Good afternoon. Welcome to the Bloomington Rotary Club's weekly celebration of service. I'm Steve Wicks,
and I'm honored to serve as your president this year. Please silence your electronic devices. Did anyone
have a hard time getting a parking space today? I would like to take credit for that, but I did not
send all the students home for Thanksgiving. On this day in history, November 20th, excuse me,
November 25th, 1920,
The first Thanksgiving Day parade took place in Philadelphia. And now Martha Wales will share today's
reflection. Well, there is a new test for citizenship. And it just came out in October.
some background for those of you who are not particularly familiar with how things work. Most visitors
to the US come as tourists, or they may come as students, or they may come as workers in various kinds,
but they are non-immigrants. And then there are immigrants who are also known as people with green cards
or permanent residents, and then
Some people go on and become US citizens. Some people just remain as permanent residents. And I would
like to start with a story about Moya Andrews. You remember her for Focus on Flowers, and we had some
memories of her, gosh, earlier this year. So here's my story. I was riding my bike to work one day.
And she called me over, she was walking a dog with some friends. And she said, I just had my citizenship
test and I want to tell you about it. She had had three questions that she, well, she'd had more questions
asked as part of the test. Um, but she told me three and I only remember two. The first one was how many?
original colonies were there in the United States. And she said, 14. And he said, no, fewer.
And she said, 12. And then she got 13. The other question that I remember was, what were the last two
states to be taken into the US? And she said, Alaska.
and Puerto Rico. And he said, no, but it is an island entirely surrounded by water. And so she nailed
it on Hawaii. He did pass her, which I'm not sure what happened now, except that she had been a permanent
resident forever.
At the end though, he looked at her and he shook his head sadly. And he said, and you teach at Indiana
university. So anyway, that was, that was the story. Now to the test, the Washington post had a nice
piece on this, which is where this mostly comes from.
The applicants are asked 20 questions that are chosen at random from 128 questions that are given out
with answers to prepare from. That's a study guide. That's larger pool than the previous test was. And
some of them, there's supposedly a greater focus on American history and some revised questions require
longer answers than before.
They published 10 questions based on the study material, two from the old test, and eight from the new
one. Applicants must now speak their answers. The other one was multiple choice, and you studied multiple
choice. You still probably had to speak it. But now all you do is you're asked a question.
and you have to answer it. So it's harder, and particularly if your native language is not English.
So I will read the questions, the 10 questions that the post published. I'm not going to wait for answers,
but I think you might be interested in whether you would need to study for this test.
Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? Actually, I should do what Steve does. Raise your hand if
you know. All right. And second, name a power that is only for the federal government. Third, what amendment
says all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are U.S. citizens?
That one we've had a lot of newspaper reporting on and other kinds of reporting recently. Four, the
American Revolution had many important events. Name one. Five, why were the Federalist Papers important?
Six, James Madison is famous for many things.
Name one. Seven, when did women get the right to vote? Eight, why did the United States, and that was
not all women, by the way. Anyway, eight, why did the United States enter the Persian Gulf War?
Nine, name one example of American innovation. 10, what is Memorial Day? And you know, right, people
send comments. They have an AI summary of the comments that were sent. The comments express significant
criticism of the new US citizenship test.
particularly its focus on historical trivia rather than civic understanding. Many commentators argue
that the test includes questions that are irrelevant to assessing a person's ability to be a good citizen,
such as specific dates or historical figures, rather than focusing on the structure and functioning
of the US government. There is also skepticism about whether prominent figures
including President Trump, would pass the test, with some suggesting that the test should be required
for all elected officials. Overall, the sentiment is that the test should emphasize understanding of
concepts over rote memorization of historical facts.
I think this would be kind of a fun thing to do at your own Thanksgiving dinner. You can find this quiz
and the answers recommended on the web. And I think if you have people on both sides of our current
divide, it's something that is more or less subjective and I think might be kind of fun.
Thank you, Martha. Lynn Schwartzberg will introduce our guests today. Well, welcome, Rotarians. We have
a wonderful list of guests today. When we call your name or I call your name, I'm not a we. Please stand
so we can recognize you. First, we have Annabel Watson, a guest of Judy Witt.
We have Linda Stroman, the daughter of our dear Ellen Stroman. Dwight Thompson, who is trying to channel
Jim Bright and also is a guest of Jim Bright. Kevin Gerhardt, the father of Megan Gerhardt. Jess Smith.
who is also a guest of Jim Bright. Welcome, Jess. I believe Jim Bright has solidified his first place
in bringing guests to Red Rings. And Rachel Hems? Hems? Yeah. And that is a guest of Megan Gerhardt.
