9/6/2007 - Hosting with a lot of heart

by Sandra M. Klepach
News-Herald.com

They may stay in her guest room, but Debra Bryda does not consider the strangers guests.

The first day, yes. But then they’re family, the Willoughby Hills matriarch said.

The same applies to the friendly kittens Debra fosters – the ones who have taken to rubbing against the legs of 16-year-old Italian student Roberta Piras, using their paws to bat affectionately for her attention.
“You have to be generous with your home and take care of them, knowing they’re going to have to leave,” Debra said, referring both to the felines and to the international student she has taken in for this school year. “The nurturing, guidance and knowing you’re going to have to let go is the same.

“The cats set us up for this.”

Hosting an international student allows teenagers from around the world to broaden their horizons and teach their classes.

Just as importantly, though, the experience can enrich families and strengthen children’s interest in international travel and culture.

Since 2004, the Bryda household has welcomed students from Switzerland, France, Thailand and Italy, as well as those students’ friends from Germany, Japan, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Hungary, Chile and Norway.

“You open your door to the world,” Debra said. “You not only welcome your student to your home, but all the students in your group. We’re always driving them around, carpooling, just like one big American family.”

Roberta, who began classes last Tuesday at South High School in Willoughby, calls the isolated Italian island of Sardinia her true home. She does her best to keep in touch with her mother, 14-year-old sister and grandmother online.

But within a week of meeting Debra and Ken Bryda on Aug. 10, she already had tagged her American parents “A Mom” and “A Dad.”
Two more exchange students at South High hail from Bolivia and Germany; two at North High in Eastlake come from Mexico and Japan.
Willoughby-Eastlake School District Superintendent Keith Miller plans to entrench the German student with the school’s German class.

“She’ll be able to share all her experiences, probably more than the teacher knows,” he said. “We’re a global economy, and we need to know everything that’s going on in the world. It’s a good lesson our kids get to learn.”

Likewise, students who arrive via AFS Intercultural Programs absorb each other’s cultures, Debra said, with presentations by each student at regular group meetings.

“The language barrier is not a problem because they are here to speak English,” she said. “We’re teaching her English; she’s teaching us Italian.”

AFS, an international organization celebrating its 60th anniversary, advocates itself as a new kind of diplomacy. Nationwide, its chapters bring more than 2,800 international high school students to the U.S. and send about 1,700 abroad, according to a news release.

Supported by 5,000 volunteers, the organization also provides more than $1.3 million in scholarships and financial aid to U.S. students who want to study abroad.

Potential host families choose international students based on their biographies. In 2004, the Brydas chose a Catholic, Sabine of Switzerland, to be their first student because their son, Jake, would be making his First Communion that year.

The two lay under the living room afghan like brother and sister on “Survivor” nights. Sabine’s departure devastated the family.

“They don’t teach us anything about any other countries at this grade,” said Jake, now 10 and an international flag buff who attends fifth grade at St. Felicitas Catholic School in Euclid. “It’s kind of fun to have an older sibling. I am just an only child, and I’m always bored, so I get to have something to do.”

Before leaving, Sabine helped the family select Melissa, a 28-year-old chaperone from France. Debra fondly recalls cooking Melissa’s native rabbit, which she nicknamed “French chicken” so that Jake would eat it.
Next came “Big” from Thailand, who shared Jake’s love of sports and undertook several 800-page books during his last two months in town.
Three to five months usually pass before the Brydas’ students begin to read on their own, Ken said.

“He would ask me a lot of questions about words,” he added. “He never had to ask anything about math, though. He was way ahead of his class.”

Although host families must serve each AFS student three meals a day, spending money and insurance are built in.

AFS also encourages the sharing of chores between international and biological “children.” Every night, Roberta sets the table, empties the dishwasher and helps cook dinner, which the Brydas eat at a wooden kitchen table – an English-Italian/Italian-English dictionary ready at its center.

The day of Roberta’s arrival, Debra cooked pasta with her homemade sauce. The next day, she made pizza with Roberta’s recipe.

For now, Roberta expresses her gratitude with wide smiles and delicately constructed sentences.

“In high school, my life will be in school with my friends, and in Italy it’s not; I spend five hours in my school and then I come home,” said the teen, who is used to maintaining her home with her sister while her doctor mother works late.

Most international students, who sign up for a half or a whole year, gravitate toward higher-level math and science classes, although they’re also eager to study English and the more difficult American government.

“There are students who come here and think they’ll be on vacation,” Ken said. “But most of the kids who are here just want to get good grades.”

Throughout Lake and Geauga counties, AFS has coordinated two males from Germany and a male from Italy at Mentor High School; a female from Thailand at Wickliffe High School; a female from Germany at Harvey High School in Painesville; two males from Thailand and Germany at West Geauga High School; and two females from Switzerland at Chardon and Geneva high schools.

West Geauga High School also will host a female student from France.
Another intercultural education program, Foreign Links Around the Globe, this year brought Madison High School 10 international students from locales on four continents – Turkey, Japan, Germany, Colombia, Brazil, Russia, Mexico and Scotland.

The district has a history with international students. One who came two years ago from Mexico became the fourth member of his family to study at Madison High. Another, from Russia, adopted the school’s recycling and Character Counts programs at her own school back home.

Superintendent James Herrholtz said his own students motivate the program, though.

“That’s the best part,” he said. “It’s such a great experience, and kids are so used to having them that they really look forward to it. It really puts it in perspective and makes the world a lot smaller.”

To learn more about AFS, call (800) AFS-INFO or visit www.afs.org/usa.

Republished with permission.