By BOBBIE NICHOLLS - Manawatu Standard | Thursday, 17 July 2008
Italian students Deborah Badiali, Elisabetta Barreca and Guilia Malevolti visited Feilding as part of an exchange with students from Hato Paora College and Turakina Maori Girls' College.
Fifteen-year-olds Deborah Badiali, Elisabetta Barreca and Guilia Malevolti were surprised to find the saleyards in Feilding sold animals.
The Italian students were expecting something akin to a craft market, they told their host Rosalyn Williamson.
On Monday, Hato Paora music teacher Mrs Williamson and Turakina Maori Girls' College deputy principal Mary Dinsdale were showing the three girls around Feilding as part of a six-week trip to Australia and New Zealand.
The three are students at Giotto Ulivi in Mugello, which has a student exchange programme with Hato Paora and Turakina Maori Girls.
Giotto Ulivi is a day school with about 1000 co-ed students who wear mufti. The Italian students learn English from about the age of 12 whereas Italian is not taught in either of the two Maori boarding schools.
Both Mrs Williamson and Mrs Dinsdale travelled with students to Mugello last year and another group of students is due to leave in September. Mrs Dinsdale said the exchanges enable students of both countries to experience another culture.
"Maori and Italian cultures have some similarities, being very musical and very family focused," she said. "It is particularly good for the Maori students to experience the Italian culture.
One of our girls said she missed McDonald's but food is very important to Italians and only the big cities have the American fast food giants. The families sit down together for lunch and dinner, which consist of several courses."
Deborah's father has been the organiser for the exchange at the Italian end, and Mrs Williamson said she has stayed with Deborah's family several times.
The three girls were staying with Mrs Williamson at Waituna West after spending a month in Sydney where they had three weeks helping college students with their Italian and a week seeing the countryside.
Elisabetta travelled the furthest, having been taken by her hosts to Cairns, where the temperature was a welcome 28deg.
The girls left summer in Italy so were feeling the cold last week when they arrived in Auckland. At the airport they wondered why everyone was making such a fuss of a team of green-clad men, only to be told they were the Springboks. "Who are they?" they asked.
Unfortunately, their visit to New Zealand has coincided with college holidays, and they have only been able to meet one or two of the Turakina students.
Mrs Dinsdale took the girls to Taupo, Rotorua and Auckland.
From Feilding they were to visit Wanganui and then go to Wellington, where it is planned they will meet up with more of the Turakina students at Te Papa before flying out at the end of this week.