Rodrigo Lima

2009-10 Inbound from Brazil

Hometown: Londrina, Parana, Brazil

Sponsor: Londrina-Norte Rotary Club, District 4710, Brazil

Host: Pensacola Suburban West Rotary Club, District 6940, Florida, USA

School: Pine Forest High School, Pensacola, Florida

Bio

Rodrigo's Bio

My name is Rodrigo Lima. I am sixteen years old and I am in the eleven grade of high school, in the city of Pensacola, Florida in the United States. I was born in a city called Londrina, in Parana State, Brazil. This year I came to the United States to do an exchange program with the Rotary International.

I am here for more than two months, sometimes living some hard experiences but always learning and trying to make the right decisions. However, I’m always living incredible things, making wonderful trips, meeting amazing people all the time and learning how food can be different in some countries (but I’m always open to try new things).

I already have so many things to be grateful to be here. My host family is awesome, my counselor is always helping me with good talks and my host Rotary Club has so many funny gentlemen. The best part of all this is just the very start. I still have nine months, still having so incredible trips and I can’t wait to be with the exchange students that are here in Florida too, people from all parts of the world and people with a so amazing character. Definitely, friends I’ll take for my entire life.

Well, that’s a little bit about my life here in the United States. Thank you so much God, to help me in all the hard times, thank you my family for this incredible opportunity, and thank you Rotary International, to make this dream of exchange student possible.

October 26 Journal

My life in the United States had been much different than I thought. Before I came I thought would be just fun and would not be any hard situation. I was wrong. This still is life, and hard things happens all the time. I really think that I am learning with all this situations and that I am getting stronger and much more mature.

Make friends was kind of hard in the beginning, but now, I am meeting people all the time and my hospitality here in the US is getting better and better.

This is my last week from the first nine in the school. Things are happening in a amazing speed, and I really think that I should try to enjoy more and more. I went shooting with my second host dad this last weekend. We had a lot of fun. I was talking with him after we shoot, and he told me that probably I am leaving my first host family between the Thanksgiving day and December, so I do not have much more time with this family, That is something that really hurts me, because I really feel part of this family now, and to leave here, will be the hardest part of this exchange since I am here.

Everything is ok in school, I am in the soccer team and all the guys just get surprised about how I play. They call me Rod, and some others call me Brazil. Our official league starts on November 10, I am so excited about it.

Something I am doing almost everyday is write my own journal. My second host mom gave me a little notebook in the airport when I first came, so since I am here, all I think and all I feel, I am writing in this little notebook, and honestly, is helping me so bad.

My second host dad lend me a guitar, and when I feel bored or miss Brazil, I just start playing, just to forget everything. I am meeting so many Brazilians in Pensacola. In Christian groups, church, soccer schools, there Brazilians everywhere! In all this time I am here, I really think I am doing great. I think that miss my friends in Brazil is totally normal, and in some weeks or months, everything is gonna be totally ok.

Well, this is a little bit of what I am felling about all this experience. I am sure that I will pass through so many others and new experiences, and with God's help, nothing will work in the wrong way.

February 4 Journal

Well, what I have to say now? It looks like the end! Some voice just coming at my mind saying that I'll never see all these people again. I am not going in any of the trips, so at Key West was the goodbye. I never thought it would be so hard! I didn't realize that I was loving this people so much. The truth is, they got me!

I am in the middle of my exchange program. I just started the tennis season and the soccer season just over. It was not such successful season, but I had fun. I am in the second host family for about two months now. The transition was so hard, more than I ever imagine. Everybody was crying when I left my first house and I was not happy to leave, but I am having such great time with my second host family now, and I am thankful that God gave me another good host family.

So many things happen in this last four months that I didn’t write. I started the second semester at school and I finish the past semester with excellent grades! Relationships are getting better and better, I am meeting people every day at school, and keep good grades is not being a problem.

Disney trip on December was amazing, I never imagine something so incredible happening on my life. It was just unbelievable everything I saw out there! On November, I was counting the days for the Disney World Trip, and it was huge!

After I came back, everything was looking so boring and frozen. I had so much fun with the people I love that is just hard and weird come back to routine and reality. Well, after I came back, I start counting the days for the Key West (Sea camp) Trip, I couldn’t wait to see all the exchange students again and have fun.

