Community Corner

Views from McLean Change From Afar

The view from Brazil

Carlyle Howard, a McLean resident and McLean High School student, is spending a year in Brazil.

By Carlyle Howard

The third week in February my mom  came to visit me from the U.S.! It was amazing to see her again. Being 16 or 17 and not seeing your parents for a whole year kind of sucks. I mean, my friends know it is hard but they really have no idea what it is like, the longest they've been away from their parents is maybe a week or two.

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Living  here has made me look at things in such a different way. I always thought that I was cultured and well-traveled. I lived in Chile for four  years, but I really don't remember anything at all from living there.

I have lived in a different world for my entire life. Even though McLean is very close to Washington, it's an extremely isolated community, and there are many people there, mostly teenagers who have NO idea what the rest of the world is like. Sure, I, and other people in McLean have spent summers in Europe and traveled around Asia and the Middle East, so I thought I had a good perception of the outside world.

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That's the thing about being a tourist. You’re only there for a few weeks at the most, you don't get to know the people, the language, the culture. You just go around with your camera at the big touristic sites. I'm not trying to criticize at all, of course being a tourist is fun and you get to see amazing things, but that is just a completely different story, because you get to go back home to McLean to your big house and your nice comfy bed and watch TV.

Well, I can't do that! And you know what the weirdest thing is? I don't want to. Living in a "developing country" for a year, almost on your own, is an entirely different story. It's not a place where you can get everything you want, or even half of the things that you want, but it is still an amazing and fun place to live. I just don't care about the things that I used to care about before I came here. And I'm so happy that I don't. I hope that when I get home, I can make some of the people around me a little more conscious of what is going on in the rest of the world, and that even though McLean is a great and safe place to live, it is not a normal place to live, and there are more important things beyond the Tyson’s Corner skyline.

Back to my mom’s visit. Anyway, we spent three  days in Porto Alegre, and toured on our own. We had two  nights which both times we went out to really cool restaurants/clubs. Maybe before I came to Brazil I would've been embarrassed to go out to a club with my mom, but now I just really don't care and we had so much fun! Then we spent 3 days in my town, where I took her around and introduced her to all of my friends and my host families. Literally everyone wanted to meet her and loved her! When she left, it was hard, but I knew I would see her in a few months, so it was ok.

So now, I CANNOT believe that it is March. I only have three months left here. Every time I think about leaving here I either get really close to tears, or actually cry. And I've only cried once this entire time of homesickness. I think that I only have three months left here and I think about how much more I still have left to do. I feel like this is my life now and Mclean is a distant memory.

Crazy. On Monday I started college classes, which are a few days a week at 7 pm. I get to sleep in every day :) Going back to high school when I get back and waking up at 6 am everyday is going to be really hard. There's no other word to describe how terrible that is going to be for me. ugh. In college here, I'm doing publicity, which is really cool. I get to do stuff with the newspaper and the news show and everything. I also have really good friends in the class which is great.

Saturday is Carnaval, the huge Samba festival that is a national holiday about a week long. It is CRAZY. From what I've heard, basically everyone goes to the beach, parties in the streets and never stops until the week is over .There are huge parades in the streets with samba dancers in huge colorful costumes, and big floats. I'm so excited!!! I'll write after Carnaval.


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