By Chad Koenen

Publisher

A pair of foreign exchange students have spent the better-part of the past month getting used to life in America.

Nadia Bouchou, from Spain and Larissa Hayakawo, from Brazil, are attending Henning School this fall. 

Hayakawo will be attending Henning School for the entire school year, while Bouchou is currently scheduled to just attend school through January. However, she is hopeful she can change her initial plans to attend school for the entire year.

Both students said there are quite a number of differences in attending a school in a town with a population that is smaller than some apartment buildings and city blocks in their native countries. 

Hayakawo said she lives in a rather small city in Brazil, which is similar in size to Fargo, N.D. Her host sister is Jenna Domier, who is a junior at Henning School. Despite having a sister to share her experience with in America, Hayakawo said she does miss her family and friends back home. Hayakawo has a brother back home so this is the first time she has had a sister to share life experiences with on a daily basis. 

“It’s nice but I miss my family a lot,” said Hayakawo.

Bouchou said she has really enjoyed the opportunity to have a sister at home as part of her exchange student host family. Bouchou said she doesn’t have any brothers or sisters that live with her in Spain, which is not the case in Henning where she is staying with Henning School freshman Bella Olson’s family. 

“One of my favorite things is with Bella. I don’t have any brothers or sisters that live with me,” said Bouchou.

During her time in America, Hayakawo had the opportunity to visit New York and participate in the Henning High School Homecoming week festivities. She said homecoming was among her favorite things she has done so far this year.

“Homecoming week because we don’t have that in Brazil,” she said.

Bouchou said she has enjoyed a lot of the simple things that people in this area may take for granted like bonfires and picking strawberries as people do not do things like that back in her home country. She is participating in volleyball this fall and has really enjoyed the opportunity to play high school volleyball. 

During their time in America, both Bouchou and Hayakawo said they want to do everything they can to experience the American way of life and are looking forward to making friends, even if that means they will need to leave them to go back to their home country when their experience is over.

“I want to make a lot of friends, but when I go back I will miss them so much,” said Bouchou.

One thing both students agree on is it has been nice to have two exchange students who both speak Spanish at the school. In such a small school setting it isn’t always common to have two students fluent in another language, which has helped them ease into the American way of life. For example, Hayakawo said there are times when she just wants to speak her native language, instead of translating everything in her head to English. So having another student in Henning who can help her during those times has made things a little easier.

Bouchou agreed with her exchange student counterpart that having a second exchange student has been a nice bonus to coming to Henning,

“It’s sometimes so much easier having another exchange student here,” she said,