FOREIGN EXCHANGE student Sara Cernuschi is seeing holidays through American eyes this year during her cultural adventure.
She thinks Americans rely too much on their cars instead of walking.
She also believes we eat too much processed food and not enough fresh vegetables.
But exchange student Sara Cernuschi of Italy also has found lots to like during her stay in Washington. She enjoyed visits to the coast and Multnomah Falls with her host family and finds wrestling practice at Prairie High School “so cool.”
The 17-year-old girl came to Clark County in early August to live with Natalie and Jim Willson and their daughters Rachel, 16, and Nikki, 15.
“We hoped it would be a good cultural experience and that we would bond,” Natalie said.
Cernuschi said it was difficult to leave friends and family for almost a year, but the opportunity for an adventure was too good to pass up.
“I heard about the (exchange) program in eighth grade and I thought, ‘oh wow, I want to do it,’” she said. “I wanted to see a new culture.”
Cernuschi isn’t the only foreign student at Prairie. The school also has exchange students from Germany, Norway and Spain. Other schools in North County have exchange students, too.
Aspect Foundation is the organization that arranged Cernuschi’s visit. She has racked up lots of first-time experiences since arriving, including attending a gun show.
“It was cool because I had never seen a real gun,” Cernuschi said.
“We’ve tried to show her things she’s never seen,” Jim Willson said, adding that target shooting and archery might be on the agenda in the future.
Cernuschi hopes to see other states, and Jim Willson said the family has talked about trips to Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Touring Seattle also is planned.
This fall Cernuschi ran cross-country for the Falcons, and was on the varsity team until becoming injured.
“When you finish you are so happy,” she said. “It was a good experience. I learned how to be part of a team. I have to be active or I go mad. I can meet new people that way, too.”
Prairie High School is much different from her high school in Monza, Italy, where students go to class Monday through Saturday. There, students stay with the same group of classmates for the entire high school program – which is five years instead of the four-year American high school schedule.
As for American food, Cernuschi has been trying to acquire a taste for different things, although not always successfully.
“I don’t like the typical American food,” she said. “I don’t like sauces” such as ketchup or salsa.
However, she is impressed with the vast array of choices in American stores.
“There are so many things,” she said.
Her overall impression of this country is its size – whether it’s the landscape in the countryside or in the city. Most Italians live in apartments, Cernuschi said, rather than large houses that fill subdivisions in Clark County.
“Here, even the streets are so big,” she said. “It’s like being in a movie. I like it here.”
