"The biggest change is the weather," he says. "It's the first time I've seen snow."

Oliveira has already gone snowmobiling, which he compares to sea-dooing back home.

Otherwise his routine sounds much the same.

"I played soccer in Brazil and here I do, too," he says of indoor soccer at St. Patrick High. "In Brazil I went swimming, but here I go to the pool."

Though he finished high school in Brazil, he is attending St. Patrick's largely to help with his English.

"The people from school are nice and want to talk but the problem is my English is not fluent yet."

Ties to his Portuguese-speaking home are strengthened through the Internet as he e-mails parents and friends regularly from a computer in his room.

Oliveria will stay with his Canadian rotary-parents Lisa Alain and Lauchie MacDonald for three months. Then he shifts to three more sets of Rotary parents during his year-long Yellowknife stint.

"We're really enjoying it," Alain said of housing their first foreign student. "He's a great kid, mature and has a good sense of humor."

The goal of the program is to help people worldwide learn about common Rotary activities and each other's communities.

In Yellowknife, the group holds dog derbys, lends a hand with the Bridges program to help St. Patrick students get job opportunities and training, and helps with St. John Ambulance activities and literacy or community living programs, among many other projects.

The club's activities are based on four question-oriented fundamentals: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it foster goodwill and better friendships? And is it beneficial to all concerned?

Oliveira is not a member of the Rotary Club yet, but says he will probably join when he is older. Once he leaves Yellowknife, he hopes to study business at university in Brazil and then possibly go into the business of selling cars.