ABROAD: HUNGARIAN STUDENT HAS FRIENDLY STAY

Wenke Buttl, a 17-year-old exchange student from Budapest, Hungary, said she wanted to visit America because she believed the people to be friendly and warm-hearted.

She found things here as she expected.

"My first week was very strange and very hard," she said. "Everything was different for me and I was different to everyone. But now I have many friends and they are very kind. They help me a lot. People here are really friendly and warm."

Buttl will be in Cape Girardeau for the nine-month academic year. She is staying with Jean Benton, acting director of the interdisciplinary program in the School of University Studies at Southeast Missouri State University and assistant professor of elementary and special education at the university.

"I wanted to spend a whole year abroad," she said during study hall at Cape Girardeau Central High School. "I had been three years studying English, and I like languages. I felt if I could spend a year in an English-speaking country, I could speak the language better."

Britain wasn't a real option, in Buttl's book. "I felt people in America were more friendly and warm-hearted. I wanted to get to know the country and culture."

Her mother's friend put them in touch with the International Student Exchange of Iowa.

"We had to take many exams and we had to know the language, at least a little bit," she said.

She filled out a questionnaire asking if she would rather stay in a big city, a small town or on a farm, and other information about herself. "I didn't want to go to a big city; it's a little bit dangerous," she said.

"The host family chooses us," she said.

Benton said that several years ago she was in Hungary and visited with the director and four students preparing for the same exchange program.

"I was so impressed with these students. They had leadership qualities and were bright and intelligent," Benton said. "When I got back home I said `I want a Hungarian exchange student.' It wasn't until this year that they made a match."

Benton said having a 17-year-old in her house has been a joy and has generated a lot of energy. She has no children. "My friends told me I was crazy to start with a teenager," she said. "But it's been wonderful."

Benton, who has traveled extensively in Europe and the Far East, said she is not surprised by the many differences between Buttl and herself. "We are beyond that overt culture, what they eat and how they dress. We do an awful lot of talking about the value systems and what kinds of things are valued in her culture."

This exchange program makes efforts to ensure students are serious about their studies and not expecting a nine-month vacation.

"They know they have to perform well academically or they are out," Benton said.

The program director has visited Cape Girardeau twice to check on Buttl.

About 500 students are currently participating in the exchange program, including nine from Hungary. Buttl said, "They take very good care of me, but they take very good care of each student.

"We are ambassadors from Hungary," Buttl said. "This is not a vacation; it's a year to learn, learn the language and the culture. That is why we stay with a host family, to get to know the real way of life as part of an American family."

Before school started, Benton helped Buttl meet a few high school students. She found out Buttl is a runner. She had a tryout for Central High's cross country team; she competes every weekend.

"I knew the first few weeks were crucial to her adjustment," Benton said. "So I wanted to throw her into activities."

Buttl competes on the cross country team and plans to go out for the softball team. She has attended all the home football games and also participates in Young Life, a local church organization for teens.

She also maintains `A's and `B's in her courses.

In Hungary, she said, the high school program is set for students. "We don't get to choose what classes we take."

At Central, Buttl is enrolled in aerobics and keyboarding, courses which would not be available at a high school in Hungary.

"We could take that course somewhere else, but we would have to pay a lot of money."

She is also taking American history, introduction to marketing, algebra II and advanced English.

"I like my subjects and I'm very excited to be in school," she said. "I chose these subjects and I want to learn them."

She said some things are quite different. "Here we have just a few minutes between classes to run to my locker and pack my books for my next class," Buttl said. In Hungary the teachers move from class to class instead of students.

"There we eat every day in class," Buttl said with a smile. "The first day here I was in trouble because I wanted to eat. They told me I could just eat at lunch and just in the lunchroom."

Many teachers at Central High School develop a rapport with students that she hasn't always seen with her Hungarian teachers. "Many teachers in Hungary are very strict; they don't connect with the children the way they do here."

She said students have asked her many strange questions like whether there are skateboards in Hungary. "Yes," she said. "We have all the same things like you, but not so many."

The country is undergoing tremendous change. With the fall of Communism, Hungary adopted democracy and free enterprise.

"It is very difficult for us," Buttl said. "We don't know how to begin. But my mother has made her own business."

In Hungary tourism thrives. Buttl's mother has started a business training tourist guides and teaching language.

But while she is in the United States, Buttl is doing her best to be a typical teenager. She said she must study every weeknight. "I have to translate all of this," she said.

Benton said she's been able to resist the temptation to whisk Buttl off to visit tourist spots.

"You can see a thousand arches and walls and museums, but it's the people who make the experience," said Benton. "She has had a lot of really neat experiences right here already. And when she looks at the photos of those people, she will remember. The best experiences are people experiences and that's what you remember."