All right, kind of a special guest with us today. Before we get to our special guest, we'll talk to, uh, I
said I think she's not special. Uh, all their Melissa Caprilegan is here. Also, Candy Board
supervisor. You have two foreign exchange students living with you. I do. One of them Spain and
our guest today. Dimitri is from Belgium. Dimitri Woolworths. Am I saying it right? Dimitri?
Exactly. I have everyone. I'm Dimitri. An exchange student from Belgium. A very small country,
famous for chocolate. Yes, chocolate. Yeah. Waffles and a little statue of a little boy's being
being. I don't know what we are probably doing, but let me tell you the Belgian waffles because
actually you order waffles at a very Belgian waffles. I thought that was like french fries.
They just stuck in a french in front of it. But there really are you specialize in Belgian waffles,
right? Yeah, we have plenty of waffles from different cities. And so yeah, it's very famous in
people when they come here to visit, they always wanted to eat those delicious waffles.
Yeah, Belgian chocolates. Yeah. I was in the Netherlands once in Holland. And I said,
they're famous for your windmills. They can know we're famous for chocolate. I said,
but you have windmills, right? Yeah, we have windmills. But where are they? I was in,
you know, you trek a major, say, I'm not keeping them in the heart of the city. We have to go
out to the countryside. They took me to the countryside to see windmills when I was there. I got
chocolate and everything. When did you get here? I got here in August. So it has been, yeah,
a long time. And very, I love this country really. So I'm so into it. It's like, it's like my
country. You see, like my native country. So I love it. Dimitri has, since he was a young boy,
his father has shared with me. Dimitri has shared with me. He has just been dreaming of America.
So this summer, like a dream come true to be sitting here, going to school here in America.
To many people take it, you know, just taking for granted. For sure. And we come across it every day,
don't we? When I was traveling overseas, I was in Israel, I was in the hot and then that of the
winds and stuff. I had a gun put in my head in Israel. And I said, wow, I mean, you could have
that done here too. But still, it's just a, it's a different way of life when you go some of these
countries overseas. Belgium is a pretty peaceful country. You never get them involved in any
skirmishes, right? Yes, that's right. But here, you have so different things like
more freedom and give me an example about the freedoms. What can, what can you do here
that you don't have the freedom to do in Belgium? It's like everyone is free to talk about things
like one that's to have several religion in Belgium. We can have several religions. But here,
you see, there are so many different church with different religion. And Belgium is just one
religion and you get stuck with it. And here you have, if you want to believe in animal god,
you can, you want to work with this hand. You would be crazy if you do that. So it's so,
so, so, how big is Belgium? How many people? It's very small. We are 11 million in
evidence. So very, very small. You can do old Belgium in three hours. So,
gee, when I'm in the New York City, we had 18 million people in the area.
All crowded into one place. It's a big number. That's for sure. But it's amazing.
When I, we had the drive home to school in the morning, and it's a half hour drive. And for him,
he'd be in another country. Where do you go to school? I go to school here in
Alba Saida Academy in Kirosha. Okay. Very, very good school, actually. But how did you pick that
school? It's not so much the Nisal Open Door, the program in which he's participating in to
experience this. They have that school as their approved school. And my 11-year-old goes there.
So that's how I was alerted that they were in need of a student being placed.
If any problems get there, then you speak English very well. When did you learn English?
So I learned English with movies mainly because that's cool. We have English, but the level is not
so high. So you have to do it by yourself. And so we have so many American movies. And that's
that's thanks to these those American movies that America was really my dream. And always
has been my dream, you see. Now I did a little homework before you came in to say, how does
I good morning? Is the language called Belgian? What's the language called? So yeah, that's one
of the question people ask me. What's a call? Do you speak Belgian? No, we don't have actually a
language. We have three different language French, Dutch and German. Oh great. So that's very
hard. You have to speak those language to to get a job. So oh my goodness. You have to be good
in the language, you see. Well, here's what I, in Belgium, I don't know what you're calling.
