"Then you start speaking English in your dreams," he said of mastering English, adding, "And your parents start speaking English in your dreams."

A native of Belgium, where French and Dutch are the principal languages, he is part of the Butte Falls High School class of 1999.

The exchange student, who has a grade point average hovering around 3.6, has spent the past school year with Butte Falls hosts Dwayne and Laure Dyer. They have three children of their own.

A stocky, bespectacled youth who sports a ponytail, Jonathan, 18, has made himself at home in Butte Falls.

"I wanted to do this so I could improve my English," he said, noting that his older brother was an exchange student in Arizona four years ago.

Although his arrival in Butte Falls was the luck of the draw, it turns out that his hometown in Belgium is not unlike Butte Falls, population 410. Nobressart has about 400 residents, he said.

However, it is less than two dozen miles from Luxembourg.

"The towns are about the same -- the trees, things like that," he observed. "But the people here are friendlier. If you meet someone here and you don't know them, you can directly speak to them. You don't do that in Europe."

When you ask him about friends he has made in this former timber company town, he says that would include everyone at the high school.

"I like it -- it's pretty easy to make friends here," he said.

While attending Butte Falls, he played baseball and basketball for the Loggers.

He also worked on the yearbook, and established a Web page for the school while hooking it up to the Internet.

High schools the United States are easier than those back in Belgium, he figures.

"When we were registering him for the school year, he wanted to take the highest math available," Laure Dyer said. "But he had already done it more than a year ago."

He plans to go to college in Belgium, obtain a master's degree in physics and work in the energy-producing industry.

His father is an engineer for Goodyear; his mother works as a cashier in a hardware store.

"We've never had a foreign student before," Laure Dyer said. "But it turned out to be a lot of fun. He's easy to get along with. All the kids at school like him. And he's great with computers. He's part of the family."

"He has been brought up very well," Dwayne Dyer added. "We're building a home out here. I was gone one weekend and when I got back he had insulated all the outside walls."

Following his class' graduation on June 5, he leaves for Belgium on June 19.

"I will come back," Jonathan said. "I like this place."