Exchange student makes return trip to Portales

If one happened to be in the United States for a conference in Florida - an 8,000-mile journey from one's home in New Zealand, why on earth would one not consider a quick side trip to Portales?

Happily, our friend Mandy Welch did just that last weekend, making a quick return visit to the community where she spent a year of her life as an international Rotary exchange student almost 40 years ago.

"I've still got my Ram band jacket - I wore it for years," she reminisced, digging into a long-awaited peanut butter milkshake while we were parked at Pat's Twin Cronnie in Portales with Mandy's longtime friend and former Portales High School track coach Barbara George.

"Oh, this is soooo good," she said with the first spoonful.

Mandy (because it's impossible to call my adopted sister by her last name, as newspaper style would dictate) arrived at the Albuquerque airport during a blizzard in January of 1980.

It was mid-summer in the southern hemisphere, mind you, and Mandy had been assured by the United States embassy there that, while they weren't certain Portales existed, New Mexico was in the desert and it was warm there year-round.

She traveled in a sundress and - you can probably already guess this part - her luggage was lost along the way.

In an era before cell phones, nobody was able to alert her that the Rotarian scheduled to pick her up from Portales was unable to make the trip because of the weather.

Another Rotary exchange student Mandy met in the airport - a boy from Brazil - was similarly stranded, but "he didn't speak English and I didn't speak Portuguese," she said.

Both were eventually rescued and Mandy spent a few days in Albuquerque before coming to Portales where she joined the PHS class of 1980 for its last semester, a whirlwind of activity that included band, choir, Maypole, prom, and graduation.

"I loved running track with Barbara George," Mandy said. "I remember doing the audition for choir ... people were so kind. I can't read music, so why they let me in a choir, I had no idea."

She twirled a rifle and waved a flag for the Ram band - "Imagine being in a band and I can't play an instrument," she said - and loved the experience of riding an activity bus to games and track meets.

"I enjoyed going away in a bus - we didn't do that in New Zealand," she said. "Our parents would drop us at events. I loved sitting in the back of the bus listening to the girls. They would bring things to shock me ... like cheese in a can ... and I was shocked."

Coming from a country where students wear uniforms to school was quite a change for her as well.

"I remember the time it took girls to get ready to go to school," she said with a laugh.

Using the word "mufti," a New Zealand expression that means wearing clothing that is not a uniform, Mandy said, "At home, we had mufti days for fundraisers - you could pay and wear what you wanted. Here, every day is mufti day."

Although this was Mandy's third visit back to Portales since she was a student here, it's been 19 years since the last time, and there were many changes: A new football stadium, the loss of favorite haunts like the Hacienda Restaurant and Tastee-Freez, and the addition of fences and locked gates at her old high school.

"I found that really scary," she said after we stopped by PHS for some photos. "If I had seen that as an exchange student, I would have been terrified. It would make me think an attack was imminent."

Her year here was a life-changing experience.

The international exchange program gave her "tolerance for different ways of thinking," she said, noting that she learned to "really listen and think before responding."

"It exposes you to a whole range of different ways people are brought up, and teaches respect for different people," Mandy said, leaving her with what she wryly calls "complete intolerance for intolerance."

Her favorite memories include:

• "Rotary - the friendship of all of those men and their families,"

• "The flatness ... there is nowhere like this in New Zealand ... you will always see a mountain and a lake ... we see water everywhere,"

• and, of course, Mexican food.

"I came home with a love of Mexican food," she said. "I can't explain the smell (of walking into a local Mexican restaurant.) It took me back 40 years. We eat Mexican a lot, but we don't get that smell ... maybe it's the green chile."

Betty Williamson loves a good reunion, especially if it involves peanut butter milkshakes and green chile. Reach her at:

pepnm@ho\tmail.com