Surf’s Her Turf : Brazilian Exchange Student Fabiola Pereira Found She Could Live Happily in the Valley and Continue Her Body-Boarding Obsession

Can a Brazilian schoolgirl from Ubatuba find happiness in the Valley?

Not right away. Fabiola Pereira, who was only 14 when she moved to Studio City as a foreign exchange student in January, 1989, had difficulty making friends at Millikan Junior High because of the language barrier--she initially spoke no English--and a cultural gap that was impossible for her to overcome.

“In the whole school, I was the only surfer girl,” said Pereira, now 16. “We had nothing in common.”

A die-hard body boarder, Pereira was depressed when she found herself miles from the ocean in a place where females traditionally shun the sport. That was in sharp contrast to Brazil. Even in small coastal cities like Ubatuba, “All the girls body board,” Pereira said.

For her first 18 months here, Pereira was on the outside looking in, a shy foreign kid whose name was even a mystery to her schoolmates (Fabiola Pereira is pronounced fa-BWAY-la per-AY-da). The boys in school were no help, either--they only dressed like surfers. Isolated, Malibu unknown to her, she felt alone, totally unconnected to the Valley and the world of body boarding.

Pereira bought Body Boarder magazine but was discouraged by the absence of women, except as bikini-clad backdrops in photo layouts. Then one day last spring, contact. She was reading the letters section of the magazine when she saw a letter from another lonely surfer. Sabrina Wong, a 19-year-old Hawaiian now living in Fullerton, was looking for body-boarding girlfriends.

Pereira wrote to her and before long, Wong was picking her up and driving her to Malibu. Wong also got her to join the Pacific Women’s Bodyboard Club, an organization that promotes the sport in Southern California. Through the club, Pereira began competing in local events and now ranks as “the hottest up-and-comer” on the amateur circuit, said club president and founder Regina Monetti.

Pereira’s experience at her junior high is not unique--girls all over Southern California are staying off body boards. Monetti’s club has only 31 members and the Women’s International Surfing Assn. tour, which Monetti won last season, only has about 30 regulars.

Why don’t more women participate in body boarding? “For the same reason they don’t get into regular surfing,” said Mary Lou Drummy, president of the WISA. “It’s not like other sports. It’s a lot more dangerous, a lot more fear of the unknown. But more and more women are being exposed to the sport because their parents surfed.”

And maybe more girls would get on a boogie board if they saw how the sport turned Pereira’s social life around. Last summer, “It changed radically,” said Pereira, now a sophomore at Grant High. Suddenly, she was Miss Popularity, with girlfriends and even a boyfriend, who body boards, of course. “I met so many people” in the surfing community “and we’re like family,” said Pereira, who won a Scott Hawaii body-boarding contest last summer in Orange County.

Wong lived too far away to become a steady companion. So the enterprising Pereira got a telephone list of body-boarding club members but found only one number in the 818 area code. It belonged to Nicole Kennedy, a 14-year-old body boarder from Woodland Hills. They became fast friends, cadging rides together to Malibu, where their prowess in the surf gained them acceptance among male surfers.

“The guys are really, really cool with us,” said Pereira, who obviously has mastered English slang. “We don’t snake them and they don’t snake us,” she says, using surfer terms for not tailgating another surfer.

Pereira, a short, bubbly blonde, was sitting in the living room of her aunt’s ranch house as her two young cousins bounced a basketball on the hardwood floors. Pereira is staying with Mara and Steve Feig. Mara, her mother’s sister, once was a foreign exchange student herself. It was Steve, a lighting manufacturer, who suggested bringing Fabiola to this country.

“We wanted to offer her better chances than she was getting,” Mara explained.

In Ubatuba, a resort town of 30,000 about 200 miles south of Rio de Janeiro, Pereira and her three younger siblings lived in a house near her father’s drug store. Life in the tropics was idyllic--she could ride her bike to the beach and do el rollos on her board every day--but the educational system, she said was plagued by strikes. “The education you get is bad,” she said. “I’m here to get a good one.”

Pereira has not returned home but is planning a trip to Ubatuba in June. “I miss my family,” she said, “but I don’t cry on the phone. Life is so good here.”

Body boarding certainly has transformed her, but she didn’t really appreciate the sport until she got to Southern California. “In Brazil, it wasn’t that important to me,” she said. “It wasn’t special. Now I’m so into it.” Even more irony: “I wasn’t really that good back home but I am here because there are no girl body boarders.”

Pereira is so devoted to her sport that she gets almost misty eyed describing it. “You do it with nature,” she said. “You’re out in the ocean with the dolphins. It’s so relaxing.” Then, trying to explain herself, she adds, “Surfers are just a special race.”

After high school and before starting college, Fabiola plans to take a year to compete on the pro circuit like her half-brother Tadeu, a 21-year-old surfer. “I don’t want to be a pro for the money,” she said, “but for the fun of it.”

So, can a Brazilian schoolgirl from Ubatuba find happiness in the Valley? Pereira didn’t hesitate. “I’m the happiest person in the world,” she said.