Exchange students from former USSR find school easy, but peanut butter is quite another thing.
RUMFORD – If you followed Maine’s high school basketball tournaments on television over school vacation week, you probably noticed the energetic Dirigo High School mascot, the blue cougar. “I was on the TV a lot,” Ola Boryseko of Zaporihzhya, Ukraine, said happily.
Out of her cougar costume, Boryseko is equally vivacious.
And she’s not alone: When the curtain goes up on Mountain Valley High School’s annual spring musical, “Kilroy Slept Here,” Alina Bezkorovayna of Dnipropetrov, Ukraine, will be onstage singing in an Andrews Sisters-style trio, while her friend, Olesya Palibina of Penza, Russia, works backstage.
Nikolay Pashchenko of Magadan, Russia, is acknowledged to be the expert on matters computer around Dirigo High.
As part of his community service, Pashchenko is building a Web site for Mexico’s Congregational Church.
Ivana Danylyk of Lviv, Ukraine, meanwhile, has devoted more than 100 hours helping host mom Kristen Scott’s special education class at Meroby Elementary School.
Danylyk, an independent girl of 15, enjoys movies, embroidery and her computer.
Along with 1,000 other students from former USSR countries, the “River Valley Five” arrived in the United States last August for a 10-month stay.
Their year in Maine is closely watched by Dawna Bailey, regional coordinator for Pacific Intercultural Exchange based in Texas.
The River Valley Five were well prepared to fit into their American homes and schools. In fact, Bezkorovayna said, in intensive orientation sessions prior to departure for the U.S., “… they told us about culture shock. I didn’t have it,” she said.
Pashchenko shrugged off any suggestion of culture shock. He is at ease with Tim and Maryann Hanson of Carthage, his host family, despite Tim’s teasing: “I think he’s an agent, KGB.”
Nick returns: “I came here because I wanted to be the Communist player on the basketball team.”
As kids and families have come to be close, the students are more likely to admit to some differences, small but felt. “We don’t pay as much attention to sports,” Bezkorovayna said. At home, Palibina said, “my mother cooks three full meals a day – breakfast, dinner and supper. Here, have one full meal. I’m used to a little cereal for breakfast.”
Danylyk, though she was prepared to dislike peanut butter (“… you’ll be eating it three times a day,” she was warned) loves it. Pashchenko doesn’t.
Except for Pashchenko, the students were apprehensive about living with dogs. “Every family here has some kind of pets,” Palibina observed.
On one major difference between here and back home that the students agree on school. “It’s not so hard here,” Boryseko said.
A 15-year-old sophomore, Boryseko is in a French class with seniors. She “never does homework here.” In Ukraine and Russia, students begin English language study at age 7. Bezkorovayna, at 16, has had seven years of physics.
According to the State Department Web site, there is a “…a multilayered” screening process that begins in October and ends in May for students hoping to spend time in the United States under the Future Leaders Exchange program: more than 60,000 students from the 12 Eurasian countries apply each year for roughly 1,000 placements.
FLEX students receive scholarships provided in full by the U.S. Department of State. FLEX, founded in 1992, was the brainchild of former New Jersey senator and presidential hopeful Bill Bradley. Its goal is to provide an opportunity for high-school students from the former Soviet Union to experience life in a democratic society to promote democratic values and institutions in Eurasia.
For more information on the program, call Bailey at 1-800-637-0217 or Taylor at 1-888-463-2139.
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