Exchange Students Experience America

by Ludo Gioacchini

People have begun to notice five unknown people move around during the first day of school. Eudora High School will host five foreign exchange students. These students moved from their countries to come here and join the typical American lifestyle. They have come from all over the world.

First, we have Janek Margardt from Germany. Joining us next is Sirarat Chaisumritchoke, know better for most, “Bonus” from Thailand, . Then we have Khloe Hong from Korea. Finally, two girls from Italy, Valeria Valentini and myself.

They are in the process of settling in. In the meantime, we have talked with them to try to understand how their new lives here are going thus far. Obviously, the first thing we want to know is why they chose to become an exchange student and why they chose to come to the Sunflower State. Their answers are all pretty much the same; they want to improve their English, and they also want to know the American culture while also exchanging their own.

Settling in has not been easy because of the obvious language barrier. It is a known fact by everyone around the world that Americans have a weird but cute accent which is very difficult for the exchange students to understand. We also learned that the food is much different. When I asked one of the girl whether or not she liked peanut butter she told us she had no idea what it was. It is hard to believe, isn’t it? Can you imagine a world without peanut butter?

So far their favorite food are cheeseburgers, but one of the girls, Valeria, said her favorite food is Pop Tarts and personally, as an exchange student, I agree with her. I could eat them all day long! Even though most have been enjoying the new tastes, some are not so fond of it. They are not wrong at all, but sometimes it is always nice watching a football game or basketball game while eating hot dogs with ketchup and mustard while drinking an ice cold Coke.

We all know that there are certain stereotypes placed on US citizens. Many believe that the people from the center of America are all cowboys who live on ranches.  But, this is not what these 5 students have observed so far. They described the Americans with three simple words: friendly, helpful and creative.

The foreign exchange students are very excited for the rest of the year and believe this year could help them find a job. They also look forward to being able to write that they were an exchange student on their curriculum forms, but the most important thing is this experience is going to be fun for all of them and will help to open not only their eyes but others eyes to the world. It’s the experience of a lifetime so, they have to live it up as much as possible! So Eudora High School students, let’s join them on this journey and make their experience as much fun as possible!