By Charlee Blackwell and Elaina Faye Miller
For most people, Flora wouldn’t be the place they would want to visit as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. However, foreign exchange students, Lavinia Dallorso and Samantha Limbos, claim small-town USA is the “real American life.”
To become an exchange student, Limbos from Brussels, Belgium, and Dallorso from Rome, Italy, had to pass psychological tests and interviews in English to ensure they were ready for this experience. Since they are both self-proclaimed “city girls” they prefer to live in a small town while in America.
Luckily for them, they get to experience this in the same household, with Ronald and Amy Hensley and their two children.
Dallorso will have one more year of high school upon returning to Italy; Limbos, on the other hand, has already graduated and will begin college next year. Both are required to complete 5 years of high school in their respective countries.
As is true with most exchange students, the girls agree Flora is very different from where they are from. Limbo’s school has 3,000 students where everybody in each class is the same age, and they don’t have the opportunity to choose the classes they wish to take.
Before leaving Flora and returning to their countries, Dallorso and Limbos both hope to be bilingual and make new American friends they can remember forever.