Exchange students end school year and prepare to return home

As the 2021-2022 school year wraps up, a group of five young women are starting to pack their bags and get ready for their trip home. These five were part of a student exchange program through EF High School Exchange Year.

Arriving back in August 2021, these students came ready to meet new people, learn about new places and see what attending high school in America is all about. Now they are preparing to return to their home countries, with memories from their year here at Muhlenberg County High School.

A new tradition beginning this year, the girls are painting squares in the hallway at school. They will be the first group of exchange students to leave their mark along the International hallway. They include their name, the colors of their home country flags, and a saying from each in their native language.

Gloria Josa, a student from Barcelona, Spain, said her quote she painted on the wall at MCHS sums up her feelings as she gets ready to return home. “It says that I created a life here in 10 months, now I’m just going to leave it here.”

Josa is ready to get back to family and friends but she will miss her new family and friends in Muhlenberg County. The people she met here and the moments she shared with them will stay with her. Prom and graduation were events she really enjoyed being a part of. While graduation is honored in her hometown with a ceremony, the scale of celebration here is different.

“Most of the schools in Spain are Catholic,” Josa said. “So our graduations are at church.”

Josa played volleyball and tennis for the Lady Mustangs, and enjoyed being part of a team. She also enjoyed her classes, and her teachers here. “Here, the teachers are more chill, so that’s pretty nice.”

Josa said she will have another year of school when she returns to Spain. “It’s not like here senior year, it’s a pretty tough year.”

Annika Grenan will return to Norway and another year at high school as well. Her year in the United States will count toward her graduation requirements at home, unlike many exchange students who return home behind a year in school.

Grenan said it’s been an amazing year for her here in Kentucky. She played soccer in the fall, but when the Christmas holidays came, she was a bit homesick. “Now, that was a tough time. I was so homesick and New Year’s Eve was terrible,” she said. A spike in covid cases forced her to be home more, which left her missing her family back in Norway.

Once covid cases started to diminish, Grenan said she has been so busy doing so much fun stuff that she got over the homesickness and has had a great time with her host family and friends.

Grenan said she loves the sports here, and she’s finishing up her track season now. “And just the school spirit. Going to games, going to meets, everyone is cheering for you and everyone is there to see you play. I love it.”

Caroline Strohm, who is from the Netherlands, said she is maybe less eager to see her family as some of her fellow exchange students, because hers were just here about two weeks ago for a visit.

“My whole family came from the Netherlands and my whole family and my whole host family took at trip to the mountains, and I had all my family around me. That was definitely one of my highlights,” Strohm said.

Strohm said she absolutely loved her choir teacher, Melanie Smith. She said she formed a tight friendship with several kids in chorus and loved singing with them.

Strohm also performed in theater productions this past year. “That was an amazing experience, like nothing I’ve ever done before.” Strohm said at home in the Netherlands, they often hold rehearsals in a classroom and then have to transition to the stage quickly before performances. “To be able to do it in Martin Hall, on such a big stage, and to be able to practice there every single day, this was amazing.”

Sanne van Lammeren is also returning home to the Netherlands. She said she’s ready to see her family and friends again, but she’s not quite ready to leave Muhlenberg County. She said she has loved living with her host family, and being in theater with her host sister, Delany Teague.

“I loved it, it was so much fun. I did theater in the Netherlands but here it’s just so cool, that we get to be in Martin Hall every single day,” van Lammeren said. Her theater company in the Netherlands was not affiliated with her school, they would meet weekly for rehearsals.

Melanie Smith was also van Lammeren’s favorite teacher as well. She took several classes with Smith, including choir and theater.

When van Lammeren returns to the Netherlands she will enroll in college. She plans to study child psychology and development. “You can go in a lot of directions with it, so I can be a social worker, or work with special needs kids.”

“I loved it here, it’s so, so amazing here, it’s like literally everything I could have dreamed of,” said Juul Vos about her time in Kentucky. Also from the Netherlands, Vos said she made so many new friends here, and loved going to school at MCHS.

“I really enjoyed going to the games. The basketball games are the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life, I loved it so much. And the fact that we went to the Rupp Arena, that was a key memory, I will never forget that,” Vos said.

Vos said she loved her teacher for yearbook class, Jessica Scates. She said she formed a special bond with Ms. Scates, after spending the year in her class. “She’s a really good teacher, I’ve really loved her.”

Vos will head to college, and return to life in Dutch, her native language. But in her time here she has shifted from thinking in Dutch to thinking in English. “The first week was very confusing, I would still be thinking in Dutch, but talk in English. But now, I think in English, everything is in English now.”

The five students will be in the county for a few more days, before they say goodbye to their host families and new friends and head back to their lives in far-away places.