen (mom), Tina (older sister) Jackie (middle sister), Rich (younger brother) and Roxy (dog). I was really tired from my trip so we went straight to our home. The house is AWESOME huge, with pool, backyard and an area for fun with video games, ping pong table and many kinds of games. We ate of course the classic American hamburger and was very good. The next day I went to do some medical exams just to be sure that everything was OK. We had no problems but I found out that I would have to take 3 shots!! Yeah I know…not good at all but I didn't care actually. Karen took me to the health department to take the shots and we had some little problems, they wanted to give me more shots than those 3 but I said I was sure I had taken those shots before in Brazil so we came back home, I took my medical record and we got back to the health department. Guess who was right? I was…But anyway I wasn't free from those initial 3 shots and well at the moment was everything OK but on the next day I got really bad. I had fever and headache. Karen gave me some medicine and everybody was worried about me. I got better one or two days after it.

Weekend, Marco Island and OH MY GOD what a weekend! It was totally perfect. Mark got us the best suite of the hotel (Hilton hotel) It was better than my own home in Brazil. Our bedroom had a great view to the sea and I can say the same about our bathroom! We stayed together most part of the time me, Rich, Jackie and Hunter (Jackie's boyfriend that is a great kid he is really cool) we had a lot of fun and we laugh so much when for some reason during a pillow fight I screamed Oh no…the banana!!! This will be on my memory forever I'm sure.

On the second day on Marco Island, Tina came and brought a friend with her, It was even better, we went to the beach and swam in a hot sea with turtle nests on the sand. Very beautiful. I started to feel more comfortable with everybody and felt really in home. On Monday we went to Miami to watch a Miami Dolphins game or better a Miami Dolphins SHOW! I have to be honest I didn't have any idea of what was going on in the field but if everybody screamed I screamed too, It was one of the best experiences of my life and I really felt in love for the Miami Dolphins! We also went to a Baseball game, It was really interesting but Baseball it's not My sport, well, I liked anyway.

I went to some Rotary meetings and it was really cool. Mark and me are going to help with a donation of dictionaries - I think it will be fun. My host club Is Rotary Club of Bonita Springs, we meet every Wednesday to a delicious breakfast. The rest of the week was kind of boring. Rich was in school and I didn't have many things to do but it was good for me to relax!

I was really excited with the following weekend. I was about to go to Lake Yale for my orientation weekend, I knew it would be very fun, what I didn't know was that this would be the best weekend of my life! I made friends that will be with me forever! In special I could say the guys from my district, they are definitely in my heart. And many other people that I met there. Everybody was really excited about the exchange and I felt a really good energy. Unfortunately the weekend was over and I left my friends counting the days to see them again.

It was time to get focused, on Monday. My first day in High School and I remembered about what my friend told me, “if you survive to high school you survive to anything.” So, there I went and my first day was what I would say strange and different, I got totally lost, arrived late in most part of classes and had huge problems with my locker. But anyway, I met some people and I knew that things would get better. The second day was much better and so was the third and fourth day, every day was better than the day before especially when I got out of the ceramics and pottery class, come on…ceramic and pottery? No one deserves.

My relationship with my host family was getting each day better, specially with Rich, that kid is great. I was really lucky for having him as my brother, BROTHER that's how I see him and that's how I think the things should be. At the end of my week, I went to a game at Rich's school. It was so much fun! But again I had no idea of what was going on in the field but I was there screaming and having as much fun as is possible. I met many of Rich's friends, it's incredible, that boy knows everybody on that school! I met also a Brazilian girl that lives here, her parents own a Brazilian restaurant that I must check one of these days. At school, the things were even better and I already have friends! I met a Brazilian girl in my English class (another Brazilian!!!) she is very cool but we decided not to speak in Portuguese because we both want to learn English as fast as possible. My classes are very nice and the most part of my classmates were really good to me.

Just a parenthesis - Oh my god Moe's is the best place to eat in the world!!!

Now my school is in the second week. I'm doing good, miss my friends of the orientation but It's alright. Next Sunday I'll complete my first month here, the time really fly. I'm living a dream that I wish it could never end, I'm living MY American dream and I'm loving it! (haha just like McDonalds') Well I guess this is it, this was my first journal and I hope you all liked it… just a little message for everyone that thinks about being a Rotary exchange student, it is simple… “who says the best part of life is childhood has never been an exchange student” .