Gwinnett Daily Post

SUGAR HILL -- For the Diedrich Family, Christmas Eve is the peak of the holiday season, and it's steeped in unique family tradition.

It's squash casserole. It's prime rib. Twice-baked potatoes and pecan pie.

Afternoon Mass at St. Monica in Duluth. An evening cruise through the Magical Nights of Lights at Lake Lanier Islands.

Drifting to sleep in the den watching black-and-white movies, a soft glow from the Fraser Fir lighting up the room like luminous wallpaper.

As Gail and John Diedrich prepare this week for the annual activities and feast on Dec. 24, they're making room for one more at the table: a 16-year-old foreign exchange student from Madrid, Spain.

Though he's lived with the Diedrichs for several months, David Pallin is still learning the role of American family member.

"David was a little confused last night," said Gail Diedrich, laughing. "We just recently decorated the house, and I made him sit down in front of the tree with the dogs, so I could take pictures. He had no idea why in the world I would want to do that. But I told him, 'Christmas is a big deal, OK?'"

In Spain, Pallin's family spends the holidays traveling to the ocean or other scenic destinations. It's a time to get out and explore the region versus staying home with family.

"He just can't believe how American kids are so involved with their mom and dad," Gail said. "I think there's a lot of things about the American lifestyle that he's still struggling to understand."

Added Diedrich: "If you put yourself in his shoes, can you imagine how mindblowing this is? It's a whole other world for David, but he's eating it up. He's loving every minute, even if he doesn't understand it at all."

Game night

Barefoot and shirtless, Pallin stands in a patch of green grass. He wears a cautious smile.

His head turns, watching a golf cart full of teenagers roll to a stop. The young people pile out of the vehicle, clutching paper plates and tubes of paint.

One of them gives Pallin a high-five. Another boy offers a greeting in enunciated English.

Pallin raises his eyebrows, answering slowly. He gestures toward the paint tubes and asks what they're for.

It's late September, game night, and the North Gwinnett Bulldogs will battle Meadowcreek in a matter of minutes.

The teenagers circle the subdivision in their golf cart, shouting, screaming, chanting, gathering support; it's a pre-game ritual. Victory is certain, one of them tells Pallin.

He nods, his eyes moving toward the sky as he searches for the right words. His face lights up with a smile. "Go Dawgs!"

A group of girls beside him laugh. They circle him, their black and red hands extended. Globs of paint drip from their fingertips.

Friend Evan Kaminsky, 16, watches as fellow students paint Pallin's face and torso. Kaminsky shakes his head, smiling.

In trying to learn each other's language, he and Pallin have become friends. Kaminsky's studies in Spanish III have been boosted by his daily conversations with the boy.

Likewise, Pallin has found a friend who speaks enough conversational Spanish to allow him to describe in his native language how interesting his American journey has been so far.

Having arrived in August with only a rudimentary grasp of the English language, Pallin's vocabulary is growing at a quick pace, according to Gail Diedrich.

The faster he learns the language, the easier it seems for him to make friends, she added.

That's an accurate statement, if the numbers tallied using social media network Facebook are any indication. Before coming to America, he had 120 contacts on his "friend list." Since coming to live with the Diedrichs, that number has grown to nearly 400.

"He's just picking everything up so fast, and he's making so many friends," Diedrich said. "He's sort of plunged head-first into American culture, and he's learning all the vocabulary along the way."

Head-first into American culture

Whether it's at school, home or out exploring Sugar Hill with host sister Olivia, Pallin takes each new experience in stride, despite some cultural clashes.

"We'll hang out with friends, and I'll drive him around," Olivia said. "We go to Suwanee Park, we go out to eat, we go to the mall, we go to football games. I'm pretty much like his mom. Pretty much anywhere I go, he goes."

Gail agreed that daughter, Olivia, is "a lot like a taxi driver" for the foreign exchange student.

Olivia said that having a foreign exchange student in tow is "like having a new baby around. Everything is new to him, and he's learning as he goes."

Olivia said some things seem to puzzle Pallin about America.

"He's girl crazy," she said. "He wants to have like 20 girlfriends, and he doesn't understand why that's not OK."

The girls seem to be crazy for Pallin as well. Prior to homecoming, he turned down about a dozen requests to escort individual young women to the yearly school event.

In his own words, Pallin explained why:

"I go without date because I wanted to dance not only with just one girl ... all the girls here. They think I am a different person from Americans because I am from Spain."

Said host mom, Gail: "He can't understand why Olivia would want to have just one boyfriend. It's things like that ... differences that we discover. It's his culture versus ours, and we're always going at it."

Other differences of culture: "There's more junk food here. I eat more unhealthy here than I do in Spain," Pallin said.

But Americans seem to make up for that with a wealth of athletic opportunities, he added.

"Here, the sports are more important," Pallin said. "I like that."

