MT. VERNON — Where Belem goes, so does a dictionary — at least for a little while.

Maria Belem Telchi, 17, of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, already speaks proficient English, but sometimes she has to use a particular word to describe something, and so she dashes off to find the Spanish/English dictionary her host family, the Alvis family of Mt. Vernon, has furnished for her.

In this case, Telchi wants to explain the draw of Santa Cruz to tourists.

“Destacar — it stands out,” she explains, after a short jaunt upstairs and back for the word eluding her. “I’m learning a lot of English, but I’m still with my dictionary all day. I’m learning a lot, especially with my family.”

Telchi is a participant in the Rotary International exchange student program that takes students all over the world and will stay with several host families in Mt. Vernon for about a year.

Her goals while she is in the King City are to improve her English and to spread knowledge about her home, she said.

“I want to learn about other places and see how they live,” she added.

For Telchi, a native of the largest city in Bolivia with a population of more than 1 million, Mt. Vernon seems to operate at a less hectic pace than her hometown.

“It’s different,” she said. “Here, is a town, but it’s like living in a city because you have everything you need. There, when they live in a town, they don’t have anything like that.”

She said the houses of people who live in towns in Bolivia are much smaller, and showed a photo of houses with thatched roofs.

Telchi has a book about Bolivia she received from the Rotary, and she likes to share the photos and information with others.

She points out pictures of mountains and waterfalls, saying there are “a lot of beautiful places” in her hometown.

“Santa Cruz is distinguished for the art,” Telchi said, showing photos of tiles, angels and flowers in the baroque style.

She said Santa Cruz also has a “Carnaval”-style parade, an “amazing” event, that she will be sad to miss while she is abroad.

“We have three days where we go to the streets,” she said. “Nobody works, and there are no cars.”

She added the people of Bolivia share a lot of history — and a common ancestral heritage — with Peru.

Attending Mt. Vernon Township High School is also a big change for Telchi, who has one more year of high school to finish up in Santa Cruz after she returns from her exchange trip.

“I have been with the same classmates all my life,” she said. “We don’t choose our classes.”

She said the ethnic diversity of Mt. Vernon was surprising to her as well.

“We don’t have the variety,” she said. “To see blonde hair and blue eyes is like, wow.”

Kimberly Alvis, Telchi’s host mother, said students in Bolivia attend classes from 7:15 a.m. to 1 p.m., and take a long lunch with their families.

“The days, how long they have been, have been an adjustment for her,” she said.

Telchi said she is trying to take core classes like science in hopes that they will count toward credit at her high school back at home.

“I’m taking French,” she said. “I really understand, because they have a lot of words like Spanish, so it’s kind of easy for me.”

Telchi said in her first week at MVTHS, students had been kind to her.

“Everybody’s nice,” she said. “People have helped me. I ask, ‘Where is this class,’ and they take me; they are very nice people.”

In addition to multiple buildings on campus and the longer school day, Telchi said leaving campus for lunch was also a change for her.

Being an exchange student is a family tradition for Telchi’s family — everyone except for her mother has traveled abroad, she said.

“Fifteen of my friends are exchange students too,” she said.

In the meantime, Telchi and Alvis, her host mother for about three months,  have enjoyed cooking together since her arrival. Telchi especially enjoys chocolate chip cookies, she said.

“Some foods are different,” she said. “Here I eat very well. I’m accustomed to eating the things I like, so it’s a big change.”