One of Debora’s teachers, Allison Berryhill said, “Debora brings a sense of world awareness.” Berryhill loves bringing diversity into our school’s classes. She said she feels like sometimes we get shut off from the rest of the world. Berryhill knows that Debora will have a huge learning experience no matter what, but that AHS students will miss out if they don’t get to know her. If Berryhill could show Debora one must-see thing about the United States before Debora returns to Tanzania, it would be a Thanksgiving dinner.

Another teacher from AHS, Elizabeth Huggins, said that having exchange students at AHS is a “really exciting experience, not only for the child who is the foreign exchange student, but for our students.” She said that having multi-national students here makes our community richer. Huggins also explained a lesson that she wants Debora to take away from her experience at AHS. “I think the greatest life lesson I could teach is that everyone wants pencils, stickers, and success. They want to feel praise for the things they really did.” She said that this philosophy has made her life so much better and she would like to share that with Debora during her time here.

Reid Nichols is a student at AHS who is also hosting an exchange student in his home. He said, “It is exciting and a very good learning experience.” A few interesting things that Reid knows about Debora are that she is 4’8” and she is really good at balancing books on her head. Reid wants to try to talk to Debora more to get her involved in more school activities.

Debora comes from a family of three children. She has two younger brothers. Her father is a doctor and her mother is a nurse. “My school is an international school,” Debora said. “It doesn’t have many problems. Government schools don’t have teachers and have a lot of drop-outs.” Debora said she would like to sit down with drop-out students and encourage them to continue with their education. She also explained other recurring problems in Tanzania such as female genital mutilation and the AIDS epidemic. “AHS can help by exposure of what is going on in our country,” Debora said. Debora said she hopes the people of Tanzania will become ashamed of what they are doing and stop their actions.

Debora will be here until June of 2013. She is currently making plans to return to the United States for college in 2014.