Waverly High school has three foreign exchange students this school year. Each of them comes from a different country including Spain, Italy, and Germany. Two members of our team had the opportunity to interview these individuals.

The exchange student from Spain is Nicolas Feijóo Vázquez, but you can call him Nico. He is sixteen years old, and a junior here at Waverly. Nico is housed with Becky and Tom Pollard as well as their sophomore Mason Pollard. He arrived sometime in the last few weeks of August and will be returning home on the 7th of June. His trip was a total of 9 hours. Nico says that he wanted to become an exchange student to improve his English and form new experiences here in the states. Back at home, Nicolas does not have American Football which he enjoys playing here in the U.S on our varsity football team.

Tommaso Tursi, also known as Tommy, is an Italian exchange student. Tommy is seventeen years old and will be graduating this spring here at Waverly. His housing situation is with Dr. Takaji and Becky Kittaka as well as their junior Carson Kittaka. He arrived here in Ohio on the 7th of August and will be leaving on June 6th. Tommy’s trip took twenty-four hours with him leaving Italy at 5 am Central European time and arriving 8 pm Eastern Daylight time. Tursi explains that he wanted to be an exchange student to improve his English skills. Tommy says, “The actual reason and the important thing about the program is to have an experience far from home for a year where you know nobody and nothing.” He also states, “This is an experience to make you grow.” Something Tommy has back at home that we do not have here is smaller roads. He says there is no space at all like we have here in the U.S. They also only have soccer and no American Football in Italy. Here at Waverly, you can catch Tommy playing the clarinet in our band.

The German exchange student here at Waverly is Mika Koecher. Mika is 16 years old and a sophomore at the high school. He is staying with Ashley Koch and her two junior high children. He arrived on August 21st and his trip will be cut short to January 22nd. His luggage got lost on his journey to the states resulting in a 26-hour trip. Mika wanted to be an exchange student because his English isn’t perfect and he wants to learn about a new country. Something he doesn’t have back at home is Wendys which he says is very delicious here. Mika enjoys being a soccer player for the boy’s varsity team.