Exchange students find their way

PHIL NELSON THE TRINITY JOURNAL Jordana Moraes and Elisa Cera Elisa Cera's first day at Trinity High School last August was a rough one.

The Italian teen, visiting the United States through the American Field Service program, was far from fluent in English. Spanish and history went OK, she said, but then came third and fourth period, chemistry and math.

"It was horrible," Cera said. "I couldn't understand anything at all. ... I kind of freaked out."

She put money in the pay telephone in front of the office intending to call home -- which is where she wanted to go. But it didn't work. Turns out, "you can't really call Italy on that phone," Cera said.

It seemed that everyone was speaking in monotone, she said. "In Italian we go up and down, up and down."

But Cera spoke in very clear English in a recent interview. Obviously, she'd conquered the language barrier. "A lot of people helped me," she said. "I got used to it and started to catch things."

Cera, 16, was one of two AFS students to stay with host families in Weaverville for the past 10 months and attend Trinity High School. She and the other AFS student, Jordana Moraes, 17, of Brazil became close friends as well. They found that their languages, Portuguese and Italian, were much closer to each other than to English. And, they were both living the same experience.

"In the beginning it was really hard," said Moraes, who also struggled with the language. "We kind of helped each other."

They both arrived around mid-August -- just a day or two before school started. After an initial placement that didn't work out, Cera went to stay with Mike and Kathy Martens and their children, Tim and Emily, in November. Moraes lived with George and Cindy Halcomb and their daughter, Karri.

Both girls visited Southern California, San Francisco and Sacramento with their host families.

Cera is from Sardinia, the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. She lives in the town of Uras, population around 3,000, with her parents and two older sisters.

"I've always wanted to be an exchange student," Cera said.

She has two more years of high school to go, and hopes to have a career involving languages, possibly as an interpreter or teacher, or at an embassy.

Cera and Moraes say high school is quite a bit different than in their own countries. For one thing, the students don't move from room to room for different subjects -- the teachers do. And there are no school sports, although Moraes played soccer regularly in Brazil in programs separate from the school.

"I like the school sports," said Moraes, who played soccer and basketball and ran track during her time here.

Cera also participated in track, as well as the school Soroptimist club.

Moraes is done with high school now, having graduated from THS. She returns to the city of Gravatai, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. She acknowledges missing the big city where she came from, population around 200,000. She's headed to college next year and plans to study physical education.

"I learned a lot here," Moraes said. "I think the best thing of the experience is you get to learn the language and share culture."

Her father was a foreign exchange student in Michigan -- but he could use some practice. "I think at home we're going to speak English," Moraes said.

Both girls departed for home Sunday.