Merel Caminada, Lucie Havlicková welcomed to school, communities
The world is brought closer together – as well as right to our doorstep – through the addition of foreign exchange students who attend classes for a school year. This year, there are two such students attending Mountain Lake Public High School (MLHS) – Merel Caminada of the Netherlands and Lucie Havlicková of the Czech Republic.
Merel is in the United States through Ayusa, a high school exchange program sponsored by the United States Department of State as well as the program, Travel Active, coordinated by her home country. Lucie is in the United States through YFU (Youth For Understanding).
Below, meet both Merel and Lucie –
Name: Merel Caminada.
Age: 17.
Grade: 12.
Sponsoring organization: Ayusa and Travel Active.
Home city/Home country: Rijswijk, The Netherlands.
Home parents/siblings: Parents are Koen and Carolie Caminada. Merel’s siblings are Renske, 19 and Hidde, 13.
Host parents/siblings: Host parents are Jason and Jody Lepp and her host siblings include sisters Jorja, 16; Ava, 8 and Abbey, 5 and brother, Jack. The Lepps live in rural Butterfield.
Hobbies: Music.
School/community activities in which you will participate while in America: High School Choir, Show Choir, girls cross country, 4-H and Church Youth Group.
Compare your home school to schools in America: In America, students always have the same lesson (class) in the same classroom at the same hour. In The Netherlands, each day of class is different.
Tell us about your home city/country and how it is same/different as compared to the host city in which you are living: When you look around in Butterfield (or Mountain Lake) you see a lot of corn and beans. While, in Ryswyk, you see a lot of houses. Ryswyk is a city of approximately 50,000 in western Netherlands.
Have you visited America before? If so, where – and do you have a favorite spot; if not, where would you like to visit?: I have never visited America before. One place I would like to visit is the state of Texas.
How do you view America and/or its citizens: Everybody is really nice in America. Different is that you have to use a car for everything to go somewhere; we use trains and buses and bicycles.
Name: Lucie Havlicková.
Age: 15.
Grade: 10.
Sponsoring organization: YFU (Youth For Understanding).
Home city/Home country: Prague, Czech Republic.
Home parents/siblings: Parents are Josef Havlicek and Erika Havlicková. She has a sister, nine-year-old Zuzana Havlicková.
Host parents/siblings: Host parents are Pastor Tim and Mary Hall, and she has two host siblings, a sister, Beth Hall, 21 and a brother, David Hall, 17. The Halls live in Butterfield.
Hobbies: Playing the soprano recorder, playing tennis and dancing.
School/community activities in which you will participate while in America: High School Choir, FFA and girls softball.
Compare your home school to schools in America: In my home country, we don’t have the same classes at the same hours every day. We also can’t choose our classes. In the Czech Republic, there are more types of high school, and we can chose the school in which we are interested.
Tell us about your home city/country and how it is same/different as compared to the host city in which you are living: The Czech Republic was separated from Czechoslovakia in 1993. Prague, which is my home, has about 1.26 million people, while the urban area around it has a population of nearly two million. This all makes it the 15th largest city in the European Union. So . . . it is really different from Butterfield with 600 citizens and Mountain Lake with 2,130 citizens. Since the cities are not so big, here there is more nature and people living in the small communities spend a lot of time with each other. In Prague, people are usually just with their families, and enjoy things like museums and theater together. Also in the Czech Republic, we have a lot of public transport, but here, people use mostly cars.
What would you like Americans to know/remember about your home city/country: My home country is a small country in the middle of Europe. So, it is very interesting for me to see so a big a country as the United States. The Czech Republic was separated from Czechoslovakia in 1993. Prague, which is 1,100-years-old, is the capital city of the Czech Republic and is a city with a long history and a lot of nice sights to see. It is in the northwest part of the country along the Vltava River. The Czech Republic has the same laws and government across the country, but in USA, all states also have their own rules. The Czech Republic has a really long history, and is home to a lot of historic sights and old buildings.
Have you visited America before? If so, where – and do you have a favorite spot; if not, where would you like to visit?: I have never been to America before this year. Everything interests me.
How do you view America and/or its citizens: I am really enjoying my stay in the USA. I think that America is a country with a lot of opportunities, nice nature, big smiles and nice citizens.