All interviews translated from Spanish to English

It’s January and neither 17-year-olds Guillermo Iacaruso nor Iara Fernandez exist in their set Argentinian summertime. Strangely they cannot see the ocean from where they are. The beach is far away, and their loved ones even farther. A sun hovers pleasingly over Buenos Aires, over its youth, over its three million residents. It doesn’t shine for Iacaruso and Fernandez. For Domenico Miceli, Augustina Martin and Juan Martin Manent it doesn’t either. They are also in Manhattan, Kansas.
“I’ve been to the United States before but never in Kansas,” Iacaruso said. “I never thought I’d be in Kansas.”
Five new foreign exchange students, attendees of the Instituto Nuestra Señora de Las Nieves school in the Liniers neighborhood of Buenos Aires, find themselves at Manhattan High as foreign exchange students; far away from home yet not totally estranged.
“I thought that people here were going to be unfriendly but it’s nothing like that,” Fernandez said. “Everyone here is really nice.”
The students come thanks to AFS, a program which has allowed foreign exchange students to come and attend MHS for a whole year.
“This one is just a short term program,” AFS sponsor Tony Wichmann said. “We’re having them stay with a temporary host family so it’s similar to our other students, it’s just the stay that is shorter.”
Although it has been only a week since their arrivals, Manhattan has offered the Argentinian students an insight into the American lifestyle, showing them first hand the differences between reality and fiction.
“I haven’t been around that much but of what I have seen it’s really different to where I’m from,” Fernandez said. “It’s a very quiet town. The lives of people are very calm. The school is nothing like mine and especially nothing like they show in the movies.”
For others, like Miceli, Manhattan has provided them with an opportunity to see how other people bond over sports.
“What I really liked was the fanaticism people here have for their Kansas State [University] teams,” Miceli said. “I went to watch the basketball game against Baylor and I really enjoyed the show.”
Though their welcoming was warm, it was unavoidable to turn a blind eye to the massive social and economic differences between what they see at home and what they’ve seen here. The contrasting realities between first-world America and everything outside of that realm.
“The family that hosts me here said they were poor,” Iacaruso said. “In my opinion they’re not poor at all in comparison to back home.”
The real differences come through education.
“This school is way more modern,” Miceli said. “In terms of security it’s really different. Nothing happens inside our school in Argentina, but outside of the school sometimes people will rob you.”
Even in terms of structure, education sees contrast.
“In Argentina the teachers are the ones who switch classes,” Miceli said. “We also have 15-20 minute breaks.”
Regardless, the trip has already given students a new way to see the world, even in the short time they’ve stayed here.
“We want know a little more of the world.” Manent said. “[We want to know] different ways to see the world and different ways of living. We want to discover new places and people.”
The students will stay in America until February before their return to Argentina. In that time they will try to experience everything that is new and gain knowledge for their return.
“Coming back to Argentina after this will be good because we will have another point of view,” Miceli said. “We’ll have learned other customs. Different thoughts.”
They will also try to fit in, even if only for a month, at the school and in their host families.
“I’d like to get better at English” Iacaruso said. “[I want to] be another son in the family.”