Rose Smouse said that South Africans have certain ideas and dreams about America and after being here maybe those ideas and dreams aren’t always true.

“It is everybody's dream to come to America. But when you get here you also realize it is not that great,” Smouse said.

Smouse gets that idea partly from the way the people in this country are. In South Africa there are many unemployed people, but they are still happy, she said, even if they don’t have much to be happy about.

“Then, you come to America and find people that have everything. Even if they are unemployed they get some kind of assistance from the government, grants and things like that. Yet, they are very unhappy people, and you think, 'You know what's wrong with these people. It's like the government does so many things for the people and yet, they are so ungrateful, if I can put it like that,” she said. “But from the outside it looks very good, very attractive, and you believe it's the best place to raise your children and it's not."

Smouse said that living in the United States made her appreciate her country more.

“You sort of get a sense of what we always strive towards and what we always think of as being the best, and that it's not always the case,” she said.

While her experience may seem negative to some, she also has some positive views from experiencing education and life in the United States.

“You learn more about other people by learning from people who are different from yourself, you actually discover yourself, because at home you don't necessarily think of other people as being different,” Smouse said. “You speak the same language and you are from the same country, and once you leave the country and start interacting with people who are different, you grow personally.”