Ana Chouly prepares tea and makes her son, Pedro, 4, a peanut butter sandwich as she recalls her first year in Ames.

“It was terrible for me. The silent phone, the isolation, no one who needed me,” she said.

Chouly came to Ames from Uruguay with her husband and three children last December so her husband, Martin Bordoli, could study soil fertility at Iowa State.

“In January it was awful,” she said. “When I came here I miss everything. I didn’t speak any English. My husband tried to help me. I was afraid to answer the phone, because I can’t understand any word. I felt stupid.”

Chouly, who works back home for the Uruguay government as an agricultural engineer, said it was “hard to follow the man. In my country, I’m very independent. But here I’m very dependent on my husband.” Bordoli had to drive Chouly everywhere and translate for her.

“I felt like a child, she said. “Everything was difficult. To go alone to the supermarket, to fill out a check — little things, very common things were very difficult to me the first time. I couldn’t understand my children’s teachers in the conference. I remember I came to the day care meeting, and I can’t understand anything. It was a very strange feeling.”

Also hard on kids

Chouly said the move to Ames was not only difficult for her, but also for her children.

“I tried to help the children. It was very difficult, I suffered for myself, but also for the children.” She motions to her oldest son, Juan Martin, 13, who is at the table in the small living room of their University Village apartment, hunched over his eighth grade homework.

“For Juan, it was a very terrible age for change. The groups of friends are formed. For the first month it was very terrible, he didn’t talk to us. We know that it was hard for him, but it got better.

“Pedro would cry when I left him at the university day care, ‘Why do I have to stay here? I want to go home to my country.’ We felt very guilty.”

Not alone

Chouly is not alone in her struggles as the wife of an international student. But fortunately for Chouly and many other women in the same situation, several outreach programs exist in Ames to help make the American transition easier.

Melissa Jacobson, Ames field representative for International Students Inc., an international organization that serves international university students, said learning English is the first concern for international wives.

Some Ames church groups offer English conversation classes, cooking classes, community activities, Bible studies and other opportunities for international women to interact and to learn English.

“Because they are not students, they may or may not have the language, because they haven’t had to pass the TOEFL,” Jacobson said. TOEFL is the national Test of English as a Foreign Language. It is required for all foreign students studying at ISU.

Gunay Delikaya said when she came to the United States from Turkey three years ago she spoke no English. “I had no communication for maybe three months. I watched TV. It was really horrible.” But then she began English classes.

The International English Classes program held at First Evangelical Free Church in Ames and sponsored jointly by local churches, International Students Inc. and Campus Crusade for Christ serves mostly wives of international students and scholars.

This semester 68 women were registered for the program. The classes meet twice a week and are divided into six levels.

Nancy Foote, administrator of the program, said the classes do not prepare women to pass TOEFL, but they do “allow them to go to the grocery store or converse with their kids’ teachers.”

In the third-level class, the volunteer teacher, Judy Carlson, instructs the five women to complete the sentence: “If I want my husband to graduate, I should …” and “If my child is sick …”

One woman, Dee Yong, answers: “I feed to my kids the medicine.”

The women are quiet and serious about their work, but they also open up in conversation, discussing what they would do if they won the lottery and what their plans are for Christmas.

The class costs $15 for a textbook. Unlike other programs, International English Classes provide child care at $40 per child, $70 for two. All of the teachers are volunteers.

Mothers more isolated

Living in America is even more difficult for international women with children. They risk being more isolated. And they are separated from the support of extended family.

“In many cultures, especially Mideastern cultures, they would live near or with a mother or sister-in-law who would give them a lot of advice,” Jacobson said. “Now they are here by themselves. Their models are not here to help with questions they might have.”

When Delikaya arrived in Ames in July of 1994, she was seven months pregnant. Her first child, Sera, is now 14 months old.

“Having Sera was difficult for me. It was a good time, my husband is really great, he help me a lot, but I wish all my family was here to be with me in my happiest days,” she said.

Both of Magda Mohamed’s children, Basil, 6, and Moutaz, 10 months, were born in Ames. She said it was hard to leave her family in Sudan, “especially if you have kids, they are going to help you a lot. In Sudan, all of us live close together. It’s so difficult here.”

