<\/p>\n
One of the hardest things a teenager can do is drop everything and leave all his friends behind to move–especially when that teenager is moving to a whole new country.\u00a0The language, the people, and even the food are different. It is\u00a0an extremely hard way to live, and that is exactly what senior foreign exchange student Eddie Yambasu did in his short but interesting stay here.<\/p>\n
Yambasu is from Sierra Leone, a country located on the west coast of Africa. The process to become a\u00a0foreign exchange student is simple. Yambasu said, \u201cI just applied for the paper.\u201d But out of all the cities\u00a0in the United States, how did he end up in Little Rock? According to Yambasu, it wasn\u2019t a choice he\u00a0made. It was random. He explained, \u201cMy placement organization chose Little Rock for me.\u201dOnce he was assigned to Little Rock, Yambasu was placed with the Lehigh family. Fortunately for\u00a0Yambasu, the foreign exchange program is nothing new to the Lehighs. Junior Charles Lehigh said, \u201cThis\u00a0wasn’t my first time hosting a foreign exchange student; I hosted Benjamin Schmid last year. The biggest\u00a0difference in everyday life is making sure you are taking into account another person\u2019s likes and dislikes,that kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lehigh wasn\u2019t worried when the school year came along. He knew just what to do to make Yambasu\u2019s\u00a0experience a bit easier. Lehigh did the best he could to help Yambasu break the ice and get accustomed to\u00a0Catholic High. Lehigh said, \u201cI told a lot of my friends about him and he went around the school with me\u00a0the first day so I thought he could settle in fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the challenges Yambasu faced have to do with Americans\u2019 different way of life. \u201cThe food in\u00a0America is very disappointing. In Sierra Leone we cook everything ourselves,\u201d Yambasu said. \u201cWe use\u00a0the palm trees by taking their fruit and making palm oil. Then we cook rice, potato leaves, cassava leaves\u00a0and add mangos after.\u201d This is just one of the many meals that are common in Sierra Leone. Yambasu\u00a0said, \u201cBesides the food, the biggest difference from Sierra Leone is the schooling, the culture, and the\u00a0way of life of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides the normal cultural shocks for foreign exchange students, Lehigh was impressed with Yambasu\u2019s\u00a0ability to transition into Little Rock. \u201cHe really knows a lot about American culture, the only thing he was\u00a0confused about was that there are automatic cars because in Sierra Leone they only have manual cars.\u201d\u00a0Although he speaks some English, Yambasu is not yet fluent. He said, \u201cI speak Mende and Krio\u00a0and I have been learning English for five good years I think.\u201d He faced the struggle of being fully\u00a0immersed in another language, which is a great way to learn. He was very curious about all sorts of things and once even pulled a fire alarm to see what would happen. He turned himself in to Mr. Steve Straessle when he found that this was against the rules. When people asked Yambasu why he pulled the lever, he said, “It was unknown to me.”<\/p>\n
Although Yambasu’s stay was cut short, he seemed to enjoy his time. \u201cEveryone\u00a0has been very friendly. Catholic High is good, and the teachers are very good and know how to explain\u00a0things very well,\u201d said Yambasu.<\/p>\n
Junior Spencer Day was one of the first people to introduce himself to Yambasu. Day said, \u201cEddie was in\u00a0my English class and I probably introduced myself the first or second day of school. He was very nice to\u00a0me and I thought that it was going to be very cool that there was another foreign exchange student at\u00a0Catholic this year,\u201d said Day. \u201cI think he got along well with everybody because he is a nice and funny\u00a0guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Imagine waking up one morning in a foreign country. It is a feeling of isolation. That is why the most\u00a0common side effect of a foreign exchange student is homesickness. \u201cHe had a means of communication\u00a0with his friends and family, and if he ever got homesick, he remembered he has a home over here and\u00a0friends he can trust as a family,\u201d said Lehigh.\u00a0After his time in Little Rock, Yambasu was hoping to get to know the United States a little better. He said,\u201cI would like to see more of America such as California in the future.\u201d However, his desire to travel does\u00a0not end with California. He wants to visit other places as well. \u201cI\u2019ve always dreamt of going to England,\u201dsaid Yambasu.
\nEditor’s note: Rocket Times staff member Micah Stafford contributed to this story.<\/p>\n
One of the hardest things a teenager can do is drop everything and leave all his friends behind to move–especially when that teenager is moving to a whole new country.\u00a0The language, the people, and even the food are different. It is\u00a0an extremely hard way to live, and that is exactly what senior foreign exchange…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":7496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[215,191,196],"tags":[225,143],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/liftoffnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/ediie.jpg?fit=577%2C1024&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3xfZw-1Wo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7464"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7464"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7516,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7464\/revisions\/7516"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}