Exchange... cont. from pg 1
Student Ambassadors
WHS - November 2012
Back row (left to right): Andria Myers, Jolene Bender, Jessica Campos and Blake Barkman. Not
pictured: Logan Good, Brody Jantzi and Ben Cramer.
Photo Submitted
Westview High School teachers have selected six students to receive
“Student Ambassador of the Month” honors for November. Westview High
strives to promote students doing more than what was expected of them.
make friends with the exchange students in her classes. Now, as an adult
and a mom, she is unable to travel as
much as she’d like, so she brings other
cultures into her home. All of the
students she has hosted have been girls
because she has one son and loves having a temporary daughter to dote on. “I
get to spoil them and then send them
home,” she says with a smile.
Sarka loves her host family, though
her first impression was a little unnerving. After being picked up from
the airport in South Bend, the family
took a wrong turn at a roundabout and
ended up in Michigan. Not knowing
the state line was so close to where
she’d be living, Sarka was very confused, but the family was able to laugh
about it and explain that they were
not very far from home at all. Sarka
thought they were all a little crazy,
and they have gotten along wonderfully ever since. “I had no expectations
because I wanted to be surprised, not
disappointed.” So far, Sarka has faced
no setbacks or disappointments with
her experience living in the US.
She hopes to attend a university at
home once she’s completed her schooling. Her goal is to become a dentist
and settle in her home country with
a steady job, which will give her both
financial security and the ability to
vacation to other countries once in a
while. She loves traveling and learning languages, but she wants to have a
stable home environment to come back
to and friends and family relationships
she can nurture for years to come.
At home, Dufkova studied Spanish and hopes to maintain her fluency
by living and working in Spain over
the summer, once she completes her
schooling at Westview.
The Hometown Treasure · January ‘13 · pg 3