I looked it up and it was good morning is good morning. Am I right? Yeah, that's depends
of the language. So we have been French. Bonjour in Dutch. It depends on a lot in German.
Yeah, that's good morning. Oh, that's German. Yeah, it's good morning. Yeah, I looked it up
this morning. I want to be the ugly American. I want to at least speak a little bit of it.
So how's your school work going? So very good. Actually, we don't have so much work in Belgium.
It was so hard in the year. It's like vacation. I don't know why it's like holiday every day. So
I love, I love this system. And for sports, we have, I'm doing a sport at Bradford wrestling.
And I love it. You were supposed to wrestling today. I canceled right? Yeah, the coach decided
to give him one day off. But they otherwise throughout this whole holiday break and every day,
they wrestle except on Sundays. So they do have Christmas Eve and Christmas day off. Otherwise,
they are practicing wrestling. And Don, I should tell you what I find fascinating that Dmitria shared
is like they do tests all the time. Their studying is almost year round. It's intense for their school.
And they don't have multiple choice. And a lot of our tests here at America are multiple choice
tests. And it's usually it's long hand and they're writing. And so completely different school
structure and the different level of schooling. So their academics are pretty intense.
Well, to look at me, you've never know what that was in the National Honor Society.
Your retention of data is fascinating. My mother didn't believe it because they called her the day
before the ceremony. And they said, we want to know Donald was, he's going to become a member
of the National Honor Society tomorrow. And they said, Donald, my son, I mean, thanks mom.
She did not. She did. That's an absolute truth. Wow. Because I was a B track student. All
these kids were in the gifted track. Not even an A track, gifted track. And if I tell you how I got
in, you'll be surprised. I'm curious. I had mediocre grades. So how did I get into the National
Honor Society? And they told me they said the teachers are allowed to vote in one student. And if
it's unanimous, you get in. And the teachers anonymously voted me in. That is beautiful.
So personality got me. That's important. I found that out years later.
Because I said, how did I get in? And they said, you were anonymously voted in.
Universally loved. I love that. Yeah. But then I had nothing in common with the other students
in the National Honor Society because they were all in the same gifted grades together,
in the same classes. But I was the guy with the car. Oh, that's so important. You become
very popular that way. I get a very important question for you to meet. We're going to save it
for just a moment here at 717, local news, tablets, it's Christmas classics too. Demetri Wilmerts,
a foreign exchange student that he'd say foreign exchange to from Belgium is here along with his
sponsor, Melissa Caprileon, our alder and county board supervisor. Demetri, I was told to the
Nisale Open door is that he was the first exchange student who did the whole ask in a female to
homecoming. The whole American, you know, where you kind of propose. He had this poster board. He
just put his heart into it and he asked a young lady to homecoming. So it was success. She said,
homecoming was when? So it was in October. Maybe. And so yeah, very in Belgium, you see, we have only
a prom for last year, senior year. And it's not so, not so American. So here it's so, it's like magic,
you see? And I love it because you have prom, you have oncoming and all these parties made,
you make more friends and make more, more unified, you see, and more like a family, I think.
I've got so many questions for you about comparisons between here and your home.
Yeah, of course. By the way, do you miss everybody home? We're just your dog, I heard.
Yeah, I don't, I don't really, because he's sleeping in my bed and I know, I have to
get face time with your dog. Yeah, but it's not the same, you see? It's like he hears me and
all that said, but yeah, it's not the same. And I want to bet him and get him a stuffed animal,
like I have a cat. So I'm trying to fill the void with a cat. Cat cats have attitude dogs don't
have attitude. That's fair. Hold on a second. We're talking to Demetri. What words? He is a foreign
exchange student from Belgium here for the, for the year to go to school. And what's the name of the
enemy again in Kenosha? Harbor side. Harbor side, academy in Kenosha. And his sponsor,
Alder and county board supervisor, Melissa Carpillian here with him.
