NHS Student Travels To Portugal For An Exchange Program

By Eliza Hallabeck

Alyssa Buda’s first choice for a high school exchange destination was Portugal, and, her mother said, when Alyssa heard about the chance to go there through an AFS Intercultural Programs and Newtown High School program, Alyssa made it happen.

“She didn’t really speak Portuguese when she left,” said Alyssa’s mother Kathy Gleason-Buda, “but she speaks it fairly well now.”

Alyssa said she found out about the AFS International Programs while she was bored and surfing the Internet, and a few days later she heard a friend give a presentation in school about her own AFS Intercultural Programs trip. She said that was when she realized it was possible to go away for a semester.

“I lived in Alcochete,” said Alyssa. Alcochete is about 20 minutes away from Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Alyssa said the town is along a large river, and she spent a lot of time walking by it.

 “I loved it,” she said. “It was so beautiful there.”

Alyssa left for the trip at the end of January, according to her mother, and she came back at the end of June. While there Alyssa attended classes for school.

“In most of my classes my teachers didn’t really require that much work from me,” Alyssa said, because they understood that she had the language barrier to get past.

She woke up at 7:30 am for her normal day of school in Alcochete, and school started at 8:20 am. The school day lasted until 4:30 pm or until 6 pm, but there were breaks in-between.

“Everyone was so nice there,” said Alyssa.

She explained that everyone she met was interested in the fact that she was an American, but she said she tried to not make confrontations with people.

During her time as a student in Alcochete, Alyssa went on four field trips, and one of them took the group up near the border between Portugal and Spain.

“I went away for a weekend to England to meet my dad,” said Alyssa, which was the one time she took a trip away from Alcochete on her own.

During her stay in Alcochete Alyssa learned a lot from the people around her, and she said she would do the entire experience over again if she had the choice. She is going into her junior year at Newtown High School, and she said she does not know whether she wants to study abroad again or consider college.

The entire trip cost about $9,000, according to Alyssa, and that price included personal spending during her stay there.

Ms Gleason-Buda said she was expecting Alyssa to come back altered from her experience in Portugal, but did not know what type of difference to expect to see in her daughter.

Ms Gleason-Buda said she was happy with the way the trip has affected her daughter. She also said that she felt comfortable with sending Alyssa on the trip, because she knew AFS Intercultural Programs is a good company.

“AFS is a great organization,” she said, “and most of the people that work for them are volunteers. And they are devoting their own time to the project.”

When Alyssa decided to go on the trip, Ms Gleason-Buda said she went through the process with very little help from either of her parents. She also said she was excited for Alyssa to go.                                         “It’s something I wish I could have done as a kid.”

Ms Gleason-Buda said the AFS Intercultural Programs has recommended ways to interact with students that go out of the country on their own. She added she could not contact Alyssa a lot while she was there, because AFS International Programs said it would cause the student to be more homesick.

“I guess she wanted to come out of her shell, but it really forced her to,” she said.