Different Than Home

When Hannah Kazibwe and Isaac Salazar first learned they would be sent to the United States metropolis of Wooster, they both had the same basic response: Where’s that?

When the exchange students imagined American cities, they conjured ideas of New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Orlando.

Wooster and the hundreds of other American small towns like it were not on their radar.

Salazar hails from Quito, the capital city of Ecuador, which nearly 3 million call home, 1.7 million of them in Quito proper.

Kazibwe calls Entebbe, Uganda home. With 70,000 residents, Entebbe is only the 19th-largest city in Uganda, but it sits just 20 miles or so from the Central African capital city of Kampala, home to nearly 2 million and part of a metro area of 6.7 million.

“I thought it was like a deserted city or town that people just moved to for their own comfort,” Kazibwe said of her first thoughts once she learned Wooster would be her destination. “I never knew it was like people knew each other. I just thought it was like a random town that people made up.

“At first I was really excited when I was coming here, but then I looked and I had no idea what Wooster was or even Ohio. I didn’t even know Ohio was in America. I only knew the big places, like Florida and California. I looked up Wooster, and I was like, ‘Oh, It’s really small.’”

Salazar’s experience was even more extreme. With his home city three times the size of Ohio’s largest town, Wooster was a speck on the map.His host family picked him up at Hopkins Airport and headed south. Having been to the U.S. before a couple of times but only to Disney World in Florida, he had only seen bustling areas.

As Salazar made his way with his first hosts into Wayne County, he suddenly had visions of a very long year.

“I thought I would be kind of bored the whole year and not have much to do, but it’s been pretty good,” he said.

Neither Kazibwe nor Salazar experienced much of what you would call culture shock here, all things considered. The biggest differences were in places most people might not even think of.

“Americans have everything scheduled for the whole year in their calendars,” Kazibwe said, pointing out one such area. “My calendar has nothing in it. I needed to practice putting important things and important dates in my calendar. It’s something I didn’t know people do. You have your whole year’s calendar on your phone.”

School also presented some differences. Both exchange students pointed to the changing of classrooms as one of the biggest differences. In their home countries, they stayed in one room all day. The teachers came to them.

“Here, you have to go and find your teachers,” Kazibwe said. “At home we wore uniforms. I was in boarding school since I was 4 years old. It was different to wake up in the morning, go to school and go back home.”

Similarly, Salazar was caught off guard by all the moving throughout the day — that and not having things scheduled for you.

At home we more uniforms. I was in boarding school since I was 4 years old. It was different to wake up in the morning, go to school and go back home.”

Hannah Kazibwe

“It was really interesting that you could choose the classes you take,” he said. “And at home we had the same class the whole year.”

Kazibwe, who was a junior at Wooster and plans on studying — perhaps at an American university — to be an early childhood teacher, praised the American education system.

“The teaching style here is something I’d like to practice because it’s much more effective for kids to learn, and it’s just fun,” she said.

Salazar already graduated from high school at home — which kept him from pursuing his goal of playing soccer here as state rules don’t allow graduates to play interscholastic sports — so his academic year was mostly for experience rather than for credit.

Along the way he did apply to several colleges, getting accepted to Ohio State, Ohio University and Elon University. He said it’s unlikely he’ll be able to attend college in the States, due to the costs.“It’s hard to pay for college here, and if I’m out of state, it’s even harder,” he said. “So I’m going back home to study college. Then I may see if I can come back for my specialty. 

I plan on being a surgeon, orthopedic or plastic.”

It’s hard to pay for college here…so I’m going back home to study college. Then I may see if I can come back for my specialty. I plan on being a surgeon.

Isaac Salazar

Another thing the pair experienced here that was far different was the climate. They experienced their first significant snowfalls and got to experience a hard winter.

With that, though, came the bonus of the best thing about Ohio winters, at least as far as high school students are concerned: snow days.

“Some days I had to go get to school early,” Salazar said. “So when we had the snow days and had that extra day to sleep, that was pretty good.”