So we're exactly to you by eight, Lord's a leaping or 12, Lord's a leaping.
What do you find this? Best buy? Remember, I'm not a shopper. I thought I would go to you
with that question. Lord's a leaping. When do you get that? How about the eight maids of milking?
What farm do you find? I love the way your mind works. Well, somebody's buying it up. Somebody
is. They always say, here's what the actual price would be this year. If you bought the 12 days
of Christmas, but how do you price out of eight, Lord's a leaping? I mean, where do you have,
what how much do they cost? Somebody's got it. You're going to find it. And we're going to hear
the statistics. I'm sure. When you do the 12 days of Christmas, you got to remember,
you keep doing them over again. So when you do a part of the pear tree, you do that 12 times.
You do. And you're 11 times for the next one and 10 times. And that's how they do it. But anyway,
Christmas time in Belgium. What's that like? So by the way, before we do the Demetri will works
is here. We're talking to Demetri. He's a foreign exchange student. He's sponsored by Melissa
Carpillian, our alder and county board supervisor. And he's here for the school year. He goes to the
harbour side, harbour side academy in Kenosha. And so Christmas in Belgium. So Christmas in Belgium
is like every people don't like to put some lights in on their houses. And I don't know why it's
like here every house. It's so beautiful. I think in Belgium, no one do that. And I don't know why
maybe it's more like in Belgium, we are not. So here it's money. Christmas is money. And in Belgium,
it's going to be like this, but it's more a religion, a holiday. And yes, really, I prefer it here,
but yeah, it's very different. Christmas is money. It's the consumerism. We comes to America.
I mean, he's constantly shocked at some of our stickers, prices. And even he talks about going to
college here, but college there is free. Even our health care system, right? So we're talking
about how much things cost us here. Well, money-grubbing society. So that was one of those kind of
shocker things. And so I love hearing it. I'm ready to move to Belgium. He's ready to move here.
Because you grass is always green around the other side. And you know what, but they
they're so environmentally minded. I'll tell you something that what was you in this kick
on environment and helping people down into I am in and out through and through. But even
their political system is starkly different. And you know, he got to see different campaigning
for our presidential election. And just how different it is. So they are, in a sense, mandated
to vote. He's 18. You can vote when you're 18 in Belgium. A 16, right? No, 18, it depends from
which election, but for the European election, exactly. So 16 now, but normally it's 18 years.
And he had to vote here. He was through proxy. So we had to print something out for his
dad vote for him. Oh, because in Belgium, you have to vote. If you don't vote, normally you get
fine, but really not anymore, but they tried to everyone to vote here. But you have a prime
minister or a president. So we don't have a president. We have a king. That's. Oh, king.
We don't vote for king. Yeah, no, we don't vote for king. We don't need like a decoration. You
see it's so it's like, yeah, is there just standing in. So what's the name of the leader of the
country? So we had, no, Belgium is very difficult. You see, we have so much trouble because we have
the French part and the Dutch part. And so always fighting for to know which party is there. You
see, now we have, we have something that's that calls, we have some parties that's going together.
And so it's very difficult. Imagine we had that here back in 1863 called a Civil War. We couldn't
get along with the South. Well, you know, what else? You know, we do all these campaign. You'll
see our campaign pieces and you'll see this yard signs and a lot of advertisements, the flags
and the celebration and the trucks on the vehicles and cars, not in Belgium. So you won't see that
type of marketing for campaign candidacy. Yeah, you are proud of, you see, when someone is elected,
Belgium, it doesn't change anything. If it's elected or not, you're proud in your mind, but you're
not going to show it to everyone that he's elected. Here's your trick question. How do you celebrate
the 4th of July? People don't even know you see it. Some people think we are celebrating
Thanksgiving and all that stuff, but really, we don't care about that. I know Americans think that
the world revolves around this country. Exactly. That the 4th of July itself, it's not, it's
just a local, local thing. But he has a couple dates. I think July 21 is the one. So we have
the same than you, but we represent our militaries. That's shown, for militaries, shown on the
umbristle to show what we have as militaries. How big is the military? You don't have that many
people. That's so big, but we can be proud because we have, yes. Now is Belgium landlocked?
