The Pacific met the Atlantic this week as students from the American Field Service Club of Sonora High School in California were hosted by the Tri-Town community. The students arrived on Wednesday after taking the red eye from the West Coast. Sonora is located about 60 miles east of San Francisco in the foothills west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Ryan Carr, a senior from the city of Sonora, noticed the difference in the landscape as soon as he arrived.
“It’s a lot different than the foothills. Out here it’s really flat,” he said. Carr has been in the AFS club for four years, but this was his first time in New England. Northern California has also been having a much milder winter than normal.
“It’s warm out there for us, in the sixties and seventies. Here it’s freezing for us,” he said. But the cold weather was not enough to deter him from the opportunity to share new adventures with new friends.
“My favorite part is the social experience, seeing how different the world can be,” Carr said.
What he gets out of the club is exactly what ORRHS AFS club advisor Kim Corazzini hopes the students can appreciate about their opportunity to travel and meet new people.
“My hope is that we try to get the kids to gain cultural awareness. We want them to gain a sense about what goes on in the bigger world,” she said.
Sandy Myers, the Sonora AFS club advisor, is in her seventh year in the position and has traveled to each exchange location the program covers.
“This is my second trip to Mattapoisett. We have programs in Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Kansas,” she said. She hopes the students appreciate the different ways their peers around the country learn. “I think it’s good for them to see the different types of school schedules, texts, and curriculum that are available.”
Corazzini, who is also the nurse at ORRHS, was intent on giving the visiting students a true southern New England experience. As soon as they got off the plane on Wednesday, they began their tour of Boston, just in time for the appropriately named Boston Blackout. That didn’t deter them from taking in the sights of the city. They went to the Prudential Center and toured the public gardens.
On Thursday, they toured Old Rochester Regional High School, the style of which was a major culture shock. Sonora High School has an open campus style, where the cafeteria, administrative offices, library, and academic halls are all separate buildings. On Friday they went to the Salem Witch Museum and Faneuil Hall back in Boston. The AFS clubs then drove down to Newport on Saturday, toured the Breakers mansion, and traveled the Cliff Walk.
Along the way, the students forged new bonds with their peers from across the nation. For Stephanie Hollander, a senior from Jamestown, Calif. and first year member of the club, her first time in New England has been fulfilling.
“It’s like a whole different experience. I really wanted to meet new people,” she said, as she sat on a couch stuffed between two ORRHS students. Senior Sydney Copello had never been on an airplane before making the trip out to Mattapoisett. She’s a city girl to the core and enjoyed the time they spent at the Hub.
“I really liked Boston. There’s a lot of things you can find in Boston you’ll never find anywhere else,” she said.
The culmination of the day, however, was not taking in the grand opulence of the magnificent architecture and excess of the classic Newport mansions. Late in the afternoon Saturday, the clubs went for a brief swim in the Atlantic before sitting down to a potluck dinner. The air and the water were both about 50˚F. For most of them, this was their first time on the East Coast, and a few were very eager to sink their toes in the icy waters of the Atlantic. In some cases, heads, shoulders, and knees were also submerged, motivated by adrenaline and the urge to create special moments with their new friends.
In April, the ORRHS AFS club will be traveling to Sonora to visit their West Coast counterparts. Mattapoisett senior Jack Thomas is eager to see California.
“It was interesting to see other people find the normal New England stuff out of the ordinary. It’ll be weird being on the other end,” he said. While there, the clubs will visit a re-enactment gold mining town, San Francisco and Yosemite National Park.
“I really hope we get to see the Redwoods,” Thomas said. No matter where they go or what they see, the students of the AFS clubs know they are lucky to have the opportunity to travel and learn from students all over the United States, and for all of them, these adventures are the just the beginning.
By Eric Tripoli
