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Brown in America

Halloween “speshul”: Desi exchange student horror story (Update: Video)

By: Santosh :+: Under: Brown in America
On: ⋅ October 31, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
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Update: Here’s the CNN-IBN news coverage of the story (tip: Sai via GTalk)

Original post:
Remember Nadia from American Pie (and its sequels)? Remember how she was always one of the most sought after girls in school and how well everyone treated her? And more recently, Raja in Aliens in America has been the new face of the exchange student program in American pop culture. Raja while not popular with his classmates or his host family siblings is for the most part well treated and most clashes appear to be run-of-the-mill culture shock experiences.

Nikita Dhavle, a 16 year old exchange student from Pune, India, to a high school in Minnesota, through a exchange program of the American Field Service (AFS) was not as fortunate (tip: Sai via GTalk) as Raja or Nadia when it came to experiencing American life as an exchange student.

Hosted by a family in rural Minnesota, Nikita was asked to take care of all the household chores herself.

“I was asked to clean the kitchen, dining room, wash clothes, clean utensils, mow the lawn. I also cleaned the barn where the horses were kept…………… It seemed to me that what they wanted was a domestic slave who parades as a cultural ambassador,” a disillusioned Nikita said.

What a spoilt brat, you might think. If she was being housed and fed for free, the least she could do was to help the host family with household chores. The problem was it did not end there. In fact her troubles with her host family were just starting.

For beginners the son and mom of the host family abused her verbally and physically on a regular basis.

She was in for a rude shock when after two weeks, Ryan, the teenage son who was away, returned home.
“Ryan hurled abuses at me and said he the never liked the concept of cultural exchange.”
“Once in a fit of rage, the host mom physically pushed me when I requested her to encash my cheque as I needed money. Ryan took every opportunity to insult me.”

To make matters worse, she fractured her hand while working in the barn. But the host family refused to take her for follow-up visits. Nikita’s efforts to complain to AFS, the entity that placed her in this situation, fell on unsympathetic ears.

She spoke to her parents in Pune and sent an e-mail to AFS functionaries in Delhi urging them to bring her back as she was no longer interested in completing the stay. Nikita was directed to the local coordinator of AFS who told her “You can change the host. But it could be from bad to worse.“.

This quote in the AFS response made me laugh because it is ironic.

“All families here are the same. Learn to accept and take things in good humour.”

Nice stereotyping there. By a cultural exchange program, no less. Like anywhere else in the world, there are the decent families and the trashy ones in the US. Seems like Nikita, unfortunately for her, ended up in a troubled family. But never mind the facts, the AFS official stereotyped all families in the United States as trashy ones. Something tells me that is not the purpose of a culture exchange program, but what do I know, I just blog here.

Nikita’s attempts to learn some facets of the American life like cooking were rebuffed by the host family.

“I could have proper meal only at the school for lunch. At home the cooking was subject to the whims and fancies of the host mom. For two weeks, I only ate omlettes at home. When I requested her to teach me some American preparations, Ryan said teaching you amounted to teaching a dog,” Nikita recalled.

Finally, the school officials noticed something wrong with the exchange student and got her in touch with the local sheriff. Nikita was also helped by some Indian-American families in Minnesota and sent her back home but even that journey was not without drama.

She was sent to Chicago where she failed meet with an AFS contact who was supposed to put her on a flight to Amsterdam en route to Delhi. “With none to escort me and my hand in plaster evoked suspicions at the airport and I was subjected to extra scanning at every point”, she said.

There are a couple of aspects to this story. Life abroad is not for everyone. In Indian families, kids are not expected to do household chores. In American families, more often than not, they are. The household chores part could be discounted as part of culture shock. But then again, when an exchange student agency places students in homes, they should be at some level responsible for the safety of the student. If the student is being subjected to physical and verbal abuse, the excuse of “all families are the same in America”, just doesn’t cut, for some reason. The purpose of the student exchange program was defeated with that single statement. And finally, the host family. I cannot understand why a troubled family would want to host an exchange student and take up all the cultural and social challenges that comes with hosting one. Nikita’s story was a perfect storm of all elements gone bad.

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