Do we have any guests online? We do. We have Melanie Gerhardt, Megan's mother. Oh, wonderful.
as well as online. If you have any questions about Rotary or if you have more interest in learning about
our club or perhaps joining our club, please speak to someone at your table. Thank you. Thank you, Lynn.
I'd like to take a moment to say a bit more about a couple of our guests. Jess, can you stand up? So
our club has endorsed Jess Smith in her quest to become the next All-Indiana Global Scholar.
Originally from Rochester, Indiana, Jess is the first member of her family to graduate from college.
She is currently a master's of public affairs student at Indiana University's O'Neill School of Public
and Environmental Affairs. Jess hopes to attend Seoul National University in South Korea, where she
would study and develop policies that strengthen women's leadership, workforce equity, and community
well-being. Jess, good luck.
And then Dwight, if I get you to stand. So we also have with us Dwight Thompson, who is the president
of the Brown County Rotary Club. And he is our All Indiana Global Grants Scholarship Committee Chair.
And Dwight was recently recognized by District 6580 for becoming a Rotary major donor. So through regular
giving to the Rotary Annual Fund over the course of many years, Dwight has given a total of $10,000
to the Rotary Foundation.
So Dwight, congratulations and thank you for your generosity and your continued service for Rotary.
Rotary birthdays, 26, past club president Ron Barnes. 27th, our current community services committee
co-chair, Michelle Cohen. And on the 30th, our scholarship committee chair, Jeff Richardson.
Anniversaries, we have a number. On the 29th, two. Tim Riffle, three years. And our programs chair,
Michael Shermis, 14 years. And then a bunch on the first. Kay Leach, 37 years. Scott Walters, 37 years.
Tina Peterson and Marcus Whitted from the Community Foundation, six years. And Jimmy Torrey from the
NAACP, six years. Announcements. We still need a roundabout reporter for the month of December.
See Marilyn Wood if you're interested. We still need three more club members to ring Salvation Army
bells at Kroger East and Kroger South this Saturday. As of this morning, we need one volunteer at Kroger
East from noon to 2. We need a volunteer at Kroger South from noon to 2, and a volunteer at Kroger South
from 2 to 4. We also need a few more volunteers to serve on 12-6, 12-13.
Jonas Chang is away this week on vacation. Dave Myers is sick. So you want to see me after the meeting.
If you can serve, let me know or send one of those two individuals an email. Please sign up for the
club holiday party on December 11th at the Bloomington Country Club. Cash bar opens at 6 p.m. followed
by dinner at 6.30. Tickets are $60 each. $10 of the ticket price supports club operations.
You can pay for your tickets outright or you can be billed by the club for the tickets. If you want
to go, either see me in person or send me an email. My email address is in roundabout. DEI committee
plans to meet after the club meeting on December 9th. Meeting is open to DEI committee members as well
as club members who would like to serve on the DEI committee. We plan to have a Zoom option for those
who can't attend in person and contact DEI Chair Patrick Smith if you have questions.
Remember, Giving Tuesday is December 2nd. Rotary club organizational member Wheeler Mission has scheduled
a 5K run walk, dash for shelter, Carson Farm Park on Saturday, December 6th. Please see me if you'd
like additional information. The sign up link will be in the Rotary Roundabout. And then Sarah Loughlin,
do you have a very brief follow up from last week's presentation?
I guess I'll start out with just a huge thank you. We passed out last week the details about your current
sign-ups for various Bloomington Rotary Foundation projects and Rotary International projects. And as
a result of that, we have eight new AD20 participants, which is huge. In addition to that, we have four
new Every Rotarian, Every Year participants.
A round of applause. One memorial get two hundred and thirty six dollars in the hat for Charlotte and
five hundred dollars in pledges in the forums and one hundred and fifty three dollars in the hat for
our eye and two prospects.
who asked us to call them about participating in the endowment. So thank you all very much. If you weren't
here last week, you'll you probably got an email from us with the same kind of form and follow up. And
and we'd love to hear from you. It's it's really a big part of our club to make a small contribution
every every quarter to move our marbles forward. So thank you. I'm so proud of our club.
Thanks, Sarah. And for those of you who weren't here last week, we passed the hat for Charlotte Zetlo,
our recently deceased member. There's still an opportunity if you want to make a cash donation on your
way out to donate either to Rotary International or the Bloomington Rotary Foundation. And now let's
move to our weekly celebration of service. OK, a big week for us this past week. It was the first phase
of our district grant
project. Meals on Wheels was our district grant recipient, and we helped them replace some really old
styrofoam coolers with some insulated meal bags. And here are a couple of pictures. On the left, you
can see Donna Melinda Cedar, Mike Baker, Tracy Yovanovich, and Tina Swanson. And you can see the new bags.
