By Ryan Smith
Meadville Tribune
MEADVILLE —
SAEGERTOWN — Dr. Anna Pinto and her kids, Erico and Luanne, said connecting with the world through travel is part of the Brazilian way of life.
Along their way, they’ve journeyed thousands of miles to tour New York City, the state of Texas and the entire West. But when they’re back home in Campinas (a Sao Paulo city with a population of around one million) it’s Saegertown they feel most closely tied to.
Erico, 17, spent the past school year at Saegertown High School, living with Roger and June Schlosser — almost 35 years after his mother spent a year as a foreign exchange student at the same school and with the Schlosser family.
“We are lucky people,” Anna said recently at the Schlossers’ home, talking about the relationship that started in 1976 and has continued through more than three decades to include holiday visits, class reunions and a wealth of keeping in touch.
The Pintos leave again for Brazil this week after their visit to pick Erico up and take him home after his a-world-away experience as a high-schooler in northwestern Pennsylvania.
“I just can’t put into words how everything felt,” Erico said. “It was a great year. I just felt so welcome here. It hasn’t clicked yet that I have to go back,” and “I’m just trying to figure out how I’m going to keep in touch with everyone.”
With social networking sites, texting, e-mail and other tools making communication easier than ever, though, Erico said he doesn’t expect to have any trouble doing that with the friends he’s made in and around Saegertown. But Anna said when she spent a year there in 1976, it seemed the world was a much bigger place. She had signed up for a traditional student exchange program called Academic Year Abroad, was matched with the Schlossers and found herself in Saegertown.
“Every day after school, I’d go to the mailbox,” she said, looking for a letter from family or friends — and receiving one, maybe, about once a month. But June, who was then a recent graduate of Penn State University while Roger was still finishing his studies there, “took care of me,” she said.
When it came time to take Erico to his first day of school in the U.S., June said she asked herself “‘What do I do?’ ... I couldn’t imagine (him) being in that situation and just leaving him” at the school’s doors. “But that’s what we did.”
And “I was totally up for it,” Erico said. “You have to be.”
He said he found himself getting interested in a lot of aspects of local high school life, including extracurriculars like managing for the school’s volleyball team, its Spanish club and its ping-pong club. “Most of the time,” though, “I’d just go to friends’ houses and do whatever.”
“He became very proficient at poker,” June chimed in with a wry smile.
He also became interested in the snowy slopes the region’s winter season offers, and Roger said he “became quite the skier. I thought it was amazing — he was freezin’ his butt off and loving it.”
And in other ways, too, he “has certainly matured while he was here,” June added. “I made him do his own laundry ... doing clothes was a new experience for him.”
“I had my own system,” Erico joked. “Every two weeks, I ran out of clothes.”
When it comes to the possibility of the Schlossers making a trip of their own to Brazil, “we keep threatening some day we might go,” Roger said with a chuckle.
And “we’ll keep waiting for you,” said Erico.
Ryan Smith can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at rsmith@meadvilletribune.com.
