By Sarah Mae Selnick ’13, Contributor

????? (Greece)

When I first read the itinerary for the American Farm School’s Greek summer program, I thought nothing could sound more awful. The schedule gave me the idea that I would be spending my summer planting corn, feeding cows, and cementing roads; not exactly my cup of tea. Due to a family legacy that I had to uphold, I was forced onto a plane with 23 strangers whom I would be spending the next 5 weeks with.

Although I did my

fair share of laying cement, hauling rocks, and scrubbing graffiti off of walls, I loved every minute of the physical labor portion. Don’t get me wrong; it wasn’t easy. But misery loves company and I quickly became best friends with the 23 strangers working alongside me.

During the first two weeks, we each had a Greek family whom we lived with. My family spoke Greek and Italian, two languages that went right over my head. I picked up a few basic words that for the most part got my point across: Hello, Goodbye, Good morning, yes, and no. All other conversations with my family were mostly made up of sign language or help from the English-speaking neighbor.

The village stay was the most eye-opening portion of the trip in regards to Greek culture. I wasn’t prepared for the Greek’s love of frappes, siestas, and above all, food. The Greek consume 3 things in bulk: Feta, Olivia Oil, and Greek salad. They also never skimp on portion size and refusing their food is viewed as a very high offense. We were all helpless to the overload of dolmathes, spanakopita, and tzatziki that were being served to us by our overly generous babushkas.
My trip to Greece was filled with exhausting community service, a sometimes-awkward language barrier, and over-eating to sickening amounts. This all sounds bad, but the fun was in getting to be a part of the Greek culture instead of just learning about it from a textbook.

Being an active member in a village of only 500 makes you aware of how different people’s lives are in a place that’s 6,000 miles away from your own home. Although it sounded bad at first, going to Greece was the best experience I could have had this summer and was much more memorable than my original plans of sleeping in and sitting by the pool all summer.