Article
February 11, 2008
Courier-Journal
Section: News
Edition: METRO
Page: 3B
Brazilian Bonds with Host Family
By Elaine Rooker Jack
Special to The Courier-Journal
It's summer in Brazil. If 16-year-old Daniela were home, she'd probably be at the beach.
Instead, she is spending the winter in Louisville as an exchange student at Fern Creek High, where she's a junior. She's been here since August and will stay through June.
She hopes to return to the United States for college after another school year in Brazil, so she recently took the ACT, the assessment test of the American College Testing Program, which is used on college entrance applications.
She did extremely well — especially for a student whose first language was not English. She scored a 35, one point short of a perfect score. Last year, only 45 of the nearly 31,000 Kentucky students who took the test scored 35 or higher.
Now she's considering applying to Georgetown, Harvard and Princeton.
When she was younger, Daniela had considered coming to the United States for college.
"After I came here as an exchange student and heard people talking about college, my old dream started coming back," she said.
In June, Daniela will return to Curitiba, a large city in southern Brazil, where she lives with her parents, Miguel and Ana Teresa, and older brother, Miguel.
Daniela was born in Brazil and came to the United States with her family as an infant and stayed until the family returned to Brazil when she was 7 . She took English classes, but Portuguese was always spoken in her home.
She said she wanted to return to the United States as an exchange student.
"I knew I would learn a lot, gain experience, benefit educationally and personally," she said.
The Council on International Educational Exchange accepted Daniela and she was placed with a wonderful host family: Ty, Maria and Tori, 9, of Fern Creek. Ty is a special education teacher at a local High School.
The family had already agreed to be the hosts for Agnes, a Latvian exchange student, but when the program asked them to accept Daniela as well, they did.
"Agnes and Daniela have become very close and fit into our home very well," Ty said.
The family took the girls to movies, out to dinner, to family gatherings and to football games.
"We spent time together," said Daniela. "We bonded."
The family has enjoyed the experience, too.
"She has been a pleasure to be around, even though we argue about politics, the military, global warming," Ty said. "We play games, go hiking, and ride horses — which Daniela is not fond of."
She is, however, fond of a little adventurous fun.
Daniela remembers deciding, with Agnes and Tori, to jump in the backyard pond on the first day of winter.
"It was really funny. Really cold, " she said.
Not surprisingly, Daniela said her life in Kentucky is quite different from life in Brazil.
"In Brazil, I live in a big city," she said. "Here it's more agricultural. My host family lives in a more isolated area instead of the middle of the city."
At home, Daniela rode the bus where she needed or wanted to go. Here she has to ask someone to take her, but she doesn't mind.
"It's good to face cultural differences and grow with that," she said.
Daniela is on Fern Creek's debate team and won the champion award in the novice division in last month's Jefferson County Debate League/Louisville Public Library Lincoln-Douglas Debate Tournament.
Daniela said she'd never tried debate before coming here.
"I used to doubt my public speaking ability," she said. "But now I love debate, and I'm not afraid anymore. It's helped me."
Daniela's new skills will help her pursue her professional goals.
"I'm interested in diplomacy and international affairs," she said. "I believe the United Nations is a place where I can really help the world."
Daniela
Age: 16