So we have, we have a sea, North Sea. Okay. So yeah, very small actually, but yet we still have
what do you have an army? We have an army. Yeah. Sort of. Yeah, we have a navy. Yeah, it's not the same.
And we have a robot and a motorboat. Yeah. But we have a big, big air force. Yeah, air force of
horse. We have a special forces and yeah, very, very good army for small countries, so we can
be proud of it. Now do you have to join the military at a certain age? Before, yes. Before a
1990, we had to, people had to, and my father did it, but not anymore, you see, because
Germany is not a threat anymore, so. Oh, so who was the big threat? Rich, I know. After
was the big threat for Belgium? No, no, no, no, you see, but before it was Germany, in case of
Third World War, and yeah, we had to join the army. Yeah, we're going to worry about those Canadians
coming over the border. I don't know. We're very lucky. We don't have border problems per
say with, you know, wanted to attack us. We create a lot of our problems. That's what we have
you to get us out of that. Okay. Here's the one I want to ask you to about radio. What is radio
like in Belgium? Here, anybody can start a radio station, as long as there's a frequency,
you know, if they're free, you know, frequency, and we can start a station, what about in Belgium?
So, yeah, we have, so we have major radio. We don't have radio per cities like here. It's like,
we have, so we have principal radio, and it's all in Brussels. You see, our capital,
our biggest state in Belgium, and all the radio are there. You see, we don't have local radio. That's
very, very interesting, and yeah, I like this idea of just local radio. So, only about
state-run radio stations? So, yeah, it's more, we don't have states like provinces, so we have
per provinces. It's like a state. I mean, the country runs the station. No individuals can buy
a radio station running. So, sometimes it's a country, but sometimes it's private. Oh, that's
a kind of private, okay? Yeah, it can be private, but here, I think you can, yeah, as you said,
you can start, even if you want, you see, even alone, Belgium is difficult, it's more difficult,
and you can start by your own, but you know, not so much people is going to listen to you, you see.
At least in Brussels, like a jewelry capital? No, that's Antwerp. Antwerp? Oh, Antwerp.
Yeah, that's very famous for diamonds, and that's a great idea for that. Wow, and it's
funny, because the country, you said, isn't that big? Yeah, it's like the world capital.
Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, you always said I'm talking about jewelry and diamonds. Yeah, no,
Antwerp. All right. So, what's your interest after school? So, after school, I don't know yet,
maybe to study in our content, I was thinking of joining the army, maybe, and I will see what's
the future holds. We've been getting him connected with, he went for a ride along with the
Racine Police Department, and reached out to our veterans outreach who are trying to connect him
just with our branches of service, just to learn a little bit more, and he talks about accounting
as well, but he is such a scholarly individual. Now, how are the grades of school?
Phenomenal. Yeah, his grades are really, really good. He wants to understand all the English
going on. Yeah, sometimes it's difficult because new words and slang, many slang that it's
hard to understand because I never heard of it, but no, actually very good, yeah. There's a lot
of slang us parents don't understand. It's just like a whole new vocabulary by the youth,
but a lot of his academic classes that he's in now, he's done him years ago, even some he's done
in like middle school, and they're his senior classes now. So, it's not too much of a challenge,
but he has graduated respectively in his country already, so he's almost doing a double senior year.
And so a lot of this, this is more about absorbing the experience.
Yeah, it reminds me when we get back from the break, I want to talk about our schools compared
to your schools, remind me that because I'll forget, I should probably write it down,
and it was one of the things, I already forgot it. Oh, I want to talk about how long a ticket
to learn English. Could you speak it very well, but you have a French accent. Yeah, yeah,
but we, we miss you. We miss you.
