The Rotary Club of Roswell is thoroughly enjoying our experience hosting a Japanese high school student for
the school year through the Rotary Youth Exchange Southeast. Kaho Numata is a 17-year-old female student
from q city southwest of Tokyo. She is a tenth grader at Roswell High School.
At this point in the school year, Kaho has experienced many features of American (and Southern) culture. She
threw candy off the Roswell Interact Club float during Roswell’s Youth Day celebration; cheered on the Roswell
Hornets during Friday night football games; attended Atlanta United matches and Atlanta Braves games, and
tail-gated and cheered on the University of Georgia Bulldogs football team. Kaho supported her “host brother”
during Roswell High School marching band competitions and tried out for and secured a place on the Roswell
High School Softball team (where she earned a “letter” for her contributions!) She is now participating in
Winter Guard (a winter Color Guard indoor competitive activity involving music, flags and other equipment to
tell a story.)
With her host families Kaho learned about the American holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas and spent the
time with their extended families. She experienced family dinners at the end of the day and all the important
conversations go on there. She is becoming a whiz at all sorts of board and card games. Kaho participated in
the activities of the Roswell High School Interact Club, went Christmas caroling (complete with jingle bells and
reindeer antlers) with members of the Rotary Club of Roswell and took the Polar Bear Plunge with the Rotary
Club of Alpharetta. She helped assemble picnic tables at the Chattahoochee Nature Center with members of
the Roswell Club.
Host Parents Bruce Peoples, Roswell Rotarian, and his wife, Diane, after learning about Kaho’s dream of
becoming an aerospace engineer, took her on a day trip to NASA’s U.S. Rocket and Space Center in
Huntsville, Alabama. Both Kaho and the Peoples were fascinated by their time there. Bruce explained that
there are so many joys that come with hosting a Youth Exchange Student. There is obviously the fun of
getting to know someone new, but there is also insight and pleasure gained by learning about another country,
its language, customs and foods. Those who host experience the pleasure and surprise of learning to see
one’s own country and customs through another’s eyes and looking at one’s history from the point of view of
another. Bruce and Diane both remarked that hosting Kaho was a great excuse to do lots of things they had
always meant to do, but never quite had the time to accomplish.
Kaho has moved to her third and final host family and she realizes her time in Roswell will end in just three
months’ time. Before June, though, she will be participating in Rotary service activities, spending time with the
friends she has made, attending prom, and perhaps playing some tennis – as well as continuing to enjoy and
learn from her classes.