Discovering Crestview—and America

Two of Crestview High School’s newest students come from dramatically diverse backgrounds have different native languages, yet for the rest of the school year, Erika Raggi and Louis-Paul Simon will share a lot in common. The biggest tie that binds the two is the Crestview Rotary Club, which sponsored their arrival in town as exchange students.

Erika, almost 16, hails from Udine, a town of 99,500 people in Italy’s northeastern tip, not far from the border with Slovenia. Louis-Paul, 16 going on 17, is from Belfort, an Alsatian French town of 53,000 people close to Switzerland.

“They go through an application process and interview process in their local Rotary Club,” explained Rotarian John Blair, who is also Crestview’s postmaster. “We have exchange partners. The state of Florida will send an outbound student to their Rotary district.”

Students can indicate their preferences for cities or regions where they’d like to study, but in this case, neither wound up where they thought — or hoped — they might.

“I wrote New York, Washington and Chicago, and I am here,” said Erika.

“You can choose a city?” asked an amazed Louis-Paul, who merely wanted to study anywhere in the U.S.

“You can choose what you prefer, but it is not guaranteed,” said Erika.

Erika arrived in Crestview on July 25, affording a few days to become acclimated to her new surroundings before school started. Louis-Paul, however, only learned he was coming to Crestview at the last minute, arriving Aug. 18.

“Louis-Paul was supposed to go to Iowa, but at the last minute they couldn’t find a Rotary Club to sponsor him,” explained Blair. “We stepped up and got him here at the last minute.”

But Iowa wasn’t his original destination, either.

“Originally, the Rotary Club said I was going to Alaska,” he said.

“He had all these winter clothes packed,” said Blair. “He had to change his packing.”

The students are adjusting well to their new environment.

“I thought my town was little, then I came here and I thought, maybe my town is not so little,” said Erika with a smile.

“It’s really hot, but I like it,” Louis-Paul added.

Both students were surprised by the structure of a typical American school like Crestview High. Changing classes, for example, was a shocker.

“I don’t have to change my classroom and my classmates in Italy,” observed Erika. “When you change classes, the teacher of the new class comes to the room. I get into a panic when I have to go all over the school and find my new classes.”

“It’s totally different,” agreed Louis-Paul. “It’s not the same building, it’s not the same classes. We are all the time with the same students. The teacher moves.

“In France we begin school at 8 or 9, and we finish at 5. It’s not the same classes every day. In France we have 12 classes. Here it is seven,” he said, explaining that classes he took on Tuesdays and Thursdays were different than those he took the rest of the week.

Erika liked the freedom American students have to choose some of their courses, and also likes the care teachers show toward their students.

“I like how here it is very different. You can choose what you study,” she said. “In Italy you must do what the school asks. For me, this is something very new.

“The relationship you have with the teachers is totally different,” she continued. “Here, the teacher talks to you about other things that are not school. They help you. In Italy you have to do it all alone. I thought all the schools were the same, then I came here and I realized the difference.”

The duo are also discovering the cultural differences of the town — and country — that will be their new home for the next nine months.

“It’s like another world!” said Louis-Paul.

“I had the American dream,” Erika said, describing the typical impression and expectation foreigners often have of the U.S. before they actually visit in person.

“When you come for holidays (vacation), it is very different than when you live here for a year,” she said. “In Italy we just have that idea of America, you know, New York, Los Angeles. I knew there was another side. Last year my sister went to Alabama. I went to visit her and I saw a place just like Crestview.”

Though her homeland is renowned for its cuisine, Erika is happy with the food in America.

“I like the Kentucky Fried Chicken,” she said. “And I love American pizza. I could live for Domino’s Pizza! I have no problem with the food.”

Louis-Paul was surprised that most people indulge in breakfast.

“We don't have time to take breakfast when we go to school,” he said, but echoed a lament common with many foreign visitors. “It’s not good bread here.”

When Blair and his wife, Heidi, took the pair for root beer floats, the students, like many European visitors, discovered that particular soft drink didn’t sit well on the European palette.

“It tastes like medicine!” said Louis-Paul, wrinkling up his nose.

The Blairs were instrumental in bringing the Rotary Club’s student exchange program to Crestview three years ago. The couple serves as co-chairs for the Panhandle district exchange program. Currently 79 foreign students are studying throughout Florida through the program.

 “One of the opportunities we have is for American students to do exactly what Louis-Paul and Erika are doing, to go to Europe or South America and be an exchange student for a year,” Blair said.

“The same amount (of students) we bring in, we can send out. But we have seven inbound students but just one outbound student, a Tallahassee student in Japan. We would love to send a student from here.”

The program has been slow to register on local students; radar, Blair said.

“Every time I say I am an exchange student, they say, what is that?” Erika said of her Crestview classmates.

To be a Rotary Club exchange student, the applicant has to be between the ages of 15-1/2 and 18-1/2 when their exchange starts. The Panhandle Rotary has exchange partners in 29 different countries, Blair said, and wants to see more applicants from the north end of Okaloosa County take advantage of the extraordinary opportunity.

Though the cost is $4,000 for the year, it includes everything, including air transportation, accommodations with host families, meals, a spending allowance and health insurance.

“I raised two boys and I know for a fact it cost me more than $4,000 just for food for a year,” Blair said. “It looks like a lot but it is really a good deal.”

In addition to opportunities for local students to study abroad, the Rotary’s program also offers local families the opportunity to host visiting foreign students. Erika and Louis-Paul will each have three different host families during their 10-month visit. The relationship is frequently the start of a lifelong friendship between the two families, leading to further informal exchanges, Blair said.

But most importantly, the program allows foreign students to experience life in America and American culture, helping dispel misconceptions about our country they may have received from popular media or hearsay. These reasons, plus the opportunity to improve their language skills and experience personal growth, brought Erika and Louis-Paul to Crestview.

“I want to learn English as an American,” Erika said. “That’s my basic purpose. And obviously, making the experience as an exchange student with my host family. Also meeting new cultures. Rotary offers many opportunities to meet new cultures.”

“I want to meet many people, to learn English, too, because I don’t speak very good English,” added Louis-Paul. “I want to meet a new culture, and to break away from my family.”

For information about participating in the Rotary Club’s student exchange program, or being a host family, stop by the club’s weekly lunch meeting at Ryan’s, every Wednesday at noon, or send e-mail to John and Heidi Blair at johnheidiblair@yahoo.com.