That's all I can tell you. All right, hold on a second. We're talking to Demetri Willard,
so he's a foreign exchange student. He's here for the season, for this school year,
from Belgium and his sponsor is here as well, Alder and the county board supervisor,
Melissa Caprily in 748, local news time list hits, and Christmas favorites too, here at WRJN.
We're talking to a foreign exchange student from Belgium, Demetri Willards,
and his sponsor, Melissa Caprily in here as well, and I have so many questions for you.
What was that question I wanted to ask school's differ? About a school. Okay, you're going to
high school here. How does high school differ in Belgium? So many things I have to tell you about,
so first for sports, oh my gosh, in Belgium is like, if you want to join a sport, you have to go
in private club. It's very expensive, and not so much people go in it. Here, it's like it's free,
and you can, I'm not sure to be in sports in high school. So they charge you in sports,
and so we don't have, we don't have sports in high school. It's like a club, yeah. You have to
join a club, a private club, you see, and so you can, you can have relationship with people
from your same school. You see in here, you join sports, you are with your friends from school,
and it's so much fun, you see, and in Belgium, if you want to join a club, it's only two hours a
week, here it's two hours a day, so that's so incredible. I love it, I love it. So you join the
wrestling team, right? Yeah, exactly. So they can beat the snout out of your friends, because I
basically, yeah. That's a bit of his mindset to me. It's a very difficult. So he's tough
to beat up, but he doesn't need to. But I was like, do you understand wrestling here? We have
people who start at four years of age in our wrestling clubs here in Racine and Kenosha.
And I was like, oh my gosh, I tried to recruit his mother. I'm like, listen, you don't understand
wrestling. It is so rough, but he is doing phenomenal with wrestling. It is hard for me to watch,
but he is doing to pick up something within weeks and months, and he's pinning people down,
and it was the same thing with volleyball. He never played volleyball, and he joined
beginner at the JV, and then by the end of the season, bumped up to the varsity. So he's a
quick study, a quick learner. Now football is soccer, right? Yeah, exactly. So when you took
up a football, I'm always like soccer, but it's American football. So we don't have American football.
We have rugby. That's also, I don't know if you know the sport, but yeah, I know rugby, right?
Yeah. And so yeah, very, I love American football. I'm a world traveler. I know about
those things. He is a star tennis player, though. So we're waiting for the Tennessee season.
Oh, yeah, we have a tennis team in our school. I didn't know any of them.
That'll be the next sport. And so I can't wait to see it. He can stop. He got stopped on the
airport coming here. They think he's his famous tennis player, the world champion tennis player.
He looks just like him and he had a couple of his rackets.
When people ask me to feature with me, I'm like, yeah, okay, if you want, I'm the famous guy,
but I actually know what you see. So yeah, it's so great. I still think you're doing great with
the women in that school. I got to believe it with that accent. I mean, I had no, I had a
New York accent, but they didn't do anything. Because everybody had one. But it's fun to imitate
the New York accent. So what are you doing? What are you doing? When you ask somebody what they're
doing, they always ask, what am I doing? I'll tell you what I'm doing. They have to think.
They have to make time to thank you. So this is, so where have you been in America beside here?
So yeah, I went two years ago in New York. It was so beautiful and time square and wow, really,
it has been since then. I was like, always, I want to go back to New York is like not the rest of
the country. I mean, it's a one shot deal. We did go to Chicago. So we went to Chicago. It's a
busy city. It's exactly a little bit of New York, but New York City is so. It's a friendlier.
And we came from, we just went to Madison. So we're kind of trying to get around to, for him to
experience a little bit more than we're seeing Wisconsin. It's taking the last Vegas. Oh, no.
We're talking about the money-grubbing capital of America. There's too many scantily clad.
People dress. I can't as a mother. I'm the mom. I don't. You've never been. You know, by Vegas,
so much Vegas. Vegas in California, Fanevada. It would be my dream to visit. It's because I do.
