French Exchange Program

For 24 Pres families, their home life changed from Feb 5 to Feb 17 as they took on an international flair. The annual French exchange trip came around again this year, but this year with a new group of kids. The school from Montpellies, France that have worked with Presentation in the past decided to go to Washington D.C. this year, so we had Frenchies from Fabreques, France that are younger than all of the previous years with the majority of them being 14-15 years old.

This year, my family decided to take in a student because, for one, I will be around to help unlike the years to come, and also because my sister has learned a fair amount of French to help out.

We were assigned a 15-year-old boy, Axel Gines. Being a family with only three girls, we were a little panicked of how to keep a BOY busy!

When we picked him up from SFO airport on Feb 5, we were both nervous and excited to meet our temporary brother. When he came forward, my dad shook his hand and asked if he spoke English. Axel’s response consisted of a head tilt to the right and then a shake of the head, and it was at that point where we realized the skills our family had developed from charades on family game nights would come in handy.

My younger sister, Lucy, 11, who takes Spanish at her middle school, became professional at flipping through the French/English dictionary we brought to help us out. Axel and Lucy spent hours together depicting each other’s thoughts, slowly but surely.

Throughout the first week, we introduced him to our homemade burgers, the game of golf, yoga, Laser Tag, a crab feed and even the traditions of the Superbowl. During the day while Pres girls were in class, they visited San Francisco, Sacramento, Monterey, and museums around the area. When Meryl and I brought him to school for two days, it was expected to have student flock to him and his friends. When we came home Friday, he had a good 10 new friend requests on Facebook. Who knew we grabbed a popular brother!

Axel ended up making a lot of friends in his 12-day stay. One freshman, Sasha Coughlin, became very close with him and his group of friends. “I learned that you had to use small words with them, in order for them to understand the gist of the idea. Also, hand gestures helped when it came to things around the house or even the type of food we were offering them,” she said. “I thought it was a lot of fun to interact with them because it was a whole new experience for them as well as us. Even though it was hard to communicate at times, you could definitely tell they were having a good time whether or not either of us understood.”

By the second week, Axel’s English vocabulary had grown tremendously, although he had a few words that he always used to describe certain foods and activities. When we served him pancakes and bacon on Sunday morning, we explained that it was sweet, and he took a bite and said, “It’s strange!” We handed him a croissant after be gobbled down one of the most traditional American breakfasts.

When junior Rachel Ometer interviewed him for her French independent study class, he commented, “Pancakes was the weirdest thing I ate in America because in France we don’t have anything like them.”

Axel has become family. We loved introducing him to the American culture and learning about some of his French culture. The experience for the Parks family was so much fun, as I’m sure it was for all of the other host families. Although tears fell the day he left, the experience was completely worth it for everyone. He even said so himself, in English!

Parisian Invasion

The exchange students are coming! The exchange students are coming! Every year, Pres students receive an email from Mrs. Stampfl announcing that French exchange students are coming to Pres, and that they are in need of families willing to host them. This year is no different, with four boys still in need of hostesses.
The French exchange student program has been a successful part of Presentation for over a decade. The first part of the exchange sees Pres students traveling to France during the February or March break to live with a host family from College Saint Charles. The girls experience France hands-on by immersing themselves in the French culture of College Saint Charles and Lycee La Merci, another school Pres exchanges with. The girls also get to experience school days in France with their host students.
This works the same way with the students from France. They come to the United States and stay with a host family for roughly two and a half weeks. They visit prominent sites around the Bay Area and experience going to school and living in America.
The experience of hosting an exchange student from a country across an ocean 3,000 miles away is a great opportunity for those who want to experience a different culture and help teach someone American culture.
“It was super awesome because you not only get to help someone learn a language a little bit better and understand the American culture, but you learn a lot about the French culture and customs,” said junior Amy Kryston. “Of course, you also get to meet a lot of really nice, really fun people.”
Many other hostesses enjoyed having an exchange student, whom they took everywhere, and this year’s hostesses are no different. “I want to take her to so many places, like the mall and the good restaurants here,” said sophomore Elizabeth Hunter.
Initially, the language barrier between host families and the students can present a problem, especially if no one in the family speaks French, but after a few days, communication is not that big of a problem, according to last year’s host families.
Different places that hostesses took their students last year included the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, Sky High, the various malls in the Bay Area, concerts and other Bay Area attractions. Hostesses always took their students to friend’s houses or hung out at home bonding over their favorite TV show, books, games and other interests.
The hostesses also toured the students around Pres, showing them the day-to-day activities on campus including the different clubs, sports and the arts. They also get to experience a big part of Pres: the food.
“I’m looking forward to the whole experience, but in general, I can’t wait to show him/her around the Bay Area. We might go see a show and some art museums in San Francisco, or go places locally like Laser Quest and Sky High with friends,” said sophomore Jenna Vaccaro, who will be hosting a French exchange student this February.
“Mostly, I’m looking forward to getting to show our American culture to someone who has never even been here before. It will be an amazing learning experience for the exchange student, my family and me.”
The requirements for hosting a French exchange student are simple. Provide a place to sleep, food to eat and a heart to welcome someone who is 3,000 miles away from home. If you are interested in hosting a French exchange student this coming February from the 5th to the 17th, you should complete the online application at http://pantheresfrancaises.edublog.org/french-exchange-hosting-application. Hostesses are needed so please contact Ms. Stampfl at mstampfl@pres-net.com if you have any questions.