And then on the right, a picture of Sarah Laughlin and some Meals on Wheels volunteers. And I want to
thank a couple of people in particular, Diana Hoffman and Sarah Laughlin. Diana Hoffman is the club
member who pitched the Wheels on Wheels project in the spring. And she was able to convince the Community
Services Committee that it should be the recipient for the district grant.
And then she has followed up since then and just done a lot of legwork making it happen. So a lot of
work on Diana's part. Sarah Laughlin is our club district grant coordinator. There is a lot of paperwork
that goes on behind the scenes involving the district grant. So anyway, I want to thank the two of them.
And then on the right, the club members who participated, Mike Baker, Michelle Cohen, Peggy Frisbee,
Tracy Ivanovich, Art Omick,
Donna Melinda Cedar, Tina Swanson, Sam Udek, Haoshi Wang. I participated, and then Marilyn Wood. So
thank you all. The next phase of this project will be in January. I think it will involve stocking freezers.
A reminder, November is Rotary Foundation Month. And the quote from Paul Harris, whatever it will mean
to the world will be known by the results that we achieve.
Happy dollar proceeds in November and December will go to the Rotary Foundation. Remember, giving Tuesday,
December 2nd. And then I'll linger here a little bit. So here on the left is a picture of Paul Harris.
And on the right, Paul Harris and the three other first Rotarians.
Do me a favor when you look at these. This was taken over 100 years ago. Would you describe these four
individuals as cool or hip or with it based on today's standards? Put up your hand if you think these
are really cool guys. All right. We have one. Well, I think you're wrong, and we'll see why on this video.
A lawyer, shy guy in shy town, no hot clout Start a club with four guys, no cash, just high doubt By
trust and friendship, fellowship and truth Turn a local lunch into a forest for the good The name's
Rotary, just a seed with a mission 1905, growing faster than tradition Four-way test, yeah, we aim with
precision From room 711 to a world-changing vision Without a script, without a plan, they met and shook
each other's hands A serve above ourselves, they said, and I see the banner that they spread There's
a million strong who heed the call, fighting polio
We stand tall from wells in Ghana to peace in Nepal. Rotary's revolution has touched us all. We the
change makers, peacemakers, globetrotters. Clean water bringers, child health supporters. We mentor
the youth, build bridges, knock borders. Scholarship givers and frontline reporters. Eradicating polio,
we take the shot. Partner with Gates, yeah, we give it all we got. In war zones, flood zones, drought
and despair, Rotarians show up!
We lift up girls, bring literacy to the streets. Empower every voice where oppression repeats. Diversity,
equity, inclusion, we own it. We're changing the world, don't need to postpone it. From rotary youth
exchange to the peace fellows. Our vision rings out like a string of bolt hellos. Not just meetings
and meals, we bring solutions. This isn't a club, it's a quiet revolution. Yeah, we built it from local
to global scale. With a will that turns and never fails. Districts rise, zones unite. We shine the light
in darkest nights. Service projects, grants arise, changing lives.
your eyes and when the storm
We'll introduce our speaker today. That was fun. Okay. I'm going to start off today by thanking you
all for your generous support of the Rotary Foundation, which among other things helps to fund the All
Indiana Rotary Global Grant Scholarships. Through your support,
you make it possible for outstanding young adults, like today's speaker, to pursue graduate level degrees
at overseas universities and to change lives. This slide shows the seven Indiana scholars we funded
through our foundation giving. At upper left is 2018-19 scholar Aubrey Sater, also my coworker, and
daughter of the fellow Rotarians Don and Melinda Sater. And at lower middle right is today's speaker,
Megan Gerhart.
Our global scholars have studied at universities in London, Tokyo, Berlin, Spain, and the Czech Republic,
and in other countries, and they're working in places far and near to make this a better world. Previously,
these scholarships were funded largely through our districts, the DDF, or the district designated funds.
In 2024, we decided to take the program statewide.
and partner with the districts in Central and Northern Indiana. In exchange for their financial
participation, we opened up the application process to students from Purdue, Ball State, Butler, Valparaiso,
Notre Dame, and other Central and Northern Indiana universities and communities. Today, each of the
three Indiana districts contribute $8,000 from the DDF with $16,000 from the Foundation's World Fund.
Now through mid-December,
Indiana Rotary Clubs are accepting applications from students who have graduated or will graduate in
May 2026 from a four-year Indiana college or who maintain a legal residence in Indiana. The $40,000
scholarship will enable a scholar to study one to four years in a graduate program at any qualified
university outside the U.S.
