Speaking three different languages comes easy to Alexia Nyoni, or as most people know her, Lexi. Moving to a new country to attend school, however, proved to be more of a challenge.
Nyoni moved to Kansas from Harare, Zimbabwe, after her uncle from Wichita, suggested applying to Baker University.
“It’s good here,” Nyoni said. “It’s a bit different, though. I grew up in the city, so coming to Baker I had to say, ‘okay, I’m coming to the country now.’”
Coming from halfway across the world takes time to adjust. The time difference, weather change and schooling “are just different,” Nyoni said.
Learning the English language was not a problem since she learned to speak English before the native languages in Zimbabwe. She said she has had to adapt to how people use English here, though.
“We use British spelling and British schooling,” Nyoni said. “When I type papers, I use British spelling so all my words get underlined. So I have to stop and think and figure out how to fix it.”
Nyoni is adjusting to the American culture of schooling as well, going from having only three breaks during the year to having several small breaks spread out. In Zimbabwe, students go to school in three terms, from January to the beginning of April, the beginning of May to August and the beginning of September to the end of November.
The seasons in Zimbabwe are different than they are in America as well. While it’s winter in America now, it’s summer in Zimbabwe.
“I like going to school in terms more than I like it here,” Nyoni said. “I like having long periods of time off, not short breaks for holidays.”
Nyoni hasn’t celebrated any American holidays like Halloween or Thanksgiving before this year. The holidays here are an “American thing” and they are just different to people who come from other countries, Nyoni said.
Since there wasn’t enough time or money to make the flights back home, Nyoni and Shreya Upadhyaya, a foreign exchange student from Nepal and one of Nyoni’s close friends, celebrated their first Thanksgiving in the States by adjusting to more American foods.
“The food isn’t like home for me,” Upadhyaya said. “I’m used to eating certain foods and since I’m a vegetarian, I sometimes get foods that don’t make me happy.”
Considering the culture shock, traveling 31 hours across the globe to America, changes in the school system, food and weather, Nyoni she thinks she has adjusted well, and one of her friends agrees.
“I think she has adapted well to everything here,” Abigail Briones, Nyoni’s suite mate in Irwin Hall, said. “It was like she was already half-American.”
