|
|
|
For two foreign exchange students attending high school in Andover, the experience is not completely foreign.
Brazilians Renan Santos and Fernando Duarte live within a two to three hour drive from each other at opposite ends in the state of Sao Paulo in Brazil. Now, the 16-year-olds are both living with host families and attending high school in Andover, albeit not the same one.
Duarte lives at the home of Fernando and Vilma Tolede and attends Andover High School. Santos’s host parents are John and Michelle Peckham. He attends Andover Central High School. They are officially seniors at their respective high schools and will graduate with their classes here, but will have six more months of high school when they return to Brazil.
“You beat us in football and basketball,” Duarte said to Santos as they lounged in the basement of Duarte’s host parents’ home in east Wichita.
The losses have in no way dampened Duarte’s school spirit, though. He’s an Andover Trojan all the way, proudly showing off his blue Andover High School T-shirt. Santos was hanging out at Duarte’s home, having just gotten out of bowling practice at North Rock Lanes in Wichita with the Andover Central High School bowling team.
Santos and Duarte initially met not in Brazil, but in Orlando, Fla. and became acquainted with each other while taking a trip to Disney World. They were taking part in an excursion for teenagers, sponsored by a travel company and supervised by adults.
Santos arrived with his group of friends, and Duarte, with his companions. Between the two, however, there was a mutual friend, and it didn’t take long before the two groups merged and started hanging out together. Duarte recalled how Santos slipped away from his own crowd and practically moved into a hotel room with the other group of kids.
“They had a Play Station 3,” Santos said.
At the time, they casually mentioned to each other that they might spend a year in the United States through a foreign exchange student program. Neither had any idea that they would both be in Kansas. Or Andover.
Such a coincidence was unlikely. There are thousands of foreign exchange students living in cities and small towns throughout the United States.
Yet, just before leaving for the United States, the boys found out that they would be living in Andover, Kan., near Wichita. Duarte recalled telling a friend on Facebook of his plans and she informed him that Santos would be here as well.
For two foreign exchange students attending high school in Andover, the experience is not completely foreign.
Brazilians Renan Santos and Fernando Duarte live within a two to three hour drive from each other at opposite ends in the state of Sao Paulo in Brazil. Now, the 16-year-olds are both living with host families and attending high school in Andover, albeit not the same one.
Duarte lives at the home of Fernando and Vilma Tolede and attends Andover High School. Santos’s host parents are John and Michelle Peckham. He attends Andover Central High School. They are officially seniors at their respective high schools and will graduate with their classes here, but will have six more months of high school when they return to Brazil.
“You beat us in football and basketball,” Duarte said to Santos as they lounged in the basement of Duarte’s host parents’ home in east Wichita.
The losses have in no way dampened Duarte’s school spirit, though. He’s an Andover Trojan all the way, proudly showing off his blue Andover High School T-shirt. Santos was hanging out at Duarte’s home, having just gotten out of bowling practice at North Rock Lanes in Wichita with the Andover Central High School bowling team.
Santos and Duarte initially met not in Brazil, but in Orlando, Fla. and became acquainted with each other while taking a trip to Disney World. They were taking part in an excursion for teenagers, sponsored by a travel company and supervised by adults.
Santos arrived with his group of friends, and Duarte, with his companions. Between the two, however, there was a mutual friend, and it didn’t take long before the two groups merged and started hanging out together. Duarte recalled how Santos slipped away from his own crowd and practically moved into a hotel room with the other group of kids.
“They had a Play Station 3,” Santos said.
At the time, they casually mentioned to each other that they might spend a year in the United States through a foreign exchange student program. Neither had any idea that they would both be in Kansas. Or Andover.
Such a coincidence was unlikely. There are thousands of foreign exchange students living in cities and small towns throughout the United States.
Yet, just before leaving for the United States, the boys found out that they would be living in Andover, Kan., near Wichita. Duarte recalled telling a friend on Facebook of his plans and she informed him that Santos would be here as well.
Initially, the boys thought they would be going to the same school. Going to different schools, making different sets of friends and pursuing their own individual interests, the two don’t regularly hang out together.
Duarte has helped build the sets and had small roles in plays with Andover High School. He marvels at the way the AHS theater department built the set for its production of “Little Shop of Horrors.”
“My school, my country would never do that,” he said.
Santos played for Andover Central’s soccer team, which was a bit of a challenge. In Brazil, he had only played soccer (called football there) indoors in an area the length of a basketball court. He had to get used to playing on an outdoor field and had to strive hard, but eventually earned a varsity position.
“I was working for that,” he said. My (host) family kept saying ‘you’ll get it.’”
Duarte was quick to correct anyone who thought, because he was Brazilian, he would make a good soccer player.
“I’m the only Brazilian who doesn’t play soccer,” he said, self-deprecatingly.
One experience the two have in common, new to both of them, is that with their host families, they have siblings. Durate talked about how his host brother had introduced him to his group of friends. Santos said, “When I was an only child I never had anything to do. Now I always have someone to talk to.”
Cheryl Hadley, Regional Director with the AYUSA Global Youth Exchange, the organization that arranged for Santos’s stay in the United States, said Kansas is not usually an exchange student’s first choice when coming to this country. When the boys heard they would be living around an urban area with a mall, however, they were happy.
The boys, whom she describes as “personable” are captivated by what they observe in the United States and both buy into the idea of living the American dream. Both are considering attending college in this country.
For Santos, seeing the first snow of his life captured the newness and excitement of America. He talked about going snowboarding when the Peckhams took a recent get-away to a ski resort in Winter Park, Colo.
Duarte said he likes the energetic pace and friendliness of Americans, specifically Kansans.
“We hear stories about Kansas,” he said. “They say Americans are really cold and you have to try hard to make friends. It’s not true, not in Kansas. The social experience here is so much better. You can meet so many different people – ah, I love it.”
For more information on AYUSA Global Youth Exchange, contact Cheryl Hadley at (316) 214-3345 or email her at hadgroup@aol.com. You may also visit the website at www.Ayusa.org.