The program is open to exceptional scholars dedicated to pursuing a career in an area of great humanitarian
need and who demonstrate a long-term commitment to measurable, sustainable change. And now it's my pleasure
to introduce a wonderful goodwill ambassador to Rotary, the state of Indiana and the USA,
Rotary Global Scholar, Megan Gerhardt. After graduating from IU Bloomington with degrees in international
studies and in tourism, hospitality, event management, and a certificate in informatics, Megan was selected
to be our district's global grant scholar for 2023-24. Megan participated in an intense two-year Erasmus
Mundus joint master's degree program in global development policy that took her to the Czech Republic,
France, and Italy. And Megan graduated at the end of June
Rasmus Mundus Masters are prestigious international master's degrees designed and delivered by a group
of higher education institutions in the UK and in Europe.
They involve at least three institutions from at least three different countries and multiple associated
partners from the academic and non-academic world. Megan is the only Indiana scholar accepted into this
prestigious program. Originally from Roanoke near Fort Wayne, Indiana, Megan is a former Rotary Youth
Exchange ambassador to Kaohsiung, Taiwan District 3510. And in 2019, Megan co-founded the current IU
Bloomington Rotaract Club, serving as president
president and in other leadership positions, and she completed a certificate as the new generation positive
peace builder through a Rotary Zone Grant in 2021. While pursuing her master's degree, Megan attended
Rotary meetings across five countries, participated in Road Rack UN Day, gave a keynote at the Rotary
Youth Exchange Pre-Convention in Calgary on engaging the next generation, and co-hosted a discussion
on peace building in Rye. Eventually, Megan wants to work in an organization
where she can help communities, governments, and organizations create sustainable growth plans and policies
that balance economic consideration with the environment. And for those who have been here longer than
a couple of years, we all know how much we really enjoy and appreciate seeing Megan in the live,
in the flesh. So please join me in welcoming outstanding Rotary Global Grant Scholar, Megan Gerhart.
Hi, everyone. It is really nice to be back in Bloomington, Indiana. It's a little bit different here.
I don't know if any of you have actually thought about how much it's changed, but in the two years I've
been gone, it's very different than it was. So we're going to start. Ha ha, there's my face. You all
have to see it.
To start, I'm actually gonna give you guys a little bit of a recap. I know a lot was said in
that introduction, but I love any opportunity to show you guys pictures from all of my Rotary journeys.
So these are all photos from my youth exchange in Taiwan. To give you a note, it has been 10 years since
I started my involvement with Rotary Youth Exchange. It was 2015 in the fall. I was an outbound in 2016,
and that is a three-year process. So I have officially been involved in Rotary for a decade.
And I'm 25. Now, during my time here at IU, I not only participated in Rotaract getting that off the
ground, but I also had opportunities to help out with RYLA. It was a lot of fun. Even with the fun of
COVID interfering with our fun times at Bradford Woods, I had a wonderful opportunity to get to know
many Rotarians, but also a lot of young leaders in the area. And during my master's degree,
I didn't just study in the classroom. I also did a ton of Rotary activities, both in and outside of
my academic realm. So I attended a Rotary camp, but it's for Rotaract age students. And that one was
actually in Taiwan and it was a photography camp. I used it a little bit as an excuse to go back for
the first time since my exchange, but it was also a wonderful opportunity to meet Rotaractors from around
the world.
I got to attend meetings in the Czech Republic, France, Italy, the Philippines, Geneva, so UN headquarters.
I got to meet the Geneva International Club that is actually does their meetings from the UN. I can't
imagine the headache of going through security every single time they wanted to go into their meeting.
But all of these things impacted my experience. And I have a couple of things that I want to share with you.
One of which, I don't know how many of you know who that is in the center, but the center is Rotary
International president from Italy this year. About two weeks before the convention, he found out he
was going to be our president. And I met him in the airport in Frankfurt. I had spent the night at the
Prague airport. I was in my sweatshirt and my sweatpants. I probably stank to high heaven and back.
And I met Hassan.
He is a sergeant at arms. He's been a sergeant at arms for Rotary International Conferences for the
last four years. And he was so nice. He's like, you look lonely. I see your rotary logo. I'm going to
talk to you. And in the middle of a conversation, he stops absolutely everything. And he goes, we need
to go say hi to somebody. And he turns me around and he goes, hello, Mr. President. And I go, oh, I'm
not ready for this. I'm not dressed for this.
And everyone was very nice, but it reminded me that airports, just because you're traveling and you're
in your comfy clothes, doesn't mean you don't have to be ready to represent Rotary at every step and
turn. And it was just one of several opportunities that I had to be very uncomfortable.
