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Our first Exchange Student. She arrived 04/14/2001 at 7:30pm. We were all excited, holding a sign up MBW Family welcomes another member Susana Pena Bievenidos! Susana's Immediately we were off on a tram to Krispy Kreme Donuts She speaks little English, we speak too little Spanish. She says she doesn't own a computer. Thank you to the computer gods that translate whatever we type in when we get home. First thing Easter morning she's thrust in to our Harry Potter Easter Party. Must have been quite bewildering to her despite our efforts to ease the confusion. That afternoon we visit the pier, and later they ride bikes on the strand. Monday she attends school with Angela for the day. RUHS has been in existence since 1905, has the largest amount of land for a high school campus in CA, and has a view of the beach (check out the tours of the campus on their webpage). RUHS is one of the few high schools with their own ISP servicing the community and giving students the opportunity to learn by voluntarily working for the ISP. RUHS is also one of the few high schools with the unusual program of supplying each freshman student with their own laptop for the year. The classrooms are wired to remotely connect to the laptops, allowing the freshmen to get in the habit of doing all homework on their laptop in order to get familiar with a computer, computer programs and the internet. That night Susana gets
the opportunity to go to Angela's friend's house where there are 2 Mexican
exchange students who attend a different school than Susana. Angela's stepsister
Katie went with them to the mall where they send friends and family a mall post
card. She spends an afternoon with another host and her student while the host takes her horseback riding class, and then they all go to Benihana's. We went to see the movie Spy Kids in
the city of Torrance. We were tickled they showed a preview of the movie Harry
Potter. After the movie we went to a bookstore for a surprise waiting for Susana
- the Harry Potter book in Spanish.
We wrote in the book.
Then went to Buca di Beppo for dinner with Nick, a friend of Angela's who speaks better Spanish than we do We went to Good Stuff
for our favorite breakfast at the beach. Mark had to go to work before and
after the breakfast. After breakfast the girls and I went for a walk on the Hermosa pier. Here's a picture of Susana's family when she was 11. She's 15 when she's
visiting us right now. We dropped off film to develop, then home for "mom" to bake lemon
drop cookies, and to finish making Beef in the
Boats for the farewell dinner Here's At the farewell dinner, the Redondo High School cast of West Side Story performed. One of the performers was Nick, Angela's friend and now Susana's friend. Nick in the orange shirt. 1 2 Here he's dancing with his cousin. After RUHS performed, the Mexican Exchange Students performed. 1 2 our Susana 4 5 6 7 and the Machete Dance. Tue was going to be hot so the kids made sure they were ahead on their
homework so we could all go to the beach right after school for an hour. Then it was rush home to clean up, eat dpizza, and get to the Redondo School
Board meeting Here's Angela and Susana conversing. Susana doesn't own a computer. Her maestro told me they'd be looking at the web from their school. I made Susana a notebook of this web, each written page copies and in a plastic protective cover, English on the left, Spanish on the right, black and white copies of the pictures piled in one of the plastic protective covers. She can pull out the pictures to follow the hard copy of the webpage thumbnail pictures. We didn't get a chance to show Susana that at the top of the hill in our backyard is the beginning of a wilderness park. Usually skunk and racoons are roaming our patio at night. None have showed up this spring. Guess they're getting fed well enough in the park. An 11.5 acre micro-wilderness area and wildlife reserve in the midst of a residential community. The park is open all year and overnight camping is permitted. I pick up Susana at 7:30pm, to race over to their friend Nick's performance in West Side Story. Then Angela, Nick and Susana go out to eat. Up early, packed the car by 7:30pm, Nick arrives, Aaron's stuff out to leave
with his mother, the rest of us will be heading to the airport to say goodbye
Susana. On the way home Marygrace video'd Susana's empty
seat and spoke about some more goodbye's. We stopped to take a picture
of the school bulletin board.
04/30/2001 I want to thank you for being so nice to susana and for considering her a
member of your family,I really liked the photos I saw and the videos.It seems
that she really had a nice time with you. sincerely
My stepson informs us he wants a French exchange student, and my daughter informs us she wants 2 Mexican exchange students next year. I think we've found another wonderful way to make new friends!
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