Mohamed also said her life in Sudan was easier because she didn’t have to do as much housework. “In Sudan, I’m not doing anything. There is somebody to wash clothes, wash dishes, cook for me. Here I do everything for myself.”

Loneliness

Not only must the wives of international students cope with raising their children apart from extended family, but often their husbands are busy with school and are rarely at home.

Yan-Shiu Wang got married right before she came to ISU with her husband in 1993. She said marriage is more difficult “when you just get married and move to a new country. You don’t have any social connections there. When you first get married, there are a lot of problems, how to communicate and all of those things. In Taiwan, I have my parents, family and friends to consult. Here I don’t have anyone to consult.”

Wang also said her marriage is more difficult because her husband is a student.

“I don’t have much time to spend with my husband. He’s too busy. Every day he goes to school when he gets up, just comes home for dinner, goes back to the office to study again and comes back at midnight to sleep. He works very hard,” Wang said.

Peiling Lu, from Beijing, China, has been in Ames with her husband since August. She said she was surprised with how busy Americans are.

“The people have to work very, very hard. Oh, so hard. My husband have to work on weekends, every week my husband work 70 hours. Is too much. Is very hard for me also, because I have to stay home all the time,” Lu said.

Financial woes

Because their husbands are students, these women also must deal with limited finances.

Wang said her living standard is much poorer now than in Taiwan. Although her husband is a research assistant, she said they must depend on income from her in-laws.

“We don’t have much income,” Wang said. “We don’t spend too much. It is not too bad; it is just a way of spending money. After you spend a lot of time in America as a foreign student, your desire for material things will lower and lower.”

Jongsook Park, from Korea, said she and her husband can’t save money in the United States.

“Economic situation is very big pressure. When I came here I limit everything I buy. For several months I didn’t buy cookies and candies for my son,” Park said. “But small cookies, candies, little toys are a very big pleasure for him. It was a big pressure, but I decided, yeah, I can spend some money for my son.

“Even when my husband get a TA job, its still not enough for my family. And that’s not a good situation,” Park said.

From engineering to McDonald’s

Jacobson said because finances are often an issue with international students, spouses may try to find a job, but often they don’t have a visa which allows them to work legally.

“It’s a real touchy issue,” Jacobson said. “They get the kinds of jobs people do because they won’t be checked up on, although technically they’re not supposed to. It’s a gray area. It’s something most people want to turn a blind eye to and not see because a lot of people are breaking the rules. They are doing menial labor that Americans don’t want to do.”

Lu has her work permit and visa and is looking for a job. Although she has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, but her options are limited by her language skills and lack of transportation. After learning how to read the newspaper classified ads and after applying at many places, she has decided the McDonald’s near her apartment in west Ames is the best choice for her.

“I will work very hard,” she said. “And I think it will help my English.”

She expressed frustration with her employment opportunities. “Here I just have to work in a restaurant. In China I can work in a big company, a comfortable office.”

Stress a problem

Besides these issues, international women also struggle coping with stress in times of crisis. “When a parent dies at home, financial problems, illness or major medical problems, even happy a thing like having a baby can bring a lot of stress” when the woman is away from her country, Jacobson said. “I have known several Korean women who had miscarriages, and they suffered alone because they didn’t want to tell anyone,” she said.

Need to get out

Despite the challenges, international women have many opportunities for positive experiences in Ames. Chouly said her life in Ames improved when she made friends through her involvement with a group of international women and English classes offered in Pammel Court.

“Most important for me is not to stay at home alone. Try to get out,” Chouly said. She said it is important for her to get dressed up, “stay pretty” and go out and meet other women.

Women from countries who have many representatives in Ames also have the support of that smaller community. Lu said she has many Chinese friends. Through one of International Students Inc.’s outreach, Lu and other Chinese students made Chinese dumplings for other international and American students to enjoy.

When Mohamed had her children, women from the Sudan and other Mideastern countries helped her by preparing meals and doing housekeeping chores.

She said whenever a Sudanese family has a baby, “we all start cooking; we make a schedule.”

Park said sometimes the pressures of loneliness, financial stress and family are “a very big burden. I feel very depressed. But I can’t live with that kind of feelings all the time. I’ve tried to forget them, get involved in activities.”