So my degree program is a little bit interesting. It's a little bit different than most people's because
I did a joint degree, which means it was issued by three different universities. And rather than try
and explain them all to you, I figured I'd put them up here on the screen so you can kind of see what
I did because it's a little bit hard to describe. So I went to school for the first semester at Polotsky
University in Olomouc, Czech Republic. It's in southeast Czech Republic, about three hours north of
Vienna and about two and a half hours southeast of Prague.
During that time, I studied with very interesting professors from both all over the Czech Republic and
several very interesting PhD students from places like Morocco. In France, we joined a cohort of existing
students from everywhere, Ghana, Chad, Burkina Faso, Haiti. We had classmates who were from France,
though very few.
We had classmates from all across the francophone speaking world. And although our classes were in English,
it was a lesson in how much French is different based on where you learn how to speak it. And to be
fair, I want to start because this is an important concept. And I know it's a little bit, some of you
might have heard this term, but the Institute for Economics and Peace has actually separated out the
concepts of positive and negative peace. And Rotary International,
partnered with the Institute for Economics and Peace and actually has a training course on the Rotary
Rotary website. So if you guys are interested in learning more about positive peace and the way that
that has impacted, I know you have a massive champion in Aaron Davis in this club. But positive peace
is the attitudes, institutions and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies. It allows
us to be resilient in the face of challenges and issues and conflicts within a community.
And this is important to my degree program because I was one of 22 students and I was the only American.
My classmates came from a variety of places. From Germany and Italy and Spain and the Netherlands to
Egypt, Malawi, Botswana, Rwanda and South Africa. I had classmates from Nepal and Cambodia, Bangladesh,
India, Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil and Afghanistan.
Being an American in the room with all of these people from all of these countries is an exercise in
being uncomfortable. Whether it was in a classroom where we had to sit and listen to lectures, ask questions,
and my classmates tell their firsthand experiences of all of the things that have happened to them,
the histories of how their governments came to be, the personal experiences of their families having
to flee one region or another for various purposes.
It's really hard to be the person in the room where they'll say, yeah, so this US exercise caused this
thing and everyone goes, oh, she'll have an opinion. And so the first thing I want to share with you
is that being uncomfortable is important. I had a professor from Kazakhstan, he flew in from almighty
to teach us for a week about poverty and the impacts of poverty and the environment in Central Asia
and why we as a group of people
who were not from Central Asia should care. We had professors from Columbia come in and talk about peace
and conflict and the role of the government in bringing societies together after a challenge, after
guerrilla warfare and all sorts of things that have caused civil conflict. But also that the government
can have a very negative role when the government doesn't think about things like identity or the fact
that they contributed to these conflicts to begin with.
And I sit in the room as the only American, a little midwesterner, trying to navigate these
very uncomfortable conversations. And I learned more in that discomfort than I did sitting in a room
where everything made sense. I learned that sometimes I didn't need to have a response, that sometimes
just shutting up and acknowledging that I was uncomfortable, but acknowledging that it was important
to talk about was okay.
My classmates never blamed me. It was never, you are who your country is. You are not the actions of
your country and your history. But when you are the only representation that they have ever met, what
you do and how you respond to these uncomfortable discussions is important. And this is important for
Rotarians. And you as Rotarians at Indiana University have the opportunity to meet people from all over
the world.
Indiana University sends students on exchanges, more than 70% of students go. You guys have faculty
from every corner of the globe here at this university, which means that your community is made up of
people from all over the world. And some of the people in your community may not have had good experiences
with the government of our country.
They may not have had good experiences navigating visas, which let me tell you is a headache even on
the best of days. I had to get a visa for every place that I went to. Whether I wanted to just pretend
like I was a normal person or not, my German classmates had it much easier because they didn't need
a visa for France or Czech Republic or Italy. However, my experience was still much better than that
of my Afghani classmates. My Afghani classmate
was the last person to receive their visa to Italy. And when I say the last, I mean, he applied in March
and he did not get his visa until June after our cohort sent an email saying, we know that the Italian
government would never do something xenophobic or racist, but we are wondering if you could help explain
to us why our classmate, the only person in the program who hasn't gotten their visa yet is still waiting.
It took two days after that email was sent. Now, whatever the reason it was, whether it was intentional
or unintentional, whether it was political or not, we were able to impact change. And it started not
because we got angry, although I think several people were, but because we were willing to engage in
dialogue. And dialogue doesn't just happen inside the classroom. Dialogue happens
in grape vineyards and at the UN. It happens in fields and on hikes up mountains with volcanologists
who, let me tell you, are not Star Trek fans. They study volcanoes. And we had one, I know. It was a
little disappointing to find out he wasn't just a Trekkie. But our volcanologist professor,
his name was Ben, and he was actually from the UK. And you would think, why is he in France?
but I don't know if you know, there are dead volcanoes in the center of France. And he studies the impact
of these dead volcanoes on the climate and the ability to grow produce and agriculture in central France.
