This August two Wando High School students will be heading to Europe for separate student-exchange trips. Rising junior Hope Cassaday is heading to France while senior Chelsea Cash is heading to Belgium.

Cassaday and Cash both said enlisting in the student exchange program was a long process. Cassaday said she started talking to a YEO (Youth Exchange Officer) in July of last year to join the program.

“I wasn’t sure if I would get in or not,” she said. “We had to fill out tons of paperwork to get in.”

By the end of December, both students had to be interviewed and then set up for the program online.

“We had to get a profile set up on the rotary website,” Cash said. “We would check that habitually. After the interview we knew we were in, pretty much.”

Cassaday and Cash said the student exchange program tries to match students with countries that would suit them best based off their top choices. Both students knew they wanted to go to French-speaking countries.

“I really wanted France as my first choice because my mom went when she was in college,” Cassaday said.

Cash said her mother also influenced her decision.

“My mother went as an exchange student to Belgium, so it just fit for me,” she said. “I guess it’s just kind of a comfort to know that my mother went.”

In preparation to leave for Europe, the girls are currently enlisted in classes – both academic and training – this summer. Since not all school credits count in the exchange program, Cash is taking English 4, Government and Economics this summer.

“I asked permission to graduate early,” she said. “Our principle is a member of the rotary club so it was easy to get permission.”

Some of the “training” they partake in includes emotional training, such as dealing with their biggest fears concerning living in Europe. Cash said her biggest fear is being alone.

“I know won’t make friends initially,” she said. “It’s a normal fear, I guess. I’m completely different from everyone else. I think that’s even a good thing because people will want to come up to me.”

Cassaday said her biggest fear is dealing with the language barrier.

“I use my hands to talk with everything,” she said, “so I think people will get the gist of what I am saying. But it’s still nerve-racking not to know a lot of the language. I just started taking French this year. I’m further behind than [Cash] is.”

Cash said although she has taken four French classes, she knows of former exchange students who still struggled with the language barrier. She also said some people who knew none of the language still went and enjoyed themselves.

“Even the people who said, ‘Oh yeah, I had five years of this language and I went and I was feeling confident,’ said they went and they were like, ‘I forgot everything and couldn’t understand anybody,’” she said.

Cassaday and Cash will be living with host families in Europe. Each student will live with one family for a certain number of months before moving on the next host family. Cassaday said she is really looking forward to meeting the first of her three host families.

“They live in a 13th century mill house that they turned into a bed-and-breakfast,” she said. “That is the coolest thing – I love history and I’m going to be living it.”

Both students agreed part of the reason they were going to French-speaking countries was to learn to speak the language first-hand. It also has a lot to do with the girls’ long-term goals; Cassaday plans on doing missionary work in Africa and she said many of its countries speak French.

“French is also one of the most-used languages in the world besides Spanish and English,” she said.

Cash said she has always wanted to be a translator.

“I always wanted to learn another language but didn’t know how and then this just presented itself,” she said.

Cassaday and Cash have been asked to keep journals and blogs to document their experience. They will return by spring of next year.