My Journey To France

After spending two weeks in France, living and breathing the life of a local in the southern city of Montpellier, all of us nine students can definitely tell you that things are, to say the least, a little bit different here. While we expected to encounter cultural differences and surprises, it was no doubt that some of the things we have learned here are interesting and even funny:

Les Toilettes et La Salle de Bains

While it might seem a funny thing to discuss, after each of us passed our first night with our host families, one of the first things we discussed when we got to school in the morning was the bathrooms.  In America, we have an all-in-one package – the toilet, the sink, and the shower are almost always all in the same room. That very fact is something we all accept and do not think much of simply because it is normal. Well, this is possibly one of the first instances which made us exchange students realize that what is “normal” in America does not translate to “normal” in France. In France, the toilet is normally in one room, les toilettes, while the sink and shower are in another, la salle de bains. The fact that both are in the house means that we certainly have the facilities to survive, but in exchanging our stories we did all find that the separation of the toilet and sink made for some awkward moments. Unsure of whether or not it would be normal for me to walk down the hall to the salle de bains and wash my hands after using les toilettes, I spent my first few days trying to be stealthy and go unnoticed, but eventually I realized that I would have to just continue as I normally do and dismiss it as nothing more than a cultural difference.

Driving in France

As most of us have just received our licenses or are at least working towards obtaining them, we are keenly aware of driving with all the rules and safety precautions freshly pounded into our brains; we are all familiar with the proper following distance, the correct speeds, and the proper driving etiquette. Even after just one thirty minute drive home from the airport, I realized that if I were to follow all of the American safety precautions, rules, and laws for driving, I would not be able to get as far as down the street. In France, all of the driving seems much more chaotic; the roads are so tiny that it nearly feels as if you are going to either fall of the road or hit the car next to you. No one waits for anyone either – I could barely keep my laughter in as we sped past a neighbor, cutting him off, but waving with big smiles at the same time.

L’école

If there is one word I could use to describe school, or école, in France, it would definitely be long, closely followed by drawn-out. In France, school begins at 8 a.m., similar to schools in America; however, it ends much later in the afternoon, occasionally as late as 5:30. A nine-and-a-half-hour long school day can indisputably be classified as long, especially in the United States where our school days range from six to seven hours. While such an extensive school day is long, I would classify school in France as drawn-out as well since it is more regular for students to have free blocks and because the lunch is much longer. At Lycée La Merci, lunch lasts an hour-and-a-half, over twice as long as our 40 minute lunch at Presentation. Between that and other seemingly unnecessary time-consuming activities, such as being bused over to an alternative location for gym class, it seemed as if the long school day could have been condensed if they moved at a faster pace.

.  . . And Volcanoes

It was definitely appropriate that many of the experiences we had on our exchange were unexpected, but something no one could have factored into our plans and anticipations was a volcano. Never did we think that a volcano of all things could factor into our experience. On Wednesday, April 14, flights began to be cancelled due to the aftermath of a volcanic eruption in Iceland. Even then we were unaware that such a bizarre occurrence would affect our exchange trip. It wasn’t until Thursday night, the night before our originally planned departure, that the news came through. Right after my host, Priscillia, encouraged me to order whatever I wanted since this was my last night in France, I learned that that statement would most likely be proven false. Because of the volcano, ash was spread throughout the air and our flight from Paris to San Francisco was cancelled for safety reasons. With clean laundry running out, a need to get homework finished at home and a desire to have time to find a prom dress, many of us started worrying. Still, on Thursday night, things still seemed manageable. It was not until the next day when I found out that 23 airports in France were closed that it could be quite a while before I got home. Even now, as I write this article, I am sitting in my host family’s house with my flight postponed indefinitely, wondering if I will even be back when our newspaper goes to print. Just as no one could have anticipated the volcano erupting and the creating biggest flight disruption in years, I guess we will just have to wait and see.