So he took us out into the vineyards and he showed us vines that had been planted 30 years ago and 20
years ago and two years ago. And he had us try them.
And then he talked about how climate changes, whether man-made or not, were impacting that region's
ability to produce grapevines. It's very interesting when your firsthand experience is literally eating
the grapes off the vine and seeing how different they taste. It's the same breed. It's the same species.
And the only difference is how long it's been alive and the climate and the soil of the area.
We got to go to the UN and I got to see how long it took my Pakistani classmates and my classmates from
Chad to go through security at the UN in comparison to me. They were all very nice, but I didn't get
a full pack down. They did. And if you're willing to engage in conversation, not a debate, it's not
me versus you. It's not, I'm right, you're wrong. And not a discussion, which is theoretical, right?
Discussions are how you create ideas and concepts, but dialogue is connecting me to you. Dialogue is
an opportunity to find a way to understand others, whether or not we agree. So I would have dialogue
with my classmates, and sometimes that's hard. My classmate from South Africa genuinely would
have conversations where she would go, but what if democracy isn't the answer? And there's a very easy
way to get defensive in a room.
when someone tells you democracy isn't the answer. But if you take a step back and you're willing to
listen, you may not agree, you may not like what they're saying, but if you're willing to understand
their experiences and listen to their points of view, you might realize that they make a good point,
that their history, the things that have made them into the person that they are have also given them
the opinions that they have. And that's a foundation
with which we can work. Rotarians come from all sorts of different backgrounds, from all sorts of different
countries, from all sorts of different religions. We look at the world in different ways. We have different
experiences, perspectives. We come from different social classes and hierarchies. We come from different
professions. And all of these things impact who we are, what we believe, and how we interact with the
world. And it also impacts who we see.
My classmates are all very different people. Whether we're standing in a kebab shop in the Czech Republic
because it is the only place in our town where my Muslim classmates can get meat. Whether it's in our
dorm kitchens, these dinky little Soviet era places that our rooms are literally called cells.
They're like, you're gonna be in cell A, room B, and you're like, why am I gonna be in a cell?
To even sitting in the classroom watching somebody make coffee in their little like French press with
their little thermos of water because no coffee is good enough for them unless it's from their home
country. The people are the connection point and Rotary has the people. We just have to build
the connections. And then there's food.
And I know everyone loves a good food, right? We're getting ready for Thanksgiving, the best holiday
of the year for food at least. Food is the ultimate equalizer. Food is a great way to connect with others.
For example, I spent winter, Christmas specifically of 2023 in Finland with one of my friends from my
exchange and I got to the door
They picked me up from the train station. We got to the front door and they're like, oh, by the way,
they only found out a week ago you were a girl. I was like, what? Why would you do this to me?
They're like, well, I introduce all of my friends by the country they're from because we have friends
from France and Brazil. We have friends from Taiwan and the US. So you were just my American friend.
It's like next time you should probably give them a little bit more notice, just a bit.
But while there, they taught me how to make Karelian pies, which is actually a Finnish Russian dish
that's from the about as far east as you can go in Finland. And that's right here. There are these weird
looking ovals and it is a rye flatbread crepe that is filled with rice porridge and baked. And then
it is topped with egg butter. And you look at me and go, egg butter? Hard boiled eggs that are mashed
with almost an equal parts butter
so that it melts over the top of the fresh made pies. Sounds a little strange to us, but it's delicious.
I got to go to a Nepalese restaurant with my classmate from Nepal who did all of the ordering. He taught
me how to eat. And I say taught me how to eat because I mastered chopsticks while I was an exchange
student. I never did have to learn how to eat with my hands. And he goes, I want everyone to try it once.
So I start to go and he goes, no, no, no, not your left hand, but I'm left-handed. No, no, no, your
left hand is dirty. Use your right. Like I'm not coordinated with my right hand. I'm going to end up
with food all over me. Or my Afghani classmate who went home for the summer to Kabul and almost couldn't
make it back. But when he came to Italy, he brought us a box of homemade treats that his mom and his
sisters had made at one of the local bakeries.
I got to try arepas and pupusas in different styles. I saw that back there, Whitney. My classmate from
Venezuela made several and we learned about the differences between pupusas from El Salvador versus
arepas from Columbia and Venezuela and how they're made and the differences in styles. I even made Christmas
dinner in Italy for my Iranian roommate.
