WINSTED — For many students, graduating from high school is a great feat. Andrea Ugarte of Ecuador is repeating that feat, this time in a foreign country. Ugarte is attending Northwestern Regional High School as a foreign exchange student.
Ugarte, 18, is from Guayaquil, Ecuador, which is the largest and most populous city in Ecuador and serves as the nation’s main port center for their fishing and manufacturing industries. With a population exceeding 2 million, Guayaquil is a very different city from New Hartford, where Ugarte is learning to adjust to small-town life.
Prior to joining the foreign exchange program, Ugarte graduated from a private high school and took a college entrance course to begin her studies as a tourism major at the Universidad Evangelica de El Salvador. Because she had already turned 18, Ugarte was limited in which countries she could attend school, and the United States became the logical choice to enroll as a high school senior.
"You pick the country," said Ugarte. "They give you the state, city and family."
Before her arrival in the United States, Ugarte had received pictures of her host family and information about where she would be living for a year. As it happened, she is staying with a fellow senior, Julia Davis, and her mother, Kathy Smith.
Quick to form a friendship, Ugarte is happy with her host family. "We are best friends," said Ugarte of Julia. "She is like a sister." While she admits they do fight from time to time, the bickering is more a result of communication differences and sibling rivalry than anger.
According to the AFS Intercultural Program’s Web site, afs.org, host families are encouraged to treat students as a family member, not a guest. As a result, Ugarte has learned to participate in family chores, something she is not accustomed to at home, where a full staff of housekeepers, cooks and butlers is on hand.
Northwestern is also much different from the high school Ugarte attended in Ecuador. "It is different because I was in a private school...we had to wear uniforms," said Ugarte. "In Ecuador you don’t change classrooms, the teachers move. You stay in the same room."
A big fear of many foreign exchange students is how well they will fit in at their new school. Ugarte remains in contact with several of her friends who are currently as far abroad as Germany and Paris. "They want to come home," she said. But Ugarte is fitting in very well at Northwestern and making a lot of friends already.
"She adjusted well to our school," said Principal Wayne Conner. "It’s always exciting being able to host a student from another land." Conner noted that he was pleased to see Ugarte attend last week’s homecoming dance and partake in the school’s activities.
Other differences Ugarte has already noticed between the two countries are how much people work in the United States and age restrictions for certain activities, such as driving and purchasing cigarettes and alcohol.
In Ecuador, family members leave work and go home for lunch every day. Before she would attend school until 2 p.m. and have lunch at 2:30 p.m. with her family. Here Ugarte learned to incorporate lunch into a school schedule, aside from having to get used to the different types of foods in the United States.
"Here its just like French fries all the time...and fast food all the time," said Ugarte.
The drinking age is 18 in Ecuador; it is also the driving age. Cigarettes can be purchased at 16 and are about one-fifth the price they are here.
At some point during Ugarte’s stay, she will meet a second host family, where she will stay for just one week. While she doesn’t know when or where that will be, Ugarte is looking forward to the opportunity to travel.
Already making a lot of friends and adapting to the language, Andrea Ugarte is enjoying her stay in the United States. While she misses her family, she knows that this experience will be beneficial to her college education and future career goals. "At first it was so different. It was so hard to adapt. I had no friends and never met the people...I like my family and I like the school. It’s fun," said Ugarte.
Ugarte will remain at Northwestern High School until June, when she will participate in this year’s graduation.
Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.L. Tomaino 
Samir LanGusProvided
