The Tale of a COVID Exchange Student

Last year, Laura Bello got to spend her junior year (the American equivalent to her senior year) here at Fargo North as an exchange student through Rotary Club. Bello is from Sicily, Italy. She decided to come to America to experience a new culture and broaden her cultural horizons. Both of us had the pleasure of meeting her through our modern US history class last semester with Mr. Dougherty. Soon, we became close friends and would have intriguing conversations from things like cataract surgery, to how funny it is to watch people fall on ice (only slightly disrupting our history class in the process). When pondering feature ideas for this year, both of us immediately thought of Bello, for her experience as an exchange student was far from ordinary, starting in a world pre-COVID and leaving the country in the middle of a pandemic to return home. Without further ado, we present the tale of a COVID exchange student.
Bello spent roughly ten months in the United States. Her stay was prolonged in the summer months, due to COVID travel restrictions put in place at that time. Back in March, COVID was especially bad in her home country of Italy. As of now, they are doing slightly better thanks to strict lockdowns for all of their residents, but their numbers are still rising. They also have enforced curfews. Bello said they all must be back in their homes by 10 p.m. each night otherwise they get a ticket that would be about $100. On top of this, Bello’s high school (which is roughly the same size as North) is 100% online with hopes of returning to some form of in person in 2021. They also have a lot of businesses shut down and much of unnecessary travel is banned right now.
Even with all of this, Bello still remains optimistic. When asked about her wrapping up her experience as a foreign exchange student amidst a global pandemic, she said, “It could have been disappointing, but it wasn’t. It was fun in a sense and sad in another way, because I couldn’t experience things in the spring like prom, but it was interesting to see how your country was doing with the pandemic. I gained a new perspective.”
Her transition back home was quite the adjustment. One of the first things she brought up that she struggled with was language.
“I was speaking English and Italian and getting them mixed up.” Bello said.
She also mentioned it was an odd adjustment being back at home with her parents again. As excited as she was to see them, she needed a lot of time to adjust back to her old way of life.
One of the stand out memories of the states to her was visiting outdoor parks. Where she lives in Italy, they do not have a lot of green grass or public outdoor spaces.
“We really don’t have much room. We kind of stack everything on top of each other,” Bello went on to say, “I miss being able to go on picnics in parks.”
In fact, she has been “faking American picnics” in Sicily.
“Parks, if you can call them that, are really dry land. The grass is more yellow and is not as nice,” Bello said.
She also really misses the way we celebrate Christmas. In Italy, they do not decorate their houses as much. She thought the way we celebrate and decorate was really beautiful and is something that she really misses. In general, she stated she missed the general atmosphere of Fargo. Included in that list of American things she misses are doughnuts, Taco Bell, the houses and the more open organization of blocks, and seeing all of her friends, former classmates, and former teachers (she especially misses her former history and philosophy teacher, Mr. Dougherty).
Another note Bello wanted us to include was that alfredo is not actually an “ authentic Italian food.” We discovered this when we asked her about our Olive Garden version of her food that she got to try when she was in Fargo. She said it was very good food, but probably would be around a 3-5/10 for authenticity.
Bello encourages people to travel and experience new cultures (not during a global pandemic of course). Her experience in Fargo, North Dakota, which is taken for granted by many of us everyday, was something priceless to her. She also would like to say hello to Mrs. Court, her senior and junior friends, her host families and brothers, and teachers.