Christmas dinner with an Iranian is a very interesting tradition because she had no concept of what
to expect. So I got to do whatever I wanted. I tried to make it a little traditional, a little unique,
and also based off of what I could access. So I made gochujang roasted chicken. I made garlic green
beans and risotto because we're in Northern Italy, of course, you have to.
I made Hasselback sweet potatoes and Parmesan crusted Brussels sprouts. And then I was so tired of cooking
that I just said, screw it and made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. But it's not just the foods that
you eat because the foods that you eat are important. They tell stories. They tell histories. My classmate
from South Africa made us buddy chow, which is
wild to hear the name of, but Bunny Chow was actually brought to South Africa mixing South Asian traditions,
curries, and foods with what was available in South Africa as people who were between classes during
apartheid. So as we eat this food, which is basically curry stuffed inside of a bread roll,
We're talking about these things like colonial legacies. We're talking about racism. We're talking about
religion and government. We're talking about migration and mobility. We used food as a tool to connect
with others, to talk about difficult conversations that make many people uncomfortable. And it didn't
mean that people weren't uncomfortable, but it meant that we were still having the discussion and we
were eating good food while doing it. And so you can't really yell at anyone with a mouthful of something
delicious.
And we did it in groups and one-on-one, chai with my South Asian classmates. They brought two or three
pound bags home with them whenever they went home, and it lasted them two months. And during those two
months, they would invite everybody, 4 PM. I was like, I can't drink that much caffeine. And they were
like, you will drink this much caffeine. It's like, OK, great, cool. I'll drink that much caffeine.
But we would talk about things like religion and governance. We'd talk about militaries and corruption.
I learned that classrooms, while wonderful for learning theories and concepts, can sometimes limit what
people are comfortable saying. Because what can't you say over a good meal? Isn't that why holidays
in the US are known to be so contentious? I feel like it may be, because people are more open when they're
talking through food.
whether it's about the food or the ways we get the food. Food is truly the ultimate equalizer. So if
you take nothing else away from anything that I've told you, I hope you know that as Rotarians, the
things that I have learned on this wonderful journey, this wonderful masters that you have helped me
achieve, the three things that I hope that you actually are able to use, whether here in your own communities
or traveling,
is that being uncomfortable is okay. Discomfort is a teacher and you don't have to like the things you
learn, but you should appreciate them. And that dialogue is important because in order to be peaceful,
in order to achieve resilient societies, we have to be able to communicate. And debating people doesn't
make communication possible. Communication requires connection. So have a dialogue.
You don't have to talk about something you don't agree on somebody with and you already know. But if
you're willing to be open and understanding, if you're willing to learn why they think what they think,
and you're willing to acknowledge that sometimes you're not going to agree, you'll discover you might
agree on more than you think. And the last is that if you're not ready for those difficult conversations,
use food, because it truly is the ultimate equalizer. Now, that's all I really had for you today.
but I would love to answer any questions about anything from my scholarship to my time in Rotary to
my degree or what I learned. But I hope that this was an interesting and entertaining presentation for
all of you to learn about why I think this program is so important and how what I learned is applicable
to you as Rotarian. Thank you.
I enjoyed your talk, and I had a question. When you were taking classes, for instance, in the Czech
Republic, in what language were those classes taught? Thank goodness they were in English. Czech is
about the hardest language I've ever had to learn, and I've studied both Mandarin and Portuguese, so
about as different as it gets. Czech is a very challenging language. I have been trying to pick it up.
I picked up more Italian and French than I did Czech. But yes, all of my classes were taught in English, and then
outside the classroom, we spoke in a very interesting hodgepodge of languages. Oftentimes, it was whatever
people taught others. We did a little bit better than my exchange. I think on my exchange, I almost
exclusively learned curse words. They love making you say something embarrassing to adults. So like,
I think we outgrew that a little bit, so I at least learned something that was outside of that, but
we definitely did most of our communication in English, and I recognized that I had a privilege with
that because it is my first language. So when I was searching for words, when I was trying to figure
out how to express my opinions, I recognized that I had a benefit that my classmates did not.
Thank you, Megan. Welcome back. I remember the last time I saw you, you had just received the scholarship
and I can see how transformative that experience was for you. So I'm very happy to hear that. I'm curious
about what are your next steps professionally? So you told us about how these experiences shape you
personally, but I'm wondering with the skillset that you acquire and those lead experiences with people
from different backgrounds,
How do you think that's going to change how you see yourself professionally from here on? I will admit
it has made my professional journey much more difficult because I am much more discerning than I think
I would have been previously on the types of companies that I'm willing to apply to and the types of
organizations I want to work with.