Day after day, school, soccer games, church and parties at the weekend, finally the trip was here. A long way from Pensacola to the keys, but be in a bus, with your friends for half of a day is not that bad. Lol

We had so much fun! A little bit more of free time would be good but, it was amazing trip, and stay with my friends was the best part! When the end of the trip was getting close, a hard feeling started disturbing me at my chest, it was a weird feeling and a voice in my mind repeating a just single word, and it was goodbye. It doesn’t sound right. Why you got say goodbye for people that you love? Why you have to think that maybe, will be the last time you will see these people for the rest of your life? Some people didn’t take the bus, so the goodbye for this people was early! Tears start coming fast and in an unexpected way. After that, in the way back home at the bus, laughs and smiles took the control, and tears of happiness and emotion could be seen in many faces. Well, there was no more way to keep that longer, it was the goodbye time. In the last stop, I was hugging everybody and saying how important that people was for me. Jacksonville was the city where the bus stop, I took a car for a house of Rotarians that was hosting me for that night, when I got in the car, and I just start crying. It was something so inevitable.

That is pretty much the important things that happen with me this last months, the things that had a huge meaning for me, and tears that I dropped like I never did before. I never had to say goodbye for nobody, because I knew that one day, I was seeing them again, but that is not the case this time.

I still have an amazing time in Pensacola. Things are going well and new things happen all the time. Maybe, because I have no more trips coming, I will put my exchange and relations here as a priority, and maybe I can enjoy more than the first half of my program (I am not sure if this is possible).

I think this is a opportunity to say how thankful I am for my district and all people involve to make all these trips possible. If was not because of all of you, I would have never met these incredible people, and would never had made friends that I want to keep for my entire life.

I still having a long time in the United States, I hope I can use this time to have fun, and build good relations. Thank you God, mom and dad for this amazing chance, and Rotary, I promise I will try to write Journals with a bigger frequency! ; )

This is also the first time I am writing in 2010, so Happy New Year, I hope that God bless this Year that is starting and that He makes it better than the year that just passed. And guys, I love you all!

June 11 Journal

Well, here I am again. It is 3 o clock in the morning, and the FIFA World Cup it’s about to start in some hours. I am so excited that I can’t even sleep. But that’s not the only thing that is keeping me awake. In eleven days I am leaving Pensacola, in my way to Orlando, and in about eighteen days, I will be in my flight, way back to Brazil.

It is crazy to think that I am leaving this place. I made a new life here you know!? New school, new friends, new routine, new experiences, new families, new dreams.

Since February that I don’t write a journal, so what can I say, a lot of things happened. My birthday, my prom, spring break, summer, beach and more and more.

My birthday was awesome, my host family plan a dinner with my other host family and the family from the president from my Rotary Club. They are awesome and I couldn’t ask for better host families and people to support me during this exchange year.

My prom was amazing. I went to pick up my date at her house and she was looking gorgeous. When we got at the prom, people were all excited dancing and celebrating that special night. Me, my date and friends were dancing and chilling as much as we could. Prom night was great, night after prom was awesome. ; )

A couple of months ago I had my District Conference in Destin-FL. I met amazing people from our district. A gentleman told me his stories in military and aircraft missions, I knew that American people was patriotic, but after this guy, I can say that have some people that are crazy to their country, like in a indescribable way. The Conference was amazing, and it’s good to see how our District is growing and with the Exchange Program right behind.

School is over, so you are probably thinking how I am going to the beach everyday right? Well, no. This oil spill is getting here, so beach is with warnings, and I can’t put my health in risk in the last 3 weeks of exchange. No way!

This might be the last time I am writing a journal, I repeat, might be. I hope I can find some time to write for a last time as a exchange student, but not for a Rotary character. I promise for you all, one day I am going to be part of Rotary, in a deep way. Rotary has just fascinated me, and this organization is in my life now, forever!

I don’t have words to describe how thankful I am. I met the most amazing people, I lived the most amazing experiences, I saw the most amazing views, I grew up as a person, as a human, as a brother that has brothers and sisters all around this world.

Each moment from this year that passed will be in my mind for the rest of my life. Each second, minute, day, moment. I am never going to forget anything or anybody.

Thank you Mom and Dad, to give me this amazing chance to grow, thank you Rotary for this unforgettable experience and moments that I lived, and thank you God, to let me be here, to put each person you did in my steps and to never quit on me, no matter what.

I promise that this is not the end, this thing is just beginning. And like my host dad said when I left his house for the first time:

“It is not a goodbye, it is a see you later”.