By AdriAnna Newberry
Photo by AdriAnna Newberry, for the Redoubt Reporter. Tatyana Scott plays flute in band class at Soldotna High School last week. She will be a foreign exchange student next year.
For the Redoubt Reporter
Though they may seem to be separate corners of the world, there is a connection between Samoa, Soldotna and Costa Rica — Tatyana Scott.
Tatyana is a junior at Soldotna High School, and has lived in Soldotna with her family since 2003, but she’s got connections to other parts of the world that are about to get even stronger. Tatyana learned Polynesian dancing from her mother, Faata Scott, and has cooked her share of pigs on a spit. Tatyana’s father, John Scott, is a world traveler who has lived in Japan, New Zealand, has visited 17 countries and twice traveled the United States on a road trip. Her mother, born and raised in Western Samoa, works at Central Peninsula Hospital, and her father is a retired linguist.
With such a colorful and unique background it is not surprising that the travel bug zoomed in to bite Tatyana. For some high school students, the most realistic way to travel abroad is through the foreign exchange program. For Tatyana, this has the added plus of blending a family heritage of travel with her dreams for the future, from the strengthening emotional changes that come from living in a foreign land, to the open doors as colleges smile at the travels on her transcript.
Travel is expensive, however, and for Tatyana, it is prohibitive. Her father is disabled and the family finances frown on trips abroad. So when Nancy Cranston, treasurer of the local branch of the American Field Service, told John Scott that scholarships were available for hopeful foreign exchange students, Tatyana went online in hopes of going abroad.
The scholarship she had in mind was the Gaia Scholarship, with the winners being sent for 11 months to Costa Rica. In her essay, Tatyana wrote about her unique family background and their travels, along with her dream of visiting Latin American countries like her father, and her predisposition to learn new cultures. To her shock and great pleasure, Tatyana’s essay placed eighth overall in the nation. It was not enough for the Gaia Scholarship, but it did result in her being awarded the Global Leadership Scholarship, which is almost the equivalent. The scholarship gives Tatyana about $2,500, one-third of the necessary funds to go to Costa Rica.
Scott has fond memories of Costa Rica, having spent several weeks there while on a road trip with relatives in 1958.
“It’s much more worthwhile to see things slowly and in detail … meet a lot of interesting people who are curious about the trip,” he said.
Scott said he is “very, very pleased” that Tatyana placed so well with her essay and that she will now get to travel.
“It’s in our blood, our family line, that we’re interested in foreign peoples and traveling abroad,” he said.
He acknowledged that Costa Rica has changed a lot since 1958 and believes that Tatyana will have a learning experience that will go beyond language and culture.
“Tatyana is likely to learn that in Costa Rica, education is more like the old days. People will study like they used to, with textbooks and library research and writing papers by hand. The culture and way of life will be different, yet still wholesome. … The old-fashioned way is more observing. Life is going to have a slower pace, and she will get more out of it that way,” he said.
Originally known as the American Field Service, and now called simply AFS, the foreign exchange program was created by the ambulance drivers of World War I as they interacted with wounded people and members of the medical profession from numerous different countries.
Now it is a program that trades eligible volunteers from the ranks of teachers and college and high school students among various countries. On the Kenai Peninsula, there are genrelly around two or three students visiting, usually from Chile, Thailand and Spain. For the coming school year the only student going out from the area is Tatyana.
Cranston has hosted six foreign exchange students, in addition to friends and relatives from other nations. She has worked with the local chapter since around 1985. She assists Eileen Bryson, chair, and manages donations made to help defray costs for students and host families, in addition to the donations made by local companies, grocery stores and restaurants to help the annual AFS fundraiser.
The AFS chapter also has a secretary, a sending coordinator and a hosting coordinator, who interviews potential exchange students and host families and sends the information to the AFS base in Portland, Ore. Staff there try to match students with host families of like interests. Since Tatyana plays flute in the school band and is considering taking it with her to Costa Rica, she might expect to be placed with a family that loves music.
The students are assigned a host family and a location. Incoming foreign exchange students do not even know which state they are going to be sent to until the decision is made.
Cranston said that the ones sent to Alaska seem to have an initial response of a fear of freezing, but later tend to fall in love with the area. Typically, a student on a foreign exchange is gone for 11 months with the applications arriving in February, also the original date for Tatyana’s departure.
Tatyana has asked for and received a postponement of her trip and is now slated to leave in July and return in June 2010. This allows her to finish the current school year at home, attend a full school year in Costa Rica and have another six months to raise enough funds to go. Cranston says there are various ways for students to raise the necessary funds, using their Alaska Permanent Fund dividend, getting a job and soliciting kind-hearted members of the community.
“She is trying hard to earn the money. … I think she’s a good candidate to go … a very sweet girl. Needs to be more aggressive in raising money, but with her dad supporting her, she should be able to make it,” Cranston said.
“($7,000) looks like a lot of money, but compare it to feeding and clothing the student for 11 months and it’s not that much. It’s mainly transportation to get there,” she said.
Much of the expense also goes toward medical insurance provided by AFS. It may be a big chunk of money to raise, but, as Cranston said, “The experience of being in another culture is very important.”
Those wishing to donate to AFS on behalf of Tatyana or other students can send contributions to Cranston at American Field Service, 36995 Kalifornsky Beach Road, Kenai, AK 99611. For more information on AFS, call Cranston at 283-9265.
AdriAnna Newberry is a college student doing an internship with the Redoubt Reporter.
The Mouth of The Kenai 