Amanda DeBleeker has already traveled thousands of miles from home and lived for nearly a year in a foreign culture, and she hasn’t even graduated high school yet.

Seventeen-year-old DeBleeker, who will be a senior at Rogers High School this fall, recently returned from an 11-month foreign exchange trip to Brazil. She lived in the city of Natal in the state of Rio Grande Do Norte in Brazil.

Her trip was sponsored by her local Rotary club. Before her exchange trip, she went with a Rotary group to Brazil for two weeks of community service work. She enjoyed it so much she decided to return for almost an entire year.

Adapting to cultural differences was initially a challenge for DeBleeker. “At first it was (difficult). When you first get there you don’t know how to do much,” she said.

Language barriers also created some problems. “When you can’t explain something and you’re trying to do imitations … it’s kind of difficult,” she said.

She stayed with two different families while in Brazil. “With the Rotary, you switch families so you can see all of the culture,” she said. “Each region has its own specific culture.”

Although she enjoyed the experience, she was definitely very homesick at times. “I really missed my sister and my mom,” she said. “Whenever we got homesick we would e-mail each other.”

She feels the experience has made a lasting impression. “I came back, and everyone says I’m totally different,” she said.

“First of all, I’m a lot more organized,” she said with a chuckle.

“I appreciate things a lot more, especially school,” DeBleeker said. “Their public schools (in Brazil) aren’t very good.” She said some were even dangerous to attend. Because of this, many Brazilians pay a lot of money to send their children to private schools.

“They pay quite a bit for their education, and a lot of it is what we learn for free in our public schools,” she said. “We also get a lot more hands-on (experience).”