S for School; S for Sweden

My journey to the Cultural Exchange Program.. 

When I first heard about the Cultural Exchange Program, I was quite against the thought of heading to Sweden, a new country all by myself. Really.. and the mail sat in my inbox until my mother brought it up at the dining table the next night. After a lengthy debate, I announced that I would sleep on it, and conveniently forgot about it for the next couple of days. That weekend, I got onto a call with my older sister, when my mother told her this opportunity had arisen. My sister, who had gone on an exchange program to Germany, got very excited and convinced me that I should go because it would be a brilliant experience.

And so I got thinking, making a pros and cons list about Sweden which is when my father told me, “Yeh choro, pehle select toh ho jao, phir decide kar lenge.”, This was a relatively good point. So over the next week, I worked on writing answers for the application form sent by the school. Paragraphs came and went, and ideas from parents were at an all-time high. Finally, on the last day for submission, I finalized my answers and submitted the form, then conveniently forgot about it.

8th grade had just started, and I didn’t have time to think about Sweden amid all the tasks and classes until, well, my lunch was interrupted by G Ma’am. I was enjoying my kadi-chawal, when I was hurried to B-block along with a few familiar faces to get interviewed by R Ma’am - the school head. The 4 of us were completely petrified and on the walk to B-Block whispers came up.

“Humne kya kiya?”

“Are we in trouble?”

“Why is she calling us?”

On reaching B-Block, G Ma’am made us sit in the reception and headed into the offices leaving us sitting there, imagining what horrors we were in for. Ma’am came back and told us to head inside the conference room (Which was a room I had never been in, surprising since I’ve been in this school for 8 years!), and there we were greeted by R2 Ma’am, H Sir, and THE R Ma’am herself.

All of us had become visibly pale, ‘Itni buri cheez ki hain ki Henrik sir aur R2 Ma’am bhi yaha par Hain!’, which is when R Ma’am informed us that there were 5 of us who had filled up the form to go to Sweden and that she and H sir wanted to know the reason that we had filled up the form.

One by one, each of us spoke and gave our reasons, it had become clear that this was to be the selection interview and all of us went back to our classes feeling anxious as to who would be selected for the program.

About a week later, we 5 were once again rushed to B-Block, to meet with S Ma’am. Well, not meet but have a call which would probably be the final stage of the selection process. We sat down in our different rooms and R Ma’am guided me to her office and handed me her phone. The amount of stress I felt at that moment was unparalleled, not because of the selection, but because I was scared to drop R Ma’am’s phone!

The meeting went smoothly, and all of us were excited to hear the results of the exchange program which were given about a week later, and I was selected!!!! But just because the selection process was over, doesn’t mean that we were free, unfortunately.

The next week, on a Wednesday, my father and I boarded the Airport Express Line (after trying to find it for about an hour) and headed to Shivaji Stadium to apply for my Visa. The trip was extremely fun (especially since I got to skip some bit of school) and a new experience for me.

 Time skip to about two weeks later, when we had a call with all the students, and teachers who were going to be heading to Sweden. It was essentially a Q&A session (which took half of our lunch break (again)) in which R Ma’am and S Ma’am were completely bombarded with questions from all sides.

It has been a week since that and since then I have connected with not only my exchange partner but also the other students that are going from India. On Tuesday, I had a call with the mother of the exchange partner and after having a call with her, my parents were extremely glad that I would be in good hands with the Swedish family.

Everything has been finalized and Sweden is right around the corner! Only packing is left, but that would probably take an hour at max. Visas - check, exchange partner - check, cultural performance - mostly check. I am headed to Sweden and nothing can stop me. 🙂:)