You have to go to Vegas for the weekend. Oh, my goodness.
Dad, I can't do that. Yeah. Yeah. I'll take him. Where is it?
You'll love it. But if you want to go back to school, talk about different. So how they dress.
He did comment like the way that the student's dress here is so different.
In pajamas, I'm like, what are you doing with that? We're not sleeping. You're seeing an
Belgium. It's so if you're coming to pajamas, you're out of the school. You see so.
You don't have to wear uniforms, do you? No, no, they don't. From the school in Belgium, but
normally not. Yeah. So they dress. Probably like what we would consider like business casual.
But not like Melissa's dress today. Yeah. But in all fairness, everyone, we are going to the gym.
I have to word. I know you don't see me, but normally I come in here, but we're
expectively dressed. You are so lucky to have a sponsor like Melissa. She's a sweet person.
She's a nice person. She knows good from evil. And she doesn't take you to Las Vegas. Like,
I would take you to all the hot spots. Yeah. No, it's a highlight. It's a highlight. And
done, you know, when I opened my door to both Dimitri and our other foreign exchange student,
I bring that culture in the house and what a benefit, even for my 11 year old and gets to experience
you know, the different culture. And he has this brother for life. So we plan on I'm going to work
on my son's passport today and we're planning in July, August, July, two head to Belgium. So what a
gift. That's when you go home, right? Yeah. Exactly. It's many plans to come back.
When you're going to the military, I don't know. Maybe, maybe I was thinking even joining is
a military here. You see? Okay. Because I have so I know so much language and you could maybe help me.
But I don't know really. I think the possibilities are endless with Dimitri. So they truly are
endless. And we're trying to see how many doors we can open up of possibilities. And it's going to
be a hard choice for him. But his father's going to come into town a week or so before going away,
they're going to spend some time in Tennessee. And then they'll head back. He's already
toured Carthage College. He has an interest for Carthage. So you might even come back here decide
to pay for college instead of the free college. So go to Tennessee. Y'all. Y'all. I live down south
for a couple of years. Y'all. So do you have any brothers and sisters? So I have a sister in
them. She's a teenager. So I'm happy not to be reserved for the moment. Because my parents
were like, yeah, we don't know. You're a good kid. Don't go to America. It's better. You're
the sister to go and see because she's so annoying. When I hear people say, oh, my daughter just turned
13 years old. They say, oh, you know, teenager. Is it the same thing in Belgium when you turn
18? Yeah. So, yeah, when you were... How's the crime in Belgium? What a crime?
I'm not so much in what I was impressed to see. How do you handle it with school shooting?
Yeah. We never had that. It's only for fire. But school shooting, I was so wow. And we had the case
in school near our school that the kid came with some guns and we had to lock down our school.
This was just recently in the news with Kenosha. So the Kenosha school. So that's what he's
talking about. So Harper's side had to go and lock down with the other Kenosha school. So he's
never experienced that. So he gets to see another side of people. But I think it's all about
expanding your character and your experiences. And you know, he's talking about his little sister,
you know, having a bit of a annoyance. He just being a teenager young. But then he's now got an
11-year-old brother here, my son, who I don't know. He could be equally as annoying, I'm sure.
Well, stay in contact. We want to know. I want to know your progress.
As we go along. And I see big things for you.
I see big things I have. I see you leading the country at one time. That's what I say.
Right now. And you never know. Hey, if I made the National Honesty Society,
anything is possible for anybody. We would be in good hands if you lead here.
Thank you for coming in to me. Triad, I'd appreciate it. This is what you expected of the radio.
Yeah, yeah. Of course, I really did sign in Belgium with friends for school. But yeah,
it was so great, always great to be on the radio. Well, thank you very much. Thank you,
Melissa for bringing them in. I do appreciate that. You're welcome. Good luck to you.
Thank you. I want to know the complete progress of this now. You understand?
Well, I'll update you. All right, sounds good.
