Belgium
Ann Van Den Bergh 1976-77 AFS student at OHS will be Belgian girl
Oberlin’s new American Field Service student for this coming year will be Ann Van Den Bergh, age 17, from Jupille in Liege, Belgium—the first female exchange student in nearly a decade. She will be living with the Alger family at 317 E. College. “We don’t have a definite date, but were told she might arrive any time from the end of July to September,” said Harriet Alger, who is director of the Oberlin Early Childhood Center. Ms. Alger has three children—Brandi (21) who just graduated from OC with a Russian major and is living presently in San Francisco, Jeff (19) a sophomore-junior at Case Western Reserve U., and Missy (15) just finishing her sophomore year at Oberlin High School but planning to complete her graduation requirements by next June. |
Ann wrote to the Algers when recently notified
by AFS of the assignment to an Oberlin family. She said she is quite interested
in Arabian culture, that her family has visited Morocco and that she has
been studying the Arab dialect at their local university, although she
is still a high school student.
She likes gymnastics, which Ms. Alger says is also quite
popular with Missy. Ann also has worked for three years as a supervisor
in an arts and crafts center in here home town for immigrant children from
Italy, Spain, Turkey and North Africa. The Algers feel the Early Childhood
Center and the multi-culture environment of the college town were factors,
likely, in the assignment.
[Photograph of Ann pushing a wheelbarrow containing what looks like freshly dug peat bricks with the caption: AFS exchange student Ann Van Den Bergh is shown at work in her homeland of Belgium—she is also interested in arts and crafts, Arabian culture and gymnastics. She will study next year at Oberlin High School.] |