When I was eleven years old I became interested in knowing people around the world. I thought the best way to do this would be to find a pen pal. At that time I was reading teen magazines and in one issue I found an advertisement for a pen pal match-up. I was so excited. I filled out the form and soon had my very first pen pal. Her name was Jessica and she lived in West Virginia. However, I really wanted to write to young girls overseas even more. In another issue of that same magazine I saw another advertisement, but this one was for pen pals all over the world. After sending in this application, I soon had pen pals in Sweden, Switzerland, New Zealand, and what were then East and West Germany. When I started writing to pen pals in other nations, I never could have imagined what I would learn. I had a great interest in cultures and wanted to see what life was like for teenagers around the world. It was amazing to see how different life was like in these far off countries. School wasn't even set up the same way. All the young girls I wrote to were my age, but they were already writing English, whereas, I had only begun to learn Spanish. More than anything though, the most important experiences I had were the lessons in history that one could not learn in a classroom. I lived through the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany with my friends who were now considered just Germans, and no longer East or West Germans. I heard personal accounts of the war in the ex-Yugoslavia, and was told of the terrible atrocities committed in Croatia and Bosnia during this horrible time. I experienced the excitement of the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe with my friends living in Romania and Bulgaria at the time. However, while we all rejoiced over Communism being toppled, they struggled to survive, waiting for hours on line just to get a small loaf of bread. I learned so much that can't be learned in a textbook, and not only did I learn these things, I also felt them along with my friends. Now, I am 35 years old, and I still love learning about cultures. I have taken the time to travel abroad and have even met some of my current pen pals. I no longer write to most of those I wrote when I was young, but I have new pen pals who I write to now and even with my difficult schedule I try to keep in touch as much as I can. Having faraway friends has changed my life and how I view events in our world. I want to see peace, I want to see an end to poverty, and I want to see a change for the better in our world. I just received a letter from my friend in Japan saying that she and her family are fine and were not effected by the tsunami and earthquake. I thank God for that. My experience writing to friends abroad changed my life and I continue to long for more experiences like these.
Vocabulay
1. pen pal- a person who writes letters to another person
2.advertisement- a picture or article talking about something you can buy or apply for
3.excited- to be very happy
4.nations- countries
5. amazing- exciting, new, something you can't believe
6. reunification- to bring back together
7. accounts- stories
8. atrocities- horrors, bad/terrible things
9. horrible- very bad, terrible
10. rejoiced- to be happy over
11. toppled- to fall down
12. struggled- to have a hard time with
Activity:
Fill in the blank using the words in the vocabulary list above.
1. No one could believe the ____________________ told by the Japanese people about the tsunami and earthquake in their country.
2. She went to the post office to mail the letter she had written to her new ________________.
3. She had a great time traveling to Sweden. The trip was the __________________ adventure she had ever been on.
4. When learning about the Holocaust, she couldn't believe the _______________________ that occurred in the concentration camps.
5. Sarah and her family ________________________ over the birth of her new baby girl.
6. She saw an __________________________ in the magazine for a toy that she just had to have.
7. The situation in Eastern Europe was very bad when Communism was finally ___________________.
8. Living in poor city she ___________________________ to feed her family each day.
9. The German people waited many years for the _______________________ that would bring their country back together.
10. She wanted to bring the message of peace to all the _______________________.
11. When she fell off her bike she felt __________________________ pain in her knee.
12. She was so __________________ when she learned she had passed her English exam.
Grammar Point:
When writing sentences or a paragraph we can make them more interesting by adding descriptive words to our sentences. For example, in the paragraph above, I described my schedule as difficult and the atrocities in Bosnia and Croatia as terrible. Adding descriptive words, or adjectives to a paragraph helps the reader to see exactly what you are trying to show them. It makes the story more realistic and more exciting for the reader.
Activity:
Please write a paragraph about something that you have experienced in the history of your nation, either first hand, or through someone else's experiences, using descriptive words throughout the paragraph. The paragraph should contain at least 8 sentences.
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