Although it has been several months since returning home from studying abroad in India, Garfield alum Owen Bass said he will always carry a piece of the country within him. The 2024 graduate recently participated in the Garrettsville-Hiram Rotary Club’s Exchange Student Program, spending a year in India.
“It changed my perception of the world,” Bass told The Weekly Villager. “It was very life changing. I really valued the Rotary Exchange Program and its mission, and I am really grateful to all of the people that were able to make this happen for me in America and in India. It is a really great organization; I am really grateful to Rotary for allowing me to do this.”
As the Weekly Villager previously reported, the G-H Rotary selected Bass to represent Garrettsville as a part of the Rotary District 6630 Youth Exchange Program, where he would spend the year with an Indian family and attend an Indian High School. He returned from his trip on May 20 but had plenty of stories to tell about his time overseas.
According to Bass, he lived with three different host families over the year in three different states. He first lived with a family in the State of Gujarat, another family in Rajasthan and one in New Delhi, the Capital of India.
“I would say that the food was very different between each host family,” Bass added. “They just ate different types of food depending on where they were from. Their English was also very different — varying levels — they spoke different languages also and different dialects from India. They all spoke different dialects.”
Bass said that he also cooked some American dishes for each of his host families, noting that food was a great way for him and his host families to exchange their different philosophies.
In addition to spending time with three different host families, Bass attended an Indian High School where he took basic classes as a full-time student six days a week. He acknowledged that it took time to adjust to being the new kid on campus, but he was not the only exchange student there, as there two other students on an exchange program, one from Germany and another from France.
“If they were not there, it would have been much more difficult and I don’t know if I would have made it through, but we were feeling the same thing,” he said. “We experienced everything the same way, so it was really nice to be friends with them the whole time.”
During his time there, Bass sent monthly reports to the Rotary District 6630 Youth Exchange Program, chronicling his experiences.
Bass said that he also frequently shared American culture and philosophies with his fellow students, by showing them videos and pictures of his hometown of Garrettsville.
“That was quite fun, so they actually got to see where I live and what it looks like,” he noted. “There were a lot of different and uncomfortable questions I was asked about politics and stuff like that, but I enjoyed sharing between us how they see America and how we see India and the relationship there.”
Bass said that in his spare time he frequently did yoga, took art classes and Hindi classes.
He emphasized that one of his favorite experiences during his time abroad was celebrating the different festivals. Although the Indian culture does not celebrate Halloween, Christmas or Easter, they had other holidays that were all celebrated by festivals.
Bass said that he celebrated five festivals, including Diwali, Holi, Ganesh Chaturthi, and Navrati.
Bass also said he learned about the clothing that the Indian culture required for daily use.
“I thought because it would be so hot there that I brought a bunch of shorts, but shorts were very much a faux pas there, so I had to buy a few pairs of lightweight pants,” he said. “I came in the end of the of Autumn time but near the end of my year, it started to get really hot like 100 degrees, so I bought a bunch of lightweight cotton clothes that were breathable, and I also bought a lot of traditional clothes they don’t wear every day.”
Since returning to the United States, Bass has attended several G-H Rotary Club meetings to describe his experiences abroad. After taking the summer off to relax, Bass said that he plans to start his collegiate studies by attending the University of Akron to pursue a double major in Political Science and Global Cities with plans to pursue a career in International Affairs.
