The INDEPENDENT, March 15, 2000
Page 9
Small high school is big at accepting foreign exchange students
By A p ril Bamburg
Foreign exchange students
have come and gone from Ver­
nonia High School for many
years. This year eight students
from around the globe came to
experience life in the states
and enrich the cultural diversity
of the the high school.
Narisara Satrulee
lowed a map around California
and Washington,” she said. “I
liked what I saw, and decided I
would come back.”
Ani Militzer
Ani Militzer, 17, comes to
Vernonia from Berlin, Ger­
many. She is staying with Can­
dace and Kevin Swayze, and
their two children.
Militzer lives in the German
capitol of six to seven million
people with her parents, Katrin
and Mathias Militzer. Katrin is a
trauma nurse in the emergency
room, and Mathias owns a
telecommunications/computer
company.
Militzer has found that her
opinion of the United States
has not changed too much. “It
takes you a long time to get
from one place to another, peo­
ple are friendly and helpful.”
Militzer is an only child, but
says she has found a sister
and brother in her host family.
“My younger sister, Nicole, is a
freshman, and my little brother,
Kevin Jr., is a seventh grader.
They are like my sister and
brother to me.”
There aren’t a lot of similari­
ties between her school in Ger­
many and school here in Ver­
nonia, she says, but there
seem to be quite a few differ­
ences. “In Germany, we have
different classes every day.
Sometimes we have five class­
es a day, sometimes we have
eight. We have classes of
twenty-five students, and four
classes for each grade.” she
said. “Each class has its own
room, and teachers go to the
classrooms, students don’t go
to the teachers.” Another dif­
ference between the schools is
that prom, winter formal and
homecoming are not activities
in German schools.
All in all, Militzer has been
happy in Vernonia. “In the six
months I’ve been here, I’ve
found great friends in school
and my host family.”
Narisara Satrulee, known
around VHS as Oyl, is seven­
teen and came from Bangkok,
Thailand. She is staying with
Cindy and David Naillon, and
their son Shawn. She is here
through the ASSE program.
In Bangkok, Satrulee lives
with her parents, Mana and
Sirmsook Satrulee, and a sis­
ter, Narisara, who she calls
“Nui.” Her mother is a banking
officer, and her father works in
shipping.
“My best decision was to be­
come a foreign exchange stu­
dent,” she said. “I had a hard
time at first, and have had
some bad times, but there has
been more good than bad.”
Satrulee enjoys playing bad­
minton and swimming. She
also played volleyball during
the fall sports season, wrestled
for a short time in the winter
season, and is participating in
track and field for the spring
season.
School has been an adjust­
ment for Satrulee. “At home,
you can’t choose the subjects
you want to take, and some
days we have seven subjects,
some days we have nine,” she
said. “The kids here look quite
different. Schools in Thailand
are very strict. We can wear no
makeup, have uniforms and
cannot dye our hair.”
She was in her senior year
of school when she came to
America, and must finish the
last semester when she re­
turns, after which she has to
prepare for entrance exams to
universities in Thailand. She
will leave Vernonia on June 22.
Fabian Franz
This is not Satrulee’s first
Another Berlin resident,
time in America, as she came Fabian Franz was the last of
here with her family when she the exchange students to ar­
was ten. “We traveled and fol­ rive in Vernonia, attendina his
Vernonia’s cross cultural friends this year include, back row from left, Lola Muminova and
Ani Militzer; middle row, Narisara Satrulee, Johanna Seidel, Elena Majbova and Fabian
Franz; and front, Jiri Burda and Kohei Nagashio.
first day of classes on March 6.
Previously, Franz had been liv­
ing with a family in California.
He is staying with Dawn
and Milton Plews and their son
Colin, who is a junior at Ver­
nonia High School.
At home, Franz lives with his
mother, Gudrun, father, Cornel,
and younger sister, Friederike,
who will be thirteen. His moth­
er works in the management at
the Academy of Fine Arts in
Berlin; his father teaches di­
rection for the Bavarian State
Opera.
Franz is 16 years old and
agreed with Militzer regarding
the differences between the
schools in Berlin and here. He
disagrees though, that there
aren’t very many similarities.
“Things are pretty much the
same here,” he said. “The food
is the same; the students are
the same.”
