An Octorara Exchange Student Shares Her Views of America and Americans

By Magdalena Stuehrmann

This year, Octorara Area High School had a very special guest. Eleonora Avramova was a foreign exchange student from Bulgaria who attended Octorara as an eleventh grader. 

She greatly enjoyed her time at Octorara and, though she is happy to be back home in Bulgaria this summer, she misses being a part of our community as well. 

Miss Avramova shone this year at Octorara, making acquaintances and friends quickly, and adding a touch of exotic optimism and personality to the junior class. Miss Avramova says that she enjoyed school the most out of all her experiences here. 

About Octorara, Miss Avramova said, “I think there is something really special about that place, that I am so happy I was part of.” 

She was a little surprised by the formalities of American manners at first, but quickly adjusted those around her to her more informal ways. She loved living with her host family and attending school, especially her Philosophy class, taught by Mr. Mundy and Mr. Udell at Octorara. She credits this class, the students, and the teachers especially, with making her “grow up and set [her] beliefs and opinions.” 

About the community and her fellow students, Miss Avramova stated that she had “never met nicer and better-hearted people in the whole world, and I have been to [many] places.” She was very enthusiastic about the way that her teachers and fellow students pushed her into the Octorara society, wanting her “to be involved and active,” which helped her experience even more during her time here. 

Though Miss Avramova was very reluctant to leave our community, she commented that, after seeing her family, the one thing that she really looked forward to about being at home was eating Bulgarian food again – Octorara cafeteria food certainly can’t compare! 

Miss Avramova was a wonderful addition to our community and we will miss her as much as she misses us. We all wish her the best of luck and hope that she can visit us again soon.

Bulgaria and America, an Observation of a Teenager

By Eleonora Avramova

When I first came here, everybody was asking: "So what do Bulgarians think about America?" and obviously our little country knows as little about U.S.A. as U.S.A. knows about us. 

Bulgarians kept saying - "Americans? - Dumb and fat." But really, how many American people do a person from Bulgaria know? The truth is, there are people in this big country that are stupid, the overweight ones could also be seen, but an American stands for much more than just the popular stereotype. 

Americans are intelligent, funny and extremely polite. They don't know much about Bulgaria, but the little they do know is usually positive. In fact, Americans do not know much about most countries, but they don't care. 

Don't get me wrong, that is not a bad thing. These people actually came closer to overpowering their stereotypical thinking than any other nation. They do not care about what the origin of someone is, they care about that someone - about his opinions and interests. 

Americans don't care about where someone came from, they care about where that someone is going.

To some extent Bulgarians probably cannot understand that. I, myself, cannot understand the concept of forgetting the past and think about only the future. But that is how we are taught - how great Bulgaria was and what people DID before. How about the present? Who does anything for us now? Who should be proud of? Our politicians? Doubt that. 

Actually, pardon me, the question "who does anything for us now?" is invalid. The real problem lies on this question: "What did you do for Bulgaria?" Nothing. Our great past doesn't mean anything since we are staining it, allowing our country to be the way it is.

I am not saying Americans are perfect. Nobody is. Some of them are way too religious, some of them way too ignorant, but they know what they are doing and why they are doing it. 

They always try to improve themselves as humans, while we are proud of our flaws. Americans know what they want and find a way to achieve it. The American Dream doesn't stand for living the perfect life, it stands for putting effort into living the perfect life.

There isn't anything impossible here in the USA.  We Bulgarians, on the other side know that nothing is possible for us. We are so used to live in this tragedy, be victims of government that we accepted it as a given fact. There is a reason why open-mindedness does not exist as a word in Bulgarian.

An American once said: "I have a dream." He dreamt of equality and sooner or later after his effort his dream came true. Now a Bulgarian is saying: "I have a dream." I am going to put effort in, see what happens...