Sean C. Morgan
Rozaliya Minigulova and Alejandra Ramirez Grau are both students at Sweet Home High School this year, but they were a world apart before they arrived in September.
Sweet Home High School is hosting Minigulova, 17, from Sterlitamak, Republic of Bashkortostan, a part of the Russian Federation, and Alejandra Ramirez Grau, 18, from Cali, a city in western Colombia, as exchange students for the 2010-11 school year.
Minigulova is hosted by Sharon and Michael Morrell. Michael Morrell is a business teacher at SHHS. Ramirez Grau is hosted by Krista and Tim Hart.
“It’s a small city for Russia, but in my city, there are 300,000 people,” Minigulova said. The Bashkir are the main ethnic group in the republic, which is located between the Volga River and Ural Mountains.
“Cali’s a big city, 2.5 million people,” Ramirez Grau said. “It’s really warm and sunny every day, always green, always 85 and full of Colombians. It’s a really beautiful place.”
Minigulova’s hometown is surrounded by forests and mountains, with six months of snow that melts in the spring, turning to beautiful weather in the spring and then to a hot summer.
Both arrived in Sweet Home in August.
Ramirez Grau wanted to go to Europe and learn French, but her mother, who studied at Boston University, insisted she visit the United States. Most of her family earned degrees in the United States.
After graduation from Sweet Home High School, she will return to Colombia and attend college.
Being away “wasn’t hard at the beginning,” Ramirez Grau said. “The place is new. Everything you look at is new – After six months or whatever time you’re here. It was really hard for me after Christmas. Cali is the capital of salsa music, and I miss that Latin flow.”
That’s when the exchange stopped feeling like a vacation, she said.
While junk food is much more commonplace, life in Sweet Home is most different from Cali because of its size.
“It has been really fun,” she said. “I think coming from a big city, it’s hard. I was really independent.”
Here someone has to drive her where she wants to go, she said. “Every time I go to Portland or Seattle, it feels like yeah, buildings, cars, noise, traffic.”
Minigulova feels about the same.
Her people live in apartments, in five- to nine-story complexes, Minigulova said. “We can find everything in my city. It’s not a big deal. Here on free time, I just spend it at home because I don’t want to ask somebody (for a ride).”
In Russia, she said, she takes the bus where she needs to go.
Minigulova was selected in a three-round contest, the Flex Program, for a free exchange trip to the United States, she said. The yearlong process tests English, and contestants must turn in essays and participate in interviews.
“When they called me, I was really happy,” Minigulova said. She was initially an alternate, but then she was designated a finalist.
In July, she attended a pre-trip orientation, she said. “They talked about American culture, what difficulties to expect, stereotypes and traditions.”
They were right, she said. “In America, you can tell everything you want, and it’s not a big deal – freedom of speech.”
At home in Russia, there are things people can’t talk about, she said. It’s inappropriate.
The exchange will help her in her career, she believes. “It’s good for your resume. I want to enter a university in Russia about international relationships.”
She would like to become some type of diplomat.
Both girls speak good English, but they’ve had their difficulties with communication.
“Sometimes, I need to say the same thing three times,” Minigulova said. “Sometimes, you say it, people start laughing.”
Slang is the biggest language problem, she said.
Ramirez Grau’s native language is Spanish, and people often expect it to sound like Mexican Spanish, she said, but it doesn’t. Her Colombian Spanish also differs from European Spanish the way British or Australian English differs from the United States.
Ramirez Grau has a 23-year-old sister. Minigulova has a 10-year sister.
While Rarmirez Grau will return to Colombia and start college with the same organization where she attended high school, the Jesuits, Minigulova will return for a final year of high school in Russia.
Ramirez Grau will study business management and attend cooking school. She hopes to open an Italian restaurant.
Both noted differences with religion.
Like Ramirez Grau, Colombia is generally Catholic, she said, and it has a lot of people from the East, Muslims and Jews.
She attended a traditional, private Catholic school, she said. Her teachers were Catholic and Jewish. Her school included all grades, elementary through high school, with some 1,500 students.
Minigulova is Muslim, she said. Russian Orthodox is most common, but religion isn’t an overriding part of her culture. She goes to mosque on holidays normally, and she went to mosque to pray for a safe trip before leaving for the United States.
Minigulova’s high school has about 1,100 students, she said.
And both had to wear uniforms at school.
Minigulova’s school has 45-minute periods and runs from 8:15 a.m. to 2 p.m., while Ramirez Grau’s school runs from 6:50 a.m. to 3 p.m.
In Sweet Home, Minigulova was on the swim team, her first time swimming on a team.
“I didn’t know anything about competitive swimming,” she said.
She also has participated in the Key Club and Future Business Leaders of America. This spring, she is throwing the discus in track and field.
Ramirez Grau is a part of the high school Concert Choir, and playing an acoustic guitar, she sang a Colombian song during the recent high school “A Little Night Music” concert.
“I wanted to be on the volleyball team but was too late,” Ramirez Grau said. She played volleyball at home as well as “football” or soccer.