Living away from home and attending school in a new place is often an experience young people experience for the first time in college. Four students attending San Lorenzo Valley High School, however, are a little bit ahead of the curve.
Felipe Moreno, Annie Gleim, Angie Burgler and Andrea Breili are all from different countries and backgrounds, but they share a desire to experience American culture firsthand.
Foreign exchange students come to the United States from a variety of international programs and are assigned to an area based largely upon the availability of host families, SLV High School guidance counselor Noreen Nolan said.
Burgler, 17, of Lucerne, Switzerland, is living at the home of her host parent, Darlene Peterson. Peterson heard about the opportunity to host a student through her involvement with Girl Scouts of America.
Peterson said she’d received an e-mail from the Girl Scouts office, explaining that host parents were needed, or else Burgler would not be able to study in the U.S.
Having hosted exchange students only once before for a two-week period, Peterson “just decided to go for it” when given the opportunity to host a teenager for a full year.
“It’s been a wonderful thing,” Peterson said. “My two girls have gotten a sort of big sister.”
Burgler also shares her culture with her host family.
“Sometimes I cook for them and teach them some German,” she said.
Moreno hails from Bogota, Colombia.
“I wanted to experience real American culture,” the 17-year-old said. “But I also wanted to try and change the image Colombia has. It’s not all drugs and violence.”
Breili just wanted to live in America for a while.
“I wanted to come here and be a part of American society,” said Breili, 17, of Tonsberg, Norway. “I wanted to experience American culture and learn more of the language.”
The teens agreed that, aside from slang words, there is not much in the way of a language barrier between them and their fellow SLV students. All four had received several years of English instruction as a requirement at the schools in their respective countries.
“People will say ‘How are you?’ as a greeting and expect you to say a one-word reply, ‘Good,’” Breili said. “At first, when people would say to me ‘How are you?’ I was telling them all about how I was doing. Now, I just say ‘Good.’”
American high school life, as it turned out, was somewhat different than they expected.
“I was expecting a big cafeteria and lots of lockers in the hallways,” said Gleim, 16, whose family lives in a village of 800 in Germany.
Gleim had originally planned to study in South Africa, but she switched to the U.S. at her parents’ request.
“I didn’t expect everyone to be so nice. People are really open — it’s really positive,” she said.
Travel is also a change for the newcomers to the San Lorenzo Valley.
“I was surprised at how much you need a car to exist here,” Burgler said. “Where I live, I can get on public transportation and go anywhere, and it’s much harder to do that here.”
The students will spend a full school year at SLV High, from July to June, experiencing high school life in California while studying alongside their American counterparts.
While they attend the high school, foreign exchange students are considered honorary seniors, Nolan said.
“We try and have it so they can take some U.S. history classes and some government classes, so they can learn more about how the country works,” Nolan said.
At the end of the year, each exchange student walks with the graduating class, receives an honorary diploma and may attend senior functions, such as the senior class trip and graduation night celebration.
