Home Away From Home

Once a week, on Friday nights, a dozen of us Indian students meet up in the basement of the Academy Center, in a long narrow room. As time passes, familiar faces stroll into the room, laughing and smiling, cheerful after a long week has ended, and fill the seats around the rectangular table. As my friend and I chat idly, Harshita, one of the co-heads, will walk into the room, carrying two brown cartons filled with “samosas” that are right out of the oven. The scent floats around the room, and I can’t help but feel like this is home.Even though I live in Chile, a spanish speaking country in South America, my family is of Indian origin. At home, we live our lives like most Indian families—we spend as much time together with our family as we can, eat meals together (often Indian food), attend Indian community events like pujas and festivals and once in while we watch a Bollywood film. Even though I normally take some of these little things for granted when I’m home, I can feel a large empty space inside of me when I come to Exeter and realize they’re not here.At Exeter, we are constantly immersed in a heavily packed schedule, filled with homework, tests, papers, clubs and activities. For a lot of international students, we are quickly forced into American culture, without really getting a chance to transition gradually into it. The school doesn’t often host events designed for a specific race or culture. And, since we do not have much free time in our hands, it is hard to stay in touch with friends from back home. We slowly begin to lose touch with common things such as another language, traditions or values.Exeter does, however, offer a decent amount of cultural and religious clubs and activities for students with diverse backgrounds. Most of these clubs meet every week, such as Muslim Student Association, Japanese-American Society and Chinese Student Organization. In addition to offering clubs, Exeter also organizes special events during cultural holidays like the dinner in Elm Street during Chinese New Year, Diwali dinner during Diwali and International Day, to name a few.Every Friday night, I go to a club called Subcontinent Society. It's basically a social gathering for people from the Indian subcontinent. Most of the time, it’s a place to meet up for about two hours, chat, catch up on things and relax. Its sort of like having another family, a connection to my culture amid the bustling life of Exeter. At the meetings, I feel more at ease and act more like myself than when I’m in class or dhall. I’ve made great friends in this group, and whenever I walk on the path I make a habit of greeting every one of them I see. Sometimes the club will host Bollywood movie night (for the whole school), or Diwali dinner. Last year there was a dance organized and in the Spring, and Holi, the festival of lights, is celebrated. All these things help me feel a bit more connected to home, and help reduce my absorption into American culture.Even though it may never feel exactly like home, Exeter does try to offer some things to accommodate students and make them feel in touch with their ethnicities. Being in a boarding school obviously makes it hard, especially when we do not have much time, but as long as one finds the right people to spend some time with, everything seems better. 