AFS San Diego

By Robert Sawhill, former ambulance driver

Claudio Theophilo (last name omitted) is not an American as his name indicates.
But he lives in Rancho Bernardo with the Rick and Tracey Lysander family and attends the high school there as a junior under the auspices of the AFS Intercultural Student Exchange Program. He uses Claudio Theophilo for short when signing his name at school.

Claudio, 17, whose brother was an AFS student in Salinas last year, is in America on a J-1 visa, issued by the State Department for foreign exchange students for one year. He arrived in San Diego last August from Brazil along with 16 other AFS exchange students from many different countries, such as Italy, Norway and Thailand. These students are enrolled now in various high schools throughout San Diego County, from Coronado to Fallbrook to Torrey Pines.

At Rancho Bernardo High School Claudio has already distinguished himself. He was named by his coaches as captain of the boys’ varsity swim team. In Brazil last year, he was honored as the second best swimmer in the country for that event.

Head coach Tim Oelgoetz said Claudio’s leadership skills easily qualified him to be captain. “I saw in the first couple of weeks in practice that he steps up, leads the younger swimmers and leads by example. “

Oegletz said Claudio also is a tireless competitor and that led him to the CIF championship swim meet. “He just doesn’t stop. He has that never-give-up attitude: ‘I’m always trying to to do more, keep going at it, and always try to give my best.’”

Claudio’s host father, Rick Lysander, a private real estate investor, said he thinks the team is fortunate to have Claudio on it. "He is enthusiastic and lends leadership to the team," he said. RBHS is in a league with five other high schools – La Costa Canyon, Mt. Carmel, Poway, Torrey Pines and Westview.

When Claudio enrolled at RBHS last fall, he was interested in soccer but decided to try out for junior varsity water polo. Later, he was encouraged to go for varsity swimming. He didn’t do well in short events but excelled in longer ones and helped the team overall. His speciality is the 1,500 -meter freestyle.

Asked how he was getting along at RBHS, Claudio said, "The sport has definitely helped me make a lot of new friends here and at other schools. I couldn’t be happier.” As for language difficulties, there were none. Claudio learned English in school and took extra speech classes at night in Brazil. He now speaks almost perfect English.

In addition to the Lysanders watching out for his daily well-being, Claudio has an AFS volunteer liaison, Rhonda Farrar of Poway, who checks with him every month in person and writes a progress report to AFS and acts as an intermediary if there are problems to be solved with others.

Asked about classes and grades, Claudio says he had trouble at first with U.S. history and American literature, courses required by AFS. Math and physics were easier for him, and his grades improved by the end of the first semester.
Farrar thinks Claudio is "already a credit to his country."