Members of Old Rochester Regional High School’s AFS club went on a short-term exchange to a high school in Illinois last Wednesday through Sunday. The students were hosted by AFS club members in the small town of Arcola. While there, they experienced what life is like in America’s mid-west.
ORR students on the trip included freshman Tessa Comboia; sophomores Abby Field, Cate Feldkamp, and Holly Frink; juniors Annie Henshaw, Samantha Malatesta, Chloe Riley, Kate Colwell, and Morgan Browning; and seniors Emily Hyde, Evelyn Murdock, Lizzie Machado, Nancy Pope, Robby Magee, and Renae Reints. ORR’s senior foreign exchange students – Louisa Truss from Germany and Ailina Cervantes Diaz from Costa Rica – also went to Arcola. The students were chaperoned by Nurse Kim Corazzini and parent-volunteer Rhonda Reints.
While in Arcola, the students attended a day of school at the town’s high school. “I always think that ORR is such a small school, but theirs is like half the size of ORR,” said Frink, “Everyone knows everyone and they’re really just kind to each other.”
Frink and many of the other ORR travelers admired how the students from Arcola always make a point to say hello to others in the halls or around town. “It’s small, but it’s something,” said Frink.
Malatesta noted how this unity reached beyond the students. “Their community supports them so much more than ours. They’re just so invested in their school,” said Malatesta, “The community is the one that’s raising money so that they can get iPads next year. It’s not the school; it’s the parents and the people that have graduated.”
This devotion reaches beyond academics in Arcola. Each year, townspeople paint the telephone pole bases on the main road to resemble members of the high school’s football team. Besides just decorating in support of their teams, Hyde noted, “They all go to every sporting event. It’s not just the athletes that show up to the basketball games, the track meets – it’s everybody. Everybody from different towns even, not just Arcola.”
Along with the welcoming culture in Arcola, the students of ORR had the opportunity to spend an afternoon immersed in the area’s Amish community. They visited a museum at Rockome Gardens, enjoyed an authentic lunch in the home of an elderly Amish couple, toured a buggy-making shop, and visited an Amish farm where they got to ride in a horse and buggy. The simple way of life of the Amish was foreign and intriguing to the ORR students who come from a less diverse area.
“You always think that they’re different people, but they’re so much like us,” said Hyde of the Amish people. The other students from ORR were equally delighted with their Amish experience. Many of them chose Amish experiences as their favorite part of the trip.
“I really loved riding in a horse and buggy. That was great,” said Frink, “I just liked getting introduced to different cultures.”
“It was so cool to see the different kinds of transportation, not the basic car that everyone else has,” said Machado, adding, “Honestly, the people that were there, they were so nice; they were so welcoming.”
On their last day in Illinois, the ORR students visited Chicago with their friends from Arcola. They had the opportunity to go to the top floor of Willis Tower (previously known as Sears Tower) and walk on the Sky Deck’s Ledge – a glass box extending off the building’s 103rd floor, 1,353 feet above the city. After this thrilling experience, the students had Chicago’s famous deep-dish pizza for lunch. They spent some time at Navy Pier’s shopping center before a sad goodbye outside ORR’s hotel for the night.
Despite the brevity of the trip, some strong friendships formed between the students from ORR and Arcola. The initial meetings had passed when Arcola’s AFS club visited Tri-Town last month, and last week’s trip was about strengthening those friendships along with sparking new ones.
“You can only get to know each other so much in a short period of time, but being able to really meet them when they came to ORR, and then to live with them,” said Frink, “you really get to know someone when you know where they come from.”
“It’s one thing to go to Ned’s Point with somebody,” said Hyde, touching upon a similar point, “but when you’re living in somebody’s house for three days, you just grow so much closer.”
Murdock said she felt this trip was more beneficial than previous exchanges because it wasn’t overly-structured. “This year, I felt so much closer to all of them because we actually went to where they hang out. We went to their restaurants and we went to the park,” she said, “We got to spend a lot of down time with them – hanging out them and their friends and seeing what people actually do there.”
Colwell, like the others, was sad to leave but happy for the memories made. “I really enjoyed seeing everyone again, because I missed them,” she said, “I thought it was really nice going out to lunch with them, and having deep-dish pizza in Chicago and everything.”
Each student made their own unique memories while in Arcola. Henshaw took an early exercise class with her host student’s mother – a fun and tiring morning she won’t soon forget. “It was ‘Chicks in Training’ and I got to exercise with most of the kids’ moms,” Henshaw laughed. “That was an amazing bonding experience.”
A previous exchange student herself, Henshaw was able to compare this AFS trip to her experiences in Panama last summer. While the Panama trip was organized for community service and the Arcola trip was organized for making new friendships, Henshaw said the ideals behind the exchanges are similar. “The purpose of the trip was somewhat the same, that it was about meeting new people and building relationships, and understanding other cultures and being accepting of other cultures.”
That’s just what ORR’s AFS club did out in Arcola, Illinois. Now that they’re home in Tri-Town, the students are cherishing their memories and staying in touch with their new friends in the mid-west, while the underclassmen look forward to future AFS exchanges.
By Renae Reints