After his return to Berlin, he
will have to attend school for
three years before he gradu­
ates. He plans on spending
two years in the army, then go-
¡ng to college, possibly for
something science related.
Johanna Seidel
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A third exchange student
from Germany is 17-year-old
Johanna Seidel. She is staying
with Don and Nona Skinner,
and another exchange student,
Elena Majbova. Seidel comes
to Vernonia from Rohr, Ger­
many, a town of about 1100
people.
Her mother, Hildegard, stays
at home, and her father, Bodo,
is a pastor for three different
towns. She also has three
brothers, Joseph, who is 18,
Jonathan, who is five and sev­
en-year-old Benjamin.
“I never really thought about
the place I would stay, but then
the organization sent me the
letter and said I would stay in
Vernonia,” she said. “I couldn’t
find Vernonia on the map, but
it’s okay. I don’t care. I found
friends and we do things to­
gether.”
The school system in Amer­
ica is different than in Ger­
many, she said. “In Germany, I
was in school until two or three
p.m. In the afternoon I had dif­
ferent things to do, and the dai­
ly schedule was different. Also,
I had 16 subjects a day, not
seven.”
During her time in the U.S,
Seidel has been to Washing­
ton, and walked through San
Francisco and Alcatraz prison.
Lola Muminova
Lola
Muminova,
the
youngest of the foreign ex­
change students, is 16 years
old. She comes from Tashkent,
Uzbekistan, and is staying with
Alfred (Sandy) and Wyla
Mikalow.
Muminova lives in Tashkent
with her parents, Rustam and
Alla Muminova, and her sister,
Saida, who is in her junior year
at a university in Uzbekistan.
Her mother is a swimming
coach, and her father works for
the government.
She chose to become an ex­
change student in order to
meet new people, and to expe­
rience a culture different from
her own.
She played basketball this
year, and is on the girls golf
team for the upcoming spring
season. Sports are not a part of
school in Tashkent.
“The schools are totally dif­
ferent,” she said. “We go to
school six days a week and
cannot choose our classes.”
Muminova had never been
to the United States before,
and said that she had heard
many things, most of which
was stereotyping.
She plans on being a
lawyer, specializing in business
law, in either Uzbekistan or the
United States.
Jiri Burda
Jiri Burda, came from the
Czech Republic to stay with
Cathy and Reginald Ward, and
their son, Josh.
Burda is eighteen and lives
in Prague, the capital city of the
Czech Republic, with his par­
ents, Pavel and Andela Burda.
His father is a manager of the
Czech Basketball Federation;
his mother is a supervising
manager in Tesco. His brother,
Petr, was a foreign exchange
student for two years, and also
stayed with the Ward family.
Burda says that his opinion
of the United States was, and
still is, that it is a great country.
As the rest of the exchange
students have, Burda has no­
ticed some differences be­
tween his school in the Czech
Republic and VHS. “Teachers
are more open to opinions
here,” he said. There are simi­
larities though, like student be­
havior and “a lot of homework.”
He will return to Prague on
July 2. “That’s a pity,” he said.
“I’ll miss the Independence
Day!”
After he returns to
Prague, he hopes to become a
referee with FIBA, the Euro­
pean basketball league, and
will begin studying for his refer­
ee tests.
Elena Majbova
Elena Majbova, who is also
staying with Don and Nona
Skinner, comes from Puchov,
Slovakia. She is 18 years old,
and lives in the town of nearly
20,000 people, with her par­
ents, Milan and Viera Majbova,
an older brother, Peter, and her
dog, Tarzan. Viera works in the
state archives, and Milan is an
appraiser in the building trade.
“I have never been in the
United States before, and my
opinion of the U.S. was just
what people had told me, that
most people were not really
friendly,” she said. “I found that
it wasn’t true. I found friends,
and I am having a great time.”
After she returns to Puchov,
Majbova will finish her second­
ary schooling, then plans to
study psychology at Slovakia
University.
Kohei Nagashio
Kohei Nagashio didn’t come
directly from Japan to Vernon­
ia. The 17-year-old is staying
with Paul and Shelly Goodman
and their two children, Jeff and
Jared. Before coming to Ver­
nonia, however, Nagashio
spent five months in Topeka,
Kansas, where he attended
English camp. He came to the
United States because he was
bored in Japan, he said.
He lives in Omiya, in the
Saitama prefecture in Japan,
Please see page 12