Fare-Thee-Well : Exchange Students Head for Home After Year in U.S.

Exchange student Boris Bjelica arrived in the United States last fall from Belgrade, Yugoslavia, ready for a year abroad in a country with a youth culture like no other.

While Bjelica admired the charms of life in Le Grand, Ore.--the infectious school spirit displayed at football games, the work ethic of students who took after-school jobs to earn spending money and the small measure of independence that accompanied them--the 19-year-old high school senior also watched from afar while his country came undone, he said.

Dressed in a ubiquitous teen-age uniform of boots, jeans, T-shirt and denim jacket, Bjelica returned Wednesday to his homeland, where recent outbreaks of ethnic conflict have raised fears of civil war.

Bjelica is one of more than 2,500 students headed home after completing a yearlong exchange program at high schools nationwide. He and 550 other West Coast students met at El Segundo High School to bid one another farewell before being shuttled in 22 buses to Los Angeles International Airport.

And after a year surrounded by the opulence, opportunity and diversity of this country, the Belgrade native said his stay in the United States has strengthened his connection to home.

“Maybe Yugoslavia will seemed changed,” Bjelica said, lamenting the disputes among ethnic republics that have pulled the country apart. “But I am looking forward to going home. It’s where my friends are and it’s my country.”

Another Yugoslav student, Daniela Gogic, 18, said she kept in contact with her family in Sarajevo during the recent turbulence. Her father allayed her fears about any immediate danger and told her that media reports were exaggerated.

“Going back, I’m not afraid for my life,” Gogic said. “I believe my father when he says it is safe. But I am afraid of losing the enthusiasm that you have as a youth. I am afraid of what’s to come.”

Students from 54 other countries are also going back to resume their lives, each taking their own all-American experiences.

Marcus Guerra, of Caxiasdosul, Brazil, spent his senior year kicking field goals for the varsity football team at Sonoma Valley High School--an unexpected experience for the 17-year-old senior who had not played football before coming to the States.

Guillermo Jenkins, 17, of Argentina said the vision he once held of Los Angeles and especially of Hollywood was deflated during the year he spent living near Cheviot Hills and attending Hamilton High School.

“I always thought of Hollywood being much bigger than it turned out to be,” he said. “It used to seem like almost a magic world, you would never think it would turn out to be a center of prostitution and drugs.”

Jenkins said Los Angeles did offer the chance to meet young people of different ethnicities--an opportunity he did not have in the relatively homogenous city of Neuquen, where he was raised.

“The good thing about school was being with so many races, that they had to mix together during classes,” he said. “It seemed like most people were respectful of other peoples differences. It seemed like everyone tried not to be prejudiced.”

The international exchange program is organized by the American Field Service--an ambulance corps serving North Africa and Southeast Asia during both world wars. After World War II ended, AFS administrators began inviting families they had met on the battlefield to the United States in an attempt to develop affinity between the groups, a spokesman said.