At Monday’s Lions Club meeting, three guests who attend Hope High School as international students spoke to the club members about a variety of subjects, including contrasts from their home countries in education methods, diet and levels of friendliness they have experienced after several months in Hope.  

Selena De Decker from Arlon, Belgium; Maria Martinez from Cantabria, Spain and Joanie Ruel from Annecy, France answered questions from Arnetta Bradford, Regional Coordinator for International Student Exchange and then from the Lions members.

The students are each hosted by families living in the Hope area and attend school at Hope High.  De Decker and Ruel are seniors, while Maria Martinez is a sophomore.  

Each was asked why they decided to enroll in International Student Exchange and come to America.  Martinez said that since her mother had been a student in America in a similar program, there was no resistance from that quarter. Also, Martinez wanted to  perfect her English. “I just wanted to do it. I said, why not?” she said.

She did not have a choice of where in America she would be placed, but she is glad to have been brought to Hope.  “I love Arkansas. I love Hope.  I love all the exchange students that are in the program. I love my school, because it's really different for me, All the things I'm experiencing, it's really different, and it's like a new world for me, but I love it.” Martinez said she had been gratified recently to have been told by a classmate she spoke English like an American.

Selena De Decker said, “Since I was twelve, I always wanted to go to America because everybody in my family did it, my auntie, my cousin, so I wanted to go, and I was nervous, because it's like being newborn. It's a new family, a new school, a new language, like everything is new. It's like it's a new life. I think I'm happy to be here now, but I was kind of nervous, but I always wanted to be an exchange student. I think it makes me more mature, more independent.” She said she also enjoyed learning how Americans celebrate holidays, naming Christmas as an example.

Asked her impressions of Hope, De Decker said she was struck by the friendliness of its people. “Wherever I've been here, people are really welcoming. They always ask us questions, like, where do you come from?” She said people in Hope are eager to learn from her.  De Decker said she also likes the high school. Having joined the cheerleading squad, she also enjoys the games she attends. She also called Hope’s downtown “kind of cute,” and expressed a liking for Hebrews 11:1 Café.

Joanie Ruel said that she wanted to work on her English but also was intrigued by seeing American movies. Although she said it was difficult to be away from her family, she has been able to take part in cheerleading and senior nights. The most surprising thing she found about America was the volume of plastic used here. “You have a lot of plastic, like the straw and all that. You don't have that in Europe because it's bad for climate change. So we don't have straws. We don’t have plastic cups. I was shocked,” she said.

De Decker said this also surprised her. But she also remarked on the number of times a week Americans eat from fast food restaurants versus what is customary in Belgium. “In Europe, if you eat fast food, is going to be once a week, or once every two weeks, but not every day. I don't say every American is like that at all. I just know that, for example, in my school, a lot of people in our school—I’m sorry--eat a lot of fast food, and I know for us, it's like a privilege,” she said.  

She also commented on the informal way students and teachers speak to one another in America. “Here, your teacher is like your friends. In Belgium I will talk with them, of course. They’re like friends.  But there's some respect that you don't have. Like, we say all the time, ‘Yes, sir.  Yes, ma'am.”

De Decker and Martinez both agreed that their classes in America are behind those in Europe in terms of the skills and subject matter taught but that the availability of different sports to students is ahead. “In Spain, I don't have teams in the school. I don't have a football team or soccer team. You go to your town’s team and just play. But we don't have games against schools,” she said.

Bradford closed by inviting families interested in hosting an international student or students here interested in going to school in a different country should contact her at southerncentral@ieusa.org.