By Lisa York-Cox Five Harrington Sound Primary Six students enjoyed a taste of American life.

And they recalled their adventure recently at their school assembly.

"We went on November 22 and returned on December 6,'' said Janel Allen who teaches at the Primary Five level at Harrington Sound. "It was my first experience participating in the programme.'' The children, in the company of two teachers acting as chaperones, went to Cincinnati, Ohio as part of an annual student exchange programme hosted by the Harrington Sound Primary School.

They stayed in the homes of host families and visited the Lakeside Elementary School fifth grade, which is the equivalent to Primary Six.

Some of the students from Ohio came to Bermuda the same time and stayed with host families.

Ms Allen said: "The idea is to expose the children to the experience of living with a different culture and a different school environment. Basically the children lived in separate households and attended school at the Lakeside Elementary School.'' "It was fun,'' said ten-year-old Dinah Darby. "I liked it. I was shy at first.'' "At the airport there were balloons and signs for all of us,'' she added.

"We felt like celebrities when we arrived.'' Ten-year-old Matthew Richard said: "On December 5, I went to a football game.

The people who played were the Bengals and the 49er's. The Bengals won. After the game, I got a souvenir. It was exciting and I hope I get to go to another game. After that we went to a goodbye party. We played truth or dare and some other games.'' "Overall the trip was successful,'' Ms Allen said. "The children were accepted with lots of love and the families were very caring people. The children were able to see how US schools operate as compared to their own school here in Bermuda.'' Alex Blakemore, 11, said: "On Thanksgiving, me and my (host) family went to their grandparents' house. We had lots of food and turkey, gravy, potatoes and for dessert we had ice-cream, rhubarb and pumpkin pie. It was a lot of fun. We played Monopoly and other games.'' Ten-year-old Siara Smith said: "On December 2, we went to the Aquarium. We saw many animals there. We saw sharks. They had a little theatre. In the theatre we pretended that we were in a ship wreck and it really rained in the theatre.'' Siara, who had a cast on her left leg, explained: "We went rollerskating on Saturday night. I tripped and twisted my ankle.'' Ann Hines, Harrington Sound physical education teacher, said: "It was wonderful. I had been here before. The families were very friendly and the school was a lot bigger than ours, with some 450 students. The weather was unseasonably warm. We had only two cold days. This is our first exchange with a public school. All the other schools were private schools.'' Blayne Baker, age ten, said: " We went ice skating, some of us for the first time. I slipped a couple of times.'' "I went to a hockey game,'' he added. "The Cyclones against the Pythons. The Cyclones won four to two. I really liked the game, it had action. Two players almost got into a fight. I got to have the puck that was on the ice that they played with.'' "The host families took us on visits to places like the museum and historic parts of Cincinnati,'' Ms Allen recalled. "We went ice skating. It was a great experience.'' She said: "The whole idea was to see how the children adjust to living in a different household and different culture. We as chaperones got to visit all of the host families. We did do an assembly where we showed them a demonstration of a cricket game. We shared facts of Bermuda, like the Bermuda flag and Bermudian currency. We talked to them about our Bermuda longtail and our beaches. They really liked to hear about the money.'' "Mrs. Hines, and I got to dine at all of the host families. Needless to say, we were pretty full.

"Next year we plan to go to Costa Rica. Last year we went to Mexico. We will participate in this programme as long as there is interest in it.''