Touch Exchange Houston

Ecuador exchange student learns to live large in Texas

Even a trusty campus map couldn’t help Edison “Edi” Cadena navigate the halls of Sam Rayburn High last August.

Cadena, a foreign exchange student from Ecuador, arrived at Sam Rayburn with his host mother, Linda Nagel, to register for the first day of classes on a steamy summer day nearly a year ago. Taking advantage of the Rotary Club Youth Exchange program, Cadena traveled thousands of miles for an experience of a lifetime.

But the 18-year-old soon realized exactly how much bigger everything is in Texas.

“I had a hard time at school at first because I was always late,” Cadena said. “Everything was so new to me and so big -- the school here was almost 3,000 students. In Ecuador, I only had seven classmates and we stayed in the same class all day.”

After a few tardy slips and a few weeks adjusting to the campus, Cadena slipped into a routine familiar to American high-school students.

“He was so polite and excited to start school when I first met him,” said Robert Stock, principal at Sam Rayburn. “I think it’s a good experience for our students to be exposed to other cultures and countries as well. It gives them the ability to learn from each other.”

The Rotary Youth Exchange program, in partnership with the Rotary Club of Pasadena-South, offers short-term and long-term opportunities for students to travel abroad. Each student is placed with a host family for the duration of the trip and has the chance to attend high school in their host country.

Cadena, who returned to Ecuador this month, heard about the program from his father, a doctor in Ecuador who has worked with Rotary in the past.

“One day my dad told me he had already signed me up to do the program, and I took and passed a test and that was all,” Cadena said.

He said he is thankful for the opportunity the program has given him. The program, he said, has provided him with the best adventure of his life.

“It really changes you,” he said. “It’s a chance to see everything that I could have never seen.”

During his 11-month visit to America, Cadena split his time with two host families. Nagel, who serves on the outbound committee for the Rotary Youth Exchange program and has hosted students for six years, said she and husband John became host parents almost by accident.

“One year they were running short on hosts, and my husband and I decided to give it a try,” she said. “We never looked back.

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