By Guy Thompson
In June of 2012, I was sitting in my doctor’s office in Shipshewana, Ind., having my blood drawn for some basic tests to make sure everything was as it should be within my blood. It was a painless procedure, but as the blood slipped into the vial, I was transported back twenty years to another doctor’s office much further away as it occurred to me at that moment that in just a few days, it would be exactly 20 years since I had a blood test that… well, you’ll have to read the first chapter which chronicles that blood test at the start of a wonderful six-month adventure as an IFYE (International 4-H Youth Exchange) in Germany. Let’s just say it didn’t go as well as the one in my doctor’s office that day in 2012.
At that time, I was the editor for the LaGrange Standard-News, our county’s newspaper, and took the opportunity of the 20th anniversary of being an IFYE to share my experiences with our readers. Over several weeks, I ran a total of 10 articles about my experience, something I had never had the opportunity to do. Starting with my arrival (and the memorable blood test), each column looked at the seven families I stayed with, along with my arrival, free-time excursions, and my final farewell.
Disclaimer the first:
These are not the verbatim publications of those initial columns. I am taking this opportunity to expand on what I had written, adjusting the style, and not worrying as much about the length. For the newspaper, I worked to keep the articles around 1,000 words, and although I don’t know how long they will end up running on these rewrites, I do know that this batch will be longer.
When these were originally published, I also kept a close eye on the content, something I don’t feel is necessary for this format. Don’t worry. Everything will be family-friendly (PG-13 at the most), but I may go deeper into some parts of my experiences I glossed over for the general newspaper reader. In some cases, as our readership included a lot of Amish readers, some things got left out because the cultural references would take too long to explain for any of them to make sense.
Disclaimer the second:
Almost everything written within is mostly true.
While I want this to be an honest representation of my time with each family, I also want this to be entertaining. Some descriptions may be exaggerated, while some experiences will be viewed through a 30-plus-year-old lens. Think of this as a humorous memoir of my time as an IFYE and not a historical document to be used to recreate everything I did. I am relying on an old journal, poorly aged slide photos, and my memory. You can see where we might run into trouble with this.
At the end of most of the chapters is a selection of photos from that time period.
Prior to heading out, the organizers impressed upon all of the IFYEs that this would be an experience that we would think about every day for the rest of our lives.
And so far, they’ve been right about that.
Guy Thompson
1992 Ohio IFYE to Germany
One Guy's Writings 