German exchange student feels right at home here

Tammy Jaegers has made quite the impression on Kingsburg resident Nancy Taylor.

"She's been our joy," said Taylor, with a beaming smile, as she spoke of her house guest and foreign exchange student .

Jaegers, a native of Germany, is just one of many high school foreign exchange students that came to the U.S. in September to study and experience American culture.

"The people here are really nice," Jaegers said of Kingsburg.

Taylor said the experience of being a host family has had a profound impact on her.

"You get to understand a culture different from your own," she said.

Jaegers said the experience has been wonderful so far and that she feels welcome in the Taylor's home.

"They're nice and really open hearted," she said of Taylor and her husband, Wilburt.

Jaegers is from the city of Marl, located in the western part of Germany in an area known as Ruhrgebiet. The 16-year-old high school junior said she decided to come to America to improve her fluency in English and to learn the American way of life.

"You really hear good stuff about America in Germany," she said.

Before coming to America, Jaegers embarked on a four-week exchange to South Africa in 2006. Though going to South Africa was a wonderful experience, she said, it was difficult to witness the widespread poverty in the country. At that point, she said she decided it was a country she'd rather visit than live in.

Since Jaegers arrived in California, she's visited San Francisco, Los Angeles, the Cayucos and Morro Bay area as well as the Sierra Nevada mountain range. So far, she's enjoyed the experience, she said.

"I really like America," Jaegers said.

As far as her schooling, Jaegers said she enjoys studying art. Since she arrived in Kingsburg, she said her drawing skills have improved. She credits this partially to the art curriculum at Kingsburg High School, she said. The curriculum, she said, differs from Germany's in that it focuses more on projects than on intensive studies of art history and art theory.

In only three months, Jaegers said she's also learned much from this experience. The biggest thing she's learned, she said, is that her English is improving. She also said she's now more open to try new things, like playing soccer and eating American fast food.

"(It's) interesting to see people living in a totally different way," she said.

Jaegers said it's also taught her the importance of acclimating to an unfamiliar environment. She said encountering a different culture and language, as well as not seeing your parents for several months, makes one a stronger person.

"It helps you to improve yourself a bit," she said.

She arrived here in September and will leave in June.

Besides a new environment, Jaegers has also noticed that Americans are different socially. People in America open up to strangers more quickly, she said. In Germany, people are more distant and it's harder to become friends with someone if you don't already know them, Jaegers said.

For Taylor, whose day job is teaching fourth-graders at Selma's Jackson Elementary school, having Jaegers in her home helps her reassess and reevaluate her values and ways of thinking, she said. She also said the experience also reminds a person not to be too entrenched in their own culture.

"An exchange student allows you to be exposed to new ideas," Taylor said.

For both Jaegers and Taylor, it's evident the experience will have a lasting impact on their lives.

"It's just been a very enriching experience," Taylor said.