His involvement with the school's swim team is a point of pride. "I tried out to swim two weeks ago, and I make the team," the boy said, beaming. "I'm excited about that."

Pallin also enjoys practicing lacrosse with host brother John-Michael, 14, who has enjoyed bonding with his interim family member.

Gail said the entire Diedrich clan played a part in choosing Pallin as their months-long visitor.

An interim family member

For most families, playing host to a foreign exchange student begins with a phone call to one of hundreds of agencies. In essence, the agencies act as a liaison between the host family and the visitor's family.

The Diedrichs contacted World Heritage, a United States-based program focusing mainly on the Hispanic culture.

The next step was a screening process which included a background check. World Heritage then provided the family with a list of prospective visitors. "We decided we wanted a student from Spain," Gail said. "My daughter had two years of Spanish at school."

The agency then provided the family with a network of profiles featuring different children looking to visit America. The family looked through the portfolios and photos of dozens.

"My daughter, Olivia, selected David," Gail said. "She said, 'He doesn't look like he would get on my nerves."

John-Michael chimed in too: "It looked like he was into sports, so I thought that was cool."

Gail said she also liked that Pallin had the same religious background as her family.

World Heritage contacted The Pallins.

Southeastern States Coordinator Jodi Kiefer said the agency looks for hosts "who are not just looking for a visitor, but a family member."

Once the Diedrichs committed, Pallin was notified and the agency secured the young man's visa to come to America. World Heritage also enrolled Pallin in a basic English class prior to his arrival.

Upon arriving Aug. 15, Gail said he immediately charmed the family.

"We could tell from the start it was going to be a good thing," she said. "We knew that we really got lucky with such a great young man."

Within the first several weeks, they took him sightseeing.

"We took him to Helen, we took him downtown to Atlanta a few times, we went to the Chattahoochee river, and we took him to shoot a gun for the first time," Gail said.

In Spain, gun laws are very restrictive. The family took Pallin to a shooting range, where he fired .22 and 9 mm pistols at paper targets.

"When we were done with that, he said, 'Let's do more,'" Gail said.

An experienced photographer, Gail snapped photos at the gun range and at most other family's outings, chronicling their activities.

She posted the photos to Facebook, where the Pallin family got to view the pictures of their son from home in Madrid, Spain.

Kiefer said that social media like Facebook has changed the old-fashioned communication of letter writing between child and parent.

"The parents get to see what their child is doing almost immediately," Kiefer said. "The social media networks let the parents feel more involved in their children's experience in another part of the world."

Kiefer said many students choose to travel to America to improve their English and learn about another culture, yet "the host families get so much in return."

"They learn about America through another's eyes...new eyes. That's why it's called an exchange. Everybody wins," Kiefer said.

A part of the pack

Gail said the family has indeed benefitted from the experience so far.

"We've got a lot more out of it than I thought we would," she said. "We were concerned at first about whether he'd fit with us, but he's exceeded all of our expectations. I think he was perfect because we let the kids play a big part in picking him."

She said that it has given her children a "whole new purpose in addition to their everyday life. It's been good for them."

Kiefer said playing host to a foreign exchange student often makes a mark on the host family.

"It really is a life-changing experience," Kiefer said. "A lot of families don't realize it until after the student has left, but it influences them forever and their outlook in their lives."

Pallin said the Diedrichs too have made an impact on him.

"When I go back to Spain I will miss America, much like I will miss this family and my friends," Pallin said.

Gail said when Pallin goes back on May 27, it likely will be a sad day.

"David is like one of my kids," she said. "He's a part of the pack now."

Pallin said he has appreciated the family's willingness to let him glimpse America from their perspective.

"They know to show me that while in America, we do American things," Pallin said.

His willingness to take in the culture of not only America but suburban Sugar Hill has helped him feel like he got the whole experience.

"While in America, I am going to do what the Americans do. While in this city, I do what people in this city do."

Even if it means coating his body from head to toe with red and black paint. Even if it means screaming at the top of his lungs as the North Gwinnett Bulldogs trounce the opposition.

It's all a part of a new world that he didn't even know about months ago.

"I like painting my body to go to football games, because I think football here in America is more important than in my country," Pallin said. "It's American people and something they love. I'm so happy for this."

He's happy also to have met the Diedrichs in his journey. And once he goes home, it's possible they could cross paths again. Reunions are not unlikely among foreign exchange students and their host families.

"A lot of them come back to visit," Kiefer said. "They'll meet back up, because they still feel so attached to the student even after they're gone."

Gail said when they take Pallin to the airport on May 27, "it's going to be hard to give him back."

It may indeed be a difficult day for everybody, but Pallin and the Diedrich family hope to keep in touch using Facebook.

When asked to describe his experiences thus far, Pallin smiles. A limited grasp of the English language could never do it justice.

An entry typed by Pallin weeks ago on his Facebook page, however, suggests an attempt:

"Nothing will ever be as before."