Coupeville Sports

Elena Jimenez Guerra

 Jimenez Guerra (bottom row right), Ryckaert (bottom row left) and their Wolf cheer teammates. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

The Coupeville High School cheer squad has a distinct foreign flavor this winter.

Key members hail from Belgium (Iris Ryckaert) and Spain (Elena Jimenez Guerra), giving the Wolves several cheerleaders who had never had any previous contact with cheerleading outside of watching movies.

The transition seems to have gone well, however, with both young women having quickly stepped up, matching their American counterparts in dance moves and sunny personalities.

“I became a cheerleader because I wanted to try new things this year,” Jimenez Guerra said. “In Spain, we don’t have any cheerleaders. It has always been an ‘American thing’.”

Jimenez Guerra, who hails from Madrid (“No, it is not Mexico”), is the middle child of three. She has an older brother and a younger sister, and it was actually her older sibling’s experiences that sparked her interest in visiting another country.

“I started thinking about being an exchange student because of my brother, who had an awesome experience before, and I really wanted to try too!,” Jimenez Guerra said.

A skier and scuba diver in her native country, she had no clue where she would end up when she entered the exchange program. A self-proclaimed “city girl,” she didn’t quite know what to expect when she first found herself in small town, USA.

“Well, I am from a big city, but I have totally adjusted to this Island and this town,” Jimenez Guerra said. “It’s better than I expected, honestly. I expected just a little town where there is no one or anything, but the background of it, with all these trees, is amazing! I really like it in here.

“Coupeville is really different from Madrid,” she added. “Every one is super nice with each other — those are the advantages of living in a small town.”

Adjusting to a new town, a new country and a different style of school have all taken time, but she has found much in common with her new classmates.

“I enjoy listening to music, hanging out with my friends, usually watching horror movies, and just having fun,” Jimenez Guerra said.

When she wraps up her year abroad, she will be headed back to Madrid, where she will have two years of high school studies remaining. She plans to eventually study medicine at a university and wants to spend a year either in France or Switzerland learning French.

That’s the future, though. For now, she’s simply enjoying her American odyssey.

“Schools here are pretty different,” Jimenez Guerra said. “But everyone here is amazing and kind with me, and all the teachers, they help me a lot with everything, so I am pretty happy in Coupeville.”