Yelm acts as a hub for a variety of people from many cultures, and Yelm High School is no exception. Three seniors — Anna Silhavikova, Jeanne Drabowics and Inigo Peguero Morey — arrived in Yelm in late August as part of a 10-month exchange program.
Silhavikova is from the Czech Republic; Drabowics hails from France; and Peguero Morey is from Spain. Silhavikova and Drabowics live together as host sisters near McKenna, while Peguero Morey lives on a farm in Yelm.
Each of the three students had dreamt of spending a year as an exchange student in the United States. American culture was intriguing to them, as well as the education system.
“I wanted to discover American culture and all the cliches. I couldn’t choose Washington, but it’s a pretty good school. I like it,” Drabowics said of YHS.
Drabowics said she had been trying to come to America through an exchange program for three years, but the COVID-19 pandemic made the task challenging. Peguero Morey had similar struggles, but he was told there weren’t enough host families when he tried last year.
“I always wanted to come here. It is a very interesting country,” he said. “Learning the culture here and how Americans do things compared to what they do in Spain and how people live, it’s very different.”
Drabowics and Silhavikova first spent three days together, along with other exchange students, in New York City, before flying into SeaTac to meet their host family. Once they arrived at their home in Yelm, they were welcomed with an American breakfast, while Peguero Morey’s family prepared him a Spanish ham when he arrived in Yelm.
“The first real day was a big, fat American breakfast. There was all the bacon, sausages, eggs and hashbrowns and whatever you can think of,” said John McClane, Drabowics and Silhavikova’s host father.
The exchange students didn’t have a choice as to which state they would travel, as it was up to the host family. McClane said he chose Drabowics and Silhavikova because of their mutual interest in horses.
“They’re horse girls. We have horses, and we do the high school equestrian team stuff,” he said. “We reached out to both of them individually asking them to confirm that they didn’t just write down that they liked horse staff but that they really did it for real. They were just so awesome. How can you not say yes to them?”
Each student had some fears of finding friends in their temporary residences, but those fears were alleviated when they joined clubs and teams. Drabowics joined the jazzline team, and Peguero Morey joined the football team.
“In my first varsity game, all my teammates screamed my name, and I was so nervous,” Peguero Morey said. “But it’s been so much fun, and the support for the football team in Yelm is amazing.”
While the foreign exchange students have had to adapt to life in the United States, the host families have taken on the challenge of making students from other countries feel at home in an entirely new setting. McClane, who had previously hosted a student from Germany before Drabowics and Silhavikova arrived, admitted he is still learning how to make them feel at home.
“It’s a constant battle. You have the language barrier stuff to overcome, but you also have their cultural differences,” he said. “We talk in a lot of idioms that we Americans are used to. Like, if I told an American that somebody was running around like a chicken with their head cut off, they’d know exactly how to describe that, but it makes no sense to the girls.
“The biggest culture difference that I see is they are way more respectful and polite than American kids are,” he added. “It’s been four months, and they still ask me for permission to eat a Pop-Tart. It is a lot of fun, and there’s excitement to be had.”
As part of their exchange program, the students get the chance to participate in all the activities that American high school seniors do, including prom and graduation. Even though their time in Yelm ends in the summer, the students have begun to fall in love with the city.
“I love it here. I don’t want to leave,” Silhavikova said.
