Hellgate High student to spend senior year studying Arabic in Morocco
By Betsy Cohen | missoulian.com, August 14, 2013
Source: http://bit.ly/14XpXQE
Kalyn Campbell can't wait for summer to end and her senior year of high school to begin.
She's enjoyed her lifeguarding job and hanging out with her friends, but since May she's been waiting for September.
After she and her father Alan take a quick tour of colleges in Washington, D.C., next week, the 17-year-old leaves for Morocco, where she will live and study Arabic for nine months on an all-expenses-paid scholarship from the U.S. Department of State.
"I'm so excited," Campbell said as she thumbed through a well-read Arabic textbook she has used to study the language at Hellgate High School since she was a freshman.
"I have always loved languages, and I always have known I would study abroad, but I never thought it would be in Morocco," she said.
"It's exciting and a little bit intimidating to pack up your life for something totally foreign and alien. But it's beautiful, too. That's the life as an exchange student – everything is an adventure. Everything from turning on the shower to learning how to ride a moped through twisting streets and lots of traffic."
Campbell is one of 10 students chosen for the immersion education in Morocco, and one of a total 625 students who are participating in the State Department's National Security Language Initiative for Youth in more than 10 countries around the world.
The program, which is a part of a 2006 presidential initiative to prepare American citizens to be leaders in the global world, sponsors immersions in countries with languages that are less commonly taught in the United States.
This coming academic year, high school students will be in countries where they will learn Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Persian, Russian and Turkish.
Having spent six weeks in Morocco during a State Department summer program last year, the Hellgate honors student said she is thrilled to return for the nine-month academic year.
Although she doesn't yet know her host family, she has a good idea of what the year will bring.
"The culture is very friendly and welcoming, and it's the kind of place where people take you in as a total stranger," she said. "It's not uncommon when you go to the market and buy something, after you haggle a bit over the price, the shop owner will invite you upstairs to meet the family and to sit down for a cup of tea.
"That never ceases to amaze me."
Morocco is the westernmost country in North Africa. It is 98 percent Muslim, and is geographically diverse, with a coastal climate along the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. To the south is the Sahara Desert, and the interior of the country has rugged mountains that remind Campbell of Montana.
Last year, Campbell lived and studied in the country's capital and most sophisticated city, Rabat, but on her upcoming trip she will live and study in Marrakech until she comes home in May.
"I'll become a local, basically, and that's the experience I'm looking for," Campbell said. "There will be hardly any English spoken, which forces you to become fluent in the language, and I'm so excited to be there long enough to see the culture from an insider's perspective."
Campbell and the nine other scholarship students will attend the same school five days a week, where they will study Arabic and take cultural classes to learn things like cooking, woodworking and belly-dancing.
The program also has a community service component, and Campbell is excited about the notion of teaching English to Moroccan teenagers.
"I can't wait," Campbell said. "This is such an amazing opportunity and I am so grateful for this experience."
Alan Campbell is proud of his daughter and is excited to send her off on this next journey, even though her absence at home will be difficult.
"You spend your whole time raising your kids to be independent and adventurous, and when they are actually that way it's hard to say no," he said. "We are excited for her, and we are thrilled she has this opportunity, but it will a big adjustment at home."
Alan is also appreciative that Hellgate has been flexible enough to allow his daughter this experience and that the school has introduced her to Arabic with supportive and inspiring native speakers.
If it works out, Alan, his wife Connie, and son Brendan will visit Campbell sometime during the nine months she is in Morocco.
"It would be really fun to be able to see the places she has seen every day and get a chance to meet her host family," he said.
Campbell said she knows senior year at Hellgate would be filled with special moments, but she has an insatiable desire to explore the world.
"I'm not one to do things in a conventional way," she said. "I had my three years of high school, which were wonderful, but I'm ready for something new.
"The world is a big place and I want to go see it."
