Around 8,500 miles away from Parker lies a region in Thailand called Suphan Buri—a home of nearly 900,000 people. One of them is a 16-year-old girl named Peeraya Rujjanavet, also known as Mini, who has become the newest addition to Parker’s Senior Class of 2018.

On August 10 of this year, her plane touched down at O’Hare International Airport, after she had traveled for over 19 hours from Bangkok, Thailand’s capital. She was able to come as a result of an international, non-profit organization, called AFS—the American Field Service—which provides, “international and intercultural learning experiences to individuals, families, schools, and communities through a global volunteer partnership.”

For over thirty years, Parker has hosted an international exchange student through AFS. It’s no secret that the school likes to consider itself diverse, and a great example of this comes right from “Our Ethos:” “We are deliberately composed of a diverse group of people so that we can learn how to honor the dignity and experience of every human being. Our commitment to inclusion and integration makes us an intimate and expansive school…” Last year, Parker hosted Vlado Vojdanoski from Macedonia, and the year before that, Richard Moser from Germany.

During tThe selection process, is one in which Parker requests to see many different applications from certain geographical regions and sometimes, Parker requests a particular gender—more of qualities they look for. Head of Language and Cultural Studies Department Lorin Pritikin, the Head of the Upper School Justin Brandon, and the Assistant Principal Ruth Jurgensen are then sent available applications from the AFS Chicago City Central Co-Chair, Linda Mellis. The whole decision process then takes about a semester to decide, with many different people connected to Parker reviewing many different applicants, and searching for the one best fit. Often former host families serve as liaisons—who greatly help with facilitating the student to school relationship.—and Returning this year are the long-time former AFS hosts, Lisa Farrug and Tracy Drake, along with last year’s AFS host Kathy Monahan.

“We chose Mini because—first of all, we hadn’t had anybody from Thailand for probably about 15 years or longer,” Pritikin said, “and we really liked her biographical paragraph that she wrote about herself. She talked about how she was very interested in working on her English—but through a very authentic experience—and that she liked all kinds of people, and was very social.” That, coupled with the fact that she was already at a “rigorous,” international baccalaureate (IB) school with straight A’s, lead to Rujjanavet temporarily moving to the Parker community.

“Parker actually works in a different way than most other schools,” Mellis said. “Chicago Public Schools are also open to hosting AFS Exchange students, but the difference is—once we find a family, we talk to one of the schools, and they look at the student’s application and decide if the student is appropriate, academically, for their school.”

Parker, instead, first finds applicants, then carefully chooses from a group of families who apply.

On the other end is Rujjanavet, who was one of the lucky few to make it. According to her, in all of Thailand, 10,000 people applied, and only around 300 were accepted.

“My school has an AFS committee, and I applied with them and then took an exam,” Rujjanavet said, “the first one is like a paper test and the second one is interviewing.” She was one of three students in her school to get accepted.

AFS statistics say that they exchange over 12,000 students a year, and that’s out of the hundreds of thousands that apply.

When asked where she wanted to go, and why, Rujjanavet said, “I didn’t get to choose Chicago, but I did apply to go to America—mostly because I want to be fluent in English but also I want to have the new experience that’s not easy to get, like being an exchange student, learning the new and different cultures, and meeting a lot of friends around the world.”

It all worked out fortunately well for Rujjanavet, as two years ago, she was given the opportunity to go to a summer camp in Wisconsin and ended up spending three nights in downtown Chicago—an experience that she enjoyed a great deal.

“The way I interpret it is that Parker has always been committed to exposing students to difference,” Pritikin said. “And to see that teenagers from other places, and cultures, are really a lot more alike them, then they are different, is just a great way of, what could be called, people to people diplomacy.”

AFS, meanwhile, describes the benefits of hosting an AFS student this way: “By connecting lives and sharing cultures, AFS Host Families are building a more just and peaceful world.”

Back in Rujjanavet’s culture of Thailand, she would stay in Bangkok to study at her IB school, spending her nights in a dorm, then go back to her family during the weekends, an hour and a half north, back in Suphan Buri. Her parents are local business people, while her 22 year old brother is now studying at a university in Thailand. Rujjanavet says her whole family supported her decision to come to the states, backing and encouraging her the whole way.

Despite obvious differences in setting and lifestyle, Rujjanavet still shares many similarities with any other kid at Parker. She plays the ukulele, along with volleyball—which she now does at Parker—and has always enjoyed cooking, her favorite dish being green curry with chicken and rice. Rujjanavet is also interested in pursuing studies in economics, which she hopes to continue after finishing her equivalent to high school, in Thailand. Funnily enough, her favorite movies are the Harry Potter series.

“I think Mini’s really brave and courageous, and actually inspiring, because she’s doing something that’s hard and probably terrifying,” fellow volleyball player, Alex Ori said, “and it seems like both on and off the volleyball court, she’s doing really well.”

Now that Rujjanavet is temporarily leaving her old life behind, she also needs one more key aspect to settling into the U.S.: a new family. AFS flew her in from Thailand, where they then took her to a hotel in Chicago. It was on that night, when she met her host family for the first semester.

Their names are Jenny Ames and Paul Lazarre, Parker parents of twins Alex and Eric in 4th grade, and Max in 5th grade. Second semester, Rujjanavet will be joining Kim and Matthew Stauber who are parents to Parker students Ava in 6th grade, Quentin in 5th grade, and Katherine in 1st grade.

“I’ve had to adapt with a few things,” Rujjanavet said. “I have an older brother, but here I’m a big sister, and it’s a bit different, but I kind of like it.”

— Unfortunately, Rujjanavet’s host family was unreachable due to privacy related issues. —

Dropping someone into a whole new family, school, and environment, is a matter that Parker has brought together a whole team to help out with. It’s called the AFS committee. It’s been their job to help integrate and support new AFS students every year, and like nearly every other committee in the school, they’re an elected body of students.

Leading them is Pritikin, who serves as their faculty advisor—making sure they help her out with setting up MX’s for the AFS student, organizing the yearly international food festival, and other thing necessary in order to be hospitable guests, along with guiding them in other forms of introduction and assimilation into the Parker community that the committee wants to create.

Pritikin said, “As a French teacher, but also a cultural educator, I can’t think of anything more enriching than to see the growth of a person who has the courage to leave the comfort zone of their family, their language, and their own culture.”

“The whole AFS committee actually went out to lunch, I think two weeks, before school started,” Junior Chad White, a head of AFS committee said. “We went to Potbelly’s and walked around Oz Park, and just talked and got to know each other.”

What Pritikin calls the “AFS Committee Welcome Lunch,” will take place on November 3rd in the humanities center. Thai food—of course—will be served, and anyone who wants to come is invited to get to know Rujjanavet as she introduces herself and answers some questions.

Looking further into the future, Rujjanavet and the AFS committee will be planning a Fall Morning Exercise, so that the entire Parker community can meet her, as well as a Spring MX to reflect on what her year was like.

“Mini is really nice, funny, and approachable,” White said, “so I would encourage any and everyone to say ‘hi’ to her in the hallways, and just start a conversation with her because you’re never gonna know someone you don’t talk to.”