I appreciate everything that international organizations can do, and I see the benefit. But I have also
seen the downsides. I've seen the negatives. I've heard my classmates talk about how Egypt, which is
a country that has a relatively robust economy, is one of the most in-debt countries in the world because
of the IMF.
And when you learn about these things as part of your class, you obviously take it home into your personal
beliefs and your views. And so I have been actually job hunting, and I recognize that it's a wild job
market right now, if any of you have seen globally, not just in the US. But I am also very, very much
looking into the backgrounds of the companies that I'm applying to, which has made my job hunt.
probably say a little bit more challenging. I do see myself hopefully working on policy and research.
I would like to be more behind the scenes rather than out in front. I've realized that I wanna be the
people, one of the people talking to others and understanding how it works rather than arguing with
others about how to get the funding to make it happen. I would rather look into the backgrounds and
do the research and make the foundation of what is possible
so that the next people can take it and they can fight out how to pay for it. This is a softball. Please
stand over there and give us a full spin. I am just loving this swag, man. Thank you, Meg. So this is
my Rotary Youth Exchange Blazer. And for those of you who have not interacted with an exchange student,
at the beginning of your year, you are given an empty blazer.
and you are encouraged to trade pins and mementos with the people you meet, whether exchange students
or rotarians or otherwise, and you add them to your blazer. And then you are expected to wear it to
and from your exchange and on the airplane. Let me tell you, going is not that bad, but this is really
heavy. I pull this out for rotary events because it's a really cool way to show rotarians like, Hey,
This is something that I got to do because of Rotary and it makes you ask questions. I always get one.
But I will say that getting this through TSA is always a little bit of a question mark because they
always have to find someone who's been around long enough to have met a youth exchange student and go,
oh yeah, no, that's actually a thing. And not just like a weird thing full of pointy metal pieces.
So Megan, I'm going to ask you, I'm sure you had a lot of great classmates that you spent time with,
but were there some that stood out that were people that you'll go to their country and lifelong friends
and you'll be with them and a couple of those that you're just like, they were great and I want to do
more and see more and be more with them kind of thing? Oh, 100%. So it's very interesting actually,
because with 22 people, you would think that we're small enough that you get to know everybody. You
don't really have a choice. And especially the first
The first semester we all lived in the dorms together. So we were all within like three buildings of
each other. So we were hanging out all the time. But I became particularly close to my classmates from
Nepal, my classmates from Pakistan and my classmates from Brazil, as well as Egypt and Italy.
So my classmate from Egypt is actually back in the Czech Republic. She just got a job there and she
has been texting me literally for the last two days, nonstop being like, Hey, when are you coming back?
Because I'm lonely. My classmate from Nepal is actually in France right now. Their mother is a diplomat,
which is a very interesting context to come into a master's like global development policy, because
we got to hear a very unique perspective from him.
And he was also a wonderful resource for me in understanding the role of dialogue and media. And we
have stayed in very close contact because his country, if you don't know anything about world affairs,
went through a recent series of protests and government overture. And it was very interesting to talk
to him and his family who's there versus our experience reading headlines
and news stories and what was reality versus what was perceived and how it was communicated. And then
my classmate from Pakistan is one of the people I took the longest to warm up to, and yet I think we
are probably some of the closest in the cohort. Him and my classmate from Brazil, her name is Larissa,
and she's getting ready to start a PhD in education policy. And the two of them were
absolutely instrumental for me both personally and education wise because Larissa helped me pass all
of my statistics courses. I am not a math person. For those of you who don't know me, my background
is pretty heavily like social sciences and doing statistics and R and microeconomics was one of the
hardest things I've ever done in my life. And I cried through quite a number of those lectures.
So they both helped me academically, and then they are some of the nicest people I've ever met, and
I truly do believe that I will stay in close contact with all of them. Thank you very much. I'm complicated
and interested if you want to ramp the homeless even, but I'm sure you're good at that, but you're really
good at out front as well.
I'd like to thank today's volunteers, John Hobson, Lynn Schwarzberg, Michael Schermes, and a couple
of others. Leslie Vasenco, Martha Wales, Marilyn Wood, Dave Meyer. Actually, Tracy Yovanovich filled
in for Dave Meyer today. Sarah Laughlin, also want to recognize our Zoom and audio producer, Tyler Martin Nichols,
Our next regular meeting will be on December 2nd here in the Georgian room. Alan Boyd and Carlos Laverde
will speak about the future of the Monroe County Airport. And happy Thanksgiving. And Tyler, if you
would please share the graphic for the four-way test. Please stand if you're able and join me. Of the
things we think, say, or do, first, is it the truth? Second, is it fair to all concerned?
Third will build goodwill and better friendships. Fourth will be beneficial to all concerned. And fifth,
is it fun?