It’s the morning of Nicole Fernandes de Souza’s first day of school, and the building is new and unknown. Students greet each other in the halls after a summer apart, a familiar and unfamiliar sound. Sitting down for first period, the bell rings and the teacher begins to speak in an unfamiliar language.
“I was so confused, because I have psychology my first period, and Mr. Carlson, he talks a lot, and I wasn’t understanding anything, actually, so it was kind of weird,” Nicole Fernandes de Souza said. “But I love this school, because it’s really different from Brazil. This school is huge and is a public school. This is crazy for me, because it’s a different reality.”
In Brazil, de Souza lived and went to school in Sete Lagoas, a city of around 230,000 people. She had a weekly schedule as opposed to a daily one, and it focused more on math and science than English and philosophy. She has found school here to be easier, but she is taking less academically focused classes.
“In Brazil it is so much harder, actually, because here, I feel that we can retake tests. In Brazil, we cannot do that, and we cannot use Chromebook[s] either,” de Souza said. “Here, I’m just taking fun classes, so I cannot really talk about it, I guess because I don’t have the pressure to have good grades.”
To come to the United States, de Souza had to go through an extensive process, including a test on Rotary and general knowledge as well as an interview.
“In Brazil, we have a lot of people who want to do an exchange, so we have a really big process,” de Souza said. “It is kind of hard, but in this time I made a lot of friends with the other exchange students. So it was pretty fun.”
De Souza chose to come to the United States because she wanted to practice her English and learn more about the culture.
“I feel that around the world, we have a lot of stereotypes about here. The food I think is true because I hear that here we have a lot of junk foods. That’s real because I eat pizza almost every day here at school,” de Souza said. “I think we also have a kind of bias that you are really bad in geography. That’s true and not true at the same time because I think you guys are improving. You now know that we speak Portuguese [in Brazil] and not Spanish.”
One food de Souza has enjoyed eating since coming to the United States that she hadn’t encountered in Brazil is Rice Krispie treats.
“I love rice krispie treats. I will probably bring some Rice Krispies with me when I go back to Brazil because we have the marshmallows. But I’m not sure about Rice Krispies. I love it so much,” de Souza said. “I really like Reese’s too, and the cookie with sugar frosting. Oh, I love those. The donuts here are really good too.”
Since coming to City High, de Souza has participated in cross country, basketball, bowling and is planning to participate in tennis and golf in the spring. She also does Interact Club, the volunteer-based club sponsored by the Rotary.
“One of [my favorite] things is sports. Because here we have a lot of different opportunities to play sports, and in Brazil we have soccer and maybe volleyball, but volleyball is more for girls and soccer more for boys,” de Souza said. “Here, we have a lot of different options, and I think this is amazing.”
De Souza has also found that being involved in sports has been great for meeting new people.
“I feel that they are really welcoming to me. And cross country was, it was 54 girls, I think, and they are all supporting each other,” de Souza said. “I first thought that I couldn’t run five Ks, I feel that I improved myself because my PR was 27 minutes, and I never thought I could do that before.”
Though sports have helped de Souza combat her homesickness and make new friends, she is still missing her senior year of high school in Brazil.
“It is hard because all the people that I grew up with are in Brazil, and I’m not anymore. I missed my graduation in Brazil because I am a senior, so this was really hard for me because it’s people that I studied with for a long time,” de Souza said. “But also, I feel here that people are not too open to make friends, you know, because you already have your group, and you will maintain with this group, you know. But sports helped me a lot with that.”
Before coming to Iowa, de Souza didn’t really know anything about it. She got to pick to come to the US, but not here specifically.
“I think that I can feel the United States vibes here. It’s not as busy like New York City, so it’s not that dangerous, you know. And I really like corn, so it’s good that I came here,” de Souza said.
