FAIRBANKS - Italy, Argentina, Denmark, New Zealand, Thailand, France, Panama and the Netherlands hosted eight local students for a year, sending the eager young adventurers home with a new perspective on the world and on their own community. Students were given the chance to travel with help from the American Field Service, a program that has sent Fairbanks students overseas since the 1960s.

They have each returned with a new perspective on themselves, the world, their hometown and the art of communication. They made friends, tasted strange new foods, and immersed themselves in a culture they might never have experienced. Here are their stories.

Camille Cox

Camille Cox, a senior at Lathrop High School, boarded a plane in September 2008 bound for Sicily, one of the most notorious and culturally rich islands in the Mediterranean. She was on her way to Italy to study for an entire year. Having been born and raised in Fairbanks, Cox knew she’d be in for a big adventure. “At first I was absolutely infatuated with the idea that I was going to live in a new world,” Cox said. “But it wasn’t until my arrival at the airport in Palermo that I was fully struck with the reality of what I was about to endure.”

With nothing but the word “ciao” in her vocabulary, Cox kept her Italian-English dictionary close at hand and ventured into the unknown.

“Communication with my host family would have been nearly impossible during the first couple weeks if my hands had been tied behind my back,” she said, explaining the need to use her body to communicate before learning the language. “There were times when I felt like a baby because there was so much I didn’t understand at first and sometimes I was sure that I would burst from the inability to express myself.”

Traveling abroad as an Alaskan presented its own challenges, Cox explained, like how to tell the Italians there are no penguins in Fairbanks in their language. “Once I got the language down, I would introduce myself by saying, ‘I’m from Fairbanks, where there are no penguins, we really do get paid to live there like on ‘The Simpsons Movie’ and, yes, I do know who Sarah Palin is,’” she said.

Cox’s experience was filled with challenges, but she said she couldn’t have asked for a better experience.

“I could have gone on vacation for much cheaper, but in my view, that would be like skimming through the introduction of a book without taking time to read it,” she said, adding that she is already saving money for her next big adventure.

Though she missed the spring 2009 graduation with her classmates, Cox said she has no regrets.

“It was far beyond ‘worth it,’” she said.

Leonard Kjera

If you would have asked Leonard Kjera about traveling to Thailand two years ago, he would have laughed at you. But sitting at his computer one day, Kjera did a simple Google search and found the American Field Service student exchange program and decided to look into it.

Kjera, a junior at Monroe Catholic High School, thought about all the countries he wanted to visit and, at the time, Thailand wasn’t one of them.

“I didn’t originally wish to go to Thailand, but I think I enjoyed it more than anything else I might have chosen,” Kjera said. Despite an intense language barrier and a culture barrier to overcome, Kjera said the experience of meeting new people and spending the Thai New Year in Songlan was unforgettable.

One year later, he’s still talking about it.

“I definitely had to rely on communication and have a willingness to go outside my own bounds,” he said.

Now a senior, he’s looking forward to venturing overseas again.

“I think I’ve taken away a new view of the world and of myself,” Kjera said.

Anna Maniaci

Anna Maniaci, a senior at West Valley High School, spent her entire junior year living in Holland. The experience was both frightening and enlightening for Maniaci, who said she was homesick and struggled with the Dutch language, having never heard a word before arriving in Amsterdam.

“I doubted myself constantly,” she said. “I was shy and afraid to do things on my own, but during the year, I broke through that and became much more independent once I learned how to ask other people for help.”

She said that once she was able to open her mind, she started to learn.

“I learned not to be afraid of something different,” she said. “And to not be quick to assume things about places, because it probably has so much more going on than you think.”

Zach Fitzgerald

Zach Fitzgerald had just finished his junior year enrolled in five advanced placement classes at Lathrop High School and a strong season as a year-round tennis player.

He was burned out and needed a new adventure.

After chatting with a school counselor, the 17-year-old signed up with AFS and next thing he knew, he was heading to Hawera, New Zealand for six months.

Much to his parents' chagrin, New Zealand is known as a thrill-seeker’s haven, supplying tourists with ample opportunities to bungee-jump from waterfalls, sky-dive from vast heights, white-water raft and other adventures.

“I learned so many things,” he said. “I learned I had to take advantage of every opportunity: I flew a plane with a friend, rode in a helicopter that tipped and dove, bungee jumped 134 meters in Queenstown, sky-dove 1500 feet, tubed behind a jet-boat, learned to play Squash and played tennis.”

He also learned that he doesn’t like farming.

“The family I stayed with were dairy farmers,” he said. “They had 350 cows.”

Even in the midst of some of the most extreme thrills, Fitzgerald said meeting his host family and forming close-knit friendships with the three young men he now calls his brothers was the biggest adventure of all.

“As I was flying into New Zealand, I was mostly nervous about meeting my new family and hoping we would get along,” he said. “But the best part of traveling abroad was meeting new people. I’ve made friends for a lifetime.”

Overseas opportunities await

“It’s never too late to travel abroad,” said LJ Evans, coordinator for the Fairbanks AFS program.

Evans is always on the look out for young people eager to travel and she’s always looking for local families to host foreign exchange students, too. For more information about AFS contact Evans at 479-6540.

Contact features writer Rebecca George at 459-7504 or rgeorge@newsminer.com.