NEWTON GROVE — Kai Harada is more than 6,900 miles away from his home country of Japan, but thanks to Hobbton High School and a local family, Sampson County is becoming a home away from home.
Kai wanted to study English and to fulfill a dream of coming to the United States for high school. The 16 -year-old is from Edogawa Ku, Japan — just outside of Tokyo. It took a while for Kai to adjust, but thanks to people he met in Sampson County, his experience is going well.
“My friends, teachers and my host family helped me,” Kai said. “So now, I’m enjoying this experience.”
His visit was made possible through Ayusa, a nonprofit organization that promotes global learning and leadership through foreign exchange and studying abroad opportunities for high school students. Participants, ages 15 to 18, come from countries such as France, Italy, Spain, Brazil and Germany. The program is regulated by the U.S. Department of State.
“I want to learn English and in the future, I want to learn English for my work,” Kai said. “This is my first time in America and I want to try a new thing. So I decided to come here.”
For his first time in an American high school, Ayusa officials said he’s doing very well and is overcoming obstacles when it comes to language differences. He was awarded a certificate of excellence in his Advanced Placement English class last semester and earned other certificates at Hobbton as well. His favorite subject is American history and physical education courses. While talking about his experiences, Kai said the learning system was different than home, especially going to different classrooms throughout the day.
“Here, we move to different classes every period,” he said about Hobbton. “But in Japan, we don’t move to different classes because the teacher is coming to your classroom. That part is different than Japan.”
When he’s not at Hobbton, he stays with his host mother, Darrah-Helena Lobo-Caves and her son, Colin. Lobo-Caves said it’s been a wonderful experience being a host mom, while expressing that’s it’s not a difficult experience.
“The parts that our difficult is just having another teenage kid in the house,” she said with laughter. “Those are all the hard parts. The stuff that’s wonderful is having a whole other culture in the house learning different things.”
Some of that included Christmas and New Years. Valentine’s Day is also different in the two countries.
“Kai was explaining to me that for Valentine’s Day in Japan, the girls give gifts and chocolates for Valentine’s Day,” she said. “Then on March 14, the boys give chocolates and things like that. So I’m getting to learn all of these different and interesting things and these things dealing with food and it’s super interesting, so my kid gets to take advantage of that.”
Lobo-Caves is employed by the U.S. Department of Defense as a civilian working for the U.S. Air Force. The family does community service during the weekend. Some of the events include a suicidal awareness walk in Wayne County, Diversity and Inclusion Day with Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, and helping elderly families.
“We live in a community where there’s several elderly families, so sometimes it’s just picking up sticks in people’s yards and sometimes it’ just checking in on neighbors,” she said. “It’s whatever people need.”
They also watch football games during the weekend. Kai said watching football was a fun and new experience. Kai loves sports and his favorite is baseball. He plans to play shortstop for the Hobbton Wildcats in the spring. He started playing at 10. He came to Sampson County in August and will go back home in June. In the future, he would like to attend an university in his home country.
Connie Lawrence, an Ayusa community representative for southeastern North Carolina, is encouraging families to get involved with the program by opening up their homes to an exchange student for a semester or academic year. Host families are provided with a trained representative who works with the family during the student’s stay.
“We welcome host families of all shapes and sizes — families with young children, families with no children empty-nesters whose children have left home, single parents and non-traditional families,” Lawrence said. “The key requirement for a host family are to provide a safe and nurturing home environment, genuinely love children, and have a desire to learn more about a different culture.”
Lawrence added that hosting an exchange student is a life-changing experience for not only the student, but for the host family and community as well.
“There is no better way to teach your children about the world around them than through welcoming an international high school student into your home,” Lawrence said.
Lobo-Caves feels the same way from the experience, which is giving her son a chance to learn more about Japanese culture.
“If you’re looking for a way to give back, take the opportunity to be a host parent,” she said. “It’s one of the most awarding things that I ever chosen to do.”
Principal Michael Warren commended Kai for taking a major step by leaving home and getting to changes such a food.
“I think it’s an outstanding opportunity on his part to be able to come here and be involved in our cultures and in our learning styles,” Warren said. “But I think it’s also a good opportunity for our kids to be able to have somebody that’s not our norm, to hear about cultural differences.”
Warren said it’s an outstanding opportunity for Kai on his part to learn about a different culture. Likewise, he said it’s a good experience for Hobbton students as well to learn as well. Warren said he’s acclimated very well academically.
“To have a kid mature enough in high and to be able to separate themselves from parents and realize that there’s a ton of value in the cultural exchange is a very mature mindset,” Warren said.