Our Best Friend from Thailand
If you haven’t had the pleasure to meet Phraparat Saengkrachang, you should definitely take the time to do so. Phraparat, or better known as Baibua, is a one year exchange student from Bangkok, Thailand. She is a girl who loves to travel, and believes that meeting new people and experiencing new things is the best way to learn.
Coming from Bangkok, Thailand to Ferndale, Washington can be a very large transition no matter how prepared anybody is. “Windward High is really different from my school in Thailand. Windward has less students than my school. My school has 3,000 students,” says Baibua when asked about the many differences between here and her home. Along with the culture, Baibua has told me the food is one of the most contrastive attributes of America. Food for school lunches would not be brought from home or paid for, each student has their lunch prepared for them. Cereal and pancakes for breakfast? Yeah right! Baibua made the decision to become an exchange student because she wanted to have new experiences with both improving her English and creating new friendships. Just like any teenager, she enjoys a good horror movie and her other favorites flicks to watch would be action and sci-fi. She also listens to a lot of music, but if you made her pick a favorite genre it would be pop.
Being away from family could make a trip like this very difficult, but luckily Baibua’s host family has made her feel comfortable and happy. With that is a mixture of missing her home and enjoying an easygoing family that remind her of her own.
Learning English was a challenge. If there was any negativity coming from this trip, it would be that Baibua hates when she can’t understand what people are saying as well as when people don’t understand what she is saying. She apologized if her English was bad after answering interview questions, but her writing is smooth and very understandable.
She is a kind person to everybody she meets; if you were to ask her anything she smiles and gives a polite answer. “This year, I chose to stay far away from my home country and my family to learn English and find new things to experience for my teenager life. I want to try something that I've never tried, such as Halloween, Christmas, etc. I’m excited for getting to know new friends and do new things that make me have experiences,” explains Baibua. If you are to see her in the hallways, I suggest you give a warm welcome. Thank you Baibua for choosing windward as your exchange school.
