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June 29, 1999
Exchange students prepare farewellsPair will leaveMinnesota withfriendships, maturityBy ERIC SERRANO Journal Staff Writer
NEW ULM -- While the rest of the city will use the Fourth of July holiday to mark the birth of a nation, for two teens here, the festivities will likely resemble a going away party. Josef Brandstrom and Edvardo (Al) Villaboim, AFS exchange students, will return to their home countries on Monday. While in New Ulm they formed friendships and gained a new perspective on themselves. "It will probably be harder to leave Minnesota than it was to leave Brazil," the 18-year-old Sao Paulo native and recent New Ulm High School graduate Villaboim, said. "The people here have been the best part of this trip. Everyone has been pretty friendly. There hasn't been a negative point to this whole (experience)," he said. I think this was the best thing I have ever done," Villaboim said. "It's like I was a kid when I left home; and though I'm still a kid in some ways, I feel like this experience has changed me a lot." For the Swedish exchange student Brandstrom, who also graduated this year, personal growth has been the single greatest benefit of taking part in the program. "Being away from my parents and my family, I've really grown a lot as a person," said the NUHS golf team's top player. "While I was here, I improved my English, played football (as a kicker for the Eagles), and took part in Menagerie, as well as playing (near scratch) golf," Brandstrom said. "I will recommend this type of experience to all my friends when I get home." Villaboim played football as a tackle. "I only really played in a couple of games. I had to quit because I was in the swim club too, and the practices conflicted," he said. However, he will always remember the hits -- those he received as well as those he delivered. Brandstrom said he didn't experience any heavy longing for his home on a tiny island in the Baltic Sea during his year-long stay in New Ulm. "I don't think I was ever really homesick. It will be good to be home again -- nice to go back-- but homesickness wasn't an issue for me." Villaboim echoed his fellow exchange student's sentiments. "Leaving New Ulm will be harder for me. It's like I have two families now (host parents Ron and Brenda Janni) and my mother and father," he said. Villaboim was impressed by the differences in public education in New Ulm when compared to public schools in his hometown of Sao Paulo, the seventh largest city in the world. "At home I attend a private school because the public schools are not the best. The government doesn't have a lot of money to spend on schools," he said. "When I came here and saw the high school, I just couldn't believe how nice it was. The teachers are all so nice, too. They all really care about you." While Brandstrom also praised his educational experience in New Ulm. But he will still have to make up the year when he returns to Sweden. "This year doesn't count at home," he said. "But, I think it is the same way for U.S. students who go to Europe." For Brandstrom's host parents, Lowell and Ingrid Liedman, the Swedish lad is the sixth exchange student to live under their roof in the past 17 years. "He's the first male student we've had," Lowell Liedman said, wiping cupcake mix from his hands as he and Brandstrom finished preparing goodies for an exchange student get-together later in the evening. "It's not really that different having a boy versus a girl," said Ingrid Liedman. "I don't think gender makes much difference, I think it all depends on the crowd they get involved with. "Each kid, each person, is different. They have all brought out in us something that we will value forever," she said. Ingrid Liedman said she will miss Brandstrom's piano playing and his voice after the Swedish teen departs next week. "It was so nice to come home and see him at the piano playing and singing along. It could really bring out the purr-time," she said. Villaboim said he may return to Minnesota in the fall, possibly to enroll in an aviation program at Minnesota State University at Mankato. "I haven't made that final decision yet. It would be hard to leave my family for so long again," he said. His sister, however, will be a Minnesota resident in the fall, Villaboim said, as an exchange student at the high school in Good Thunder. "She'll like it, too," he said.
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