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Rotary students have good time exchange stories

Nakusp Rotary hosted the International Rotary Exchange Student event on Friday, November 9 to Monday, November 12.
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Students from all over the world took part in the Remembrance Day ceremony last weekend.

We at NSS Interact Club really appreciate the recent opportunity we had to interact and share experiences and cultures with other young people from Germany, Italy, Brazil, Thailand, Switzerland, Japan, Bolivia, France, Turkey, and Australia.

Nakusp Rotary hosted the International Rotary Exchange Student event on Friday, November 9 to Monday, November 12, and it was a weekend packed full of fun. We started with a pancake breakfast made by Mrs. Barisoff, followed by a Parkour demonstration, which the students thought was pretty cool. Kees and Mayumi Vanderpol made spectacular lunch of burgers for all the students and Parkour group.

We then took the rest of the afternoon to go for a hot springs hike and dip. A delicious spaghetti dinner started off our evening which consisted of a game of curling with some of our experienced curlers. Then we spent the evening just hanging out at the NSS gym and having a great time getting to know one another.

On Sunday, we had another awesome breakfast of bacon and eggs thanks to the help of Christina Barisoff and Valerie Bristowe. The Legion hosted the Legion Hall Remembrance Day service, before our chilly march from the Legion to the Cenotaph to take part in our minute of silence and the placing of the wreaths.

After another march back to the legion we were served a big lunch, the International students were acknowledged individually by our Legion members Dale Weatherhead and Harvey Truax.

Yoga at NoComo was next on the agenda for the international students, and a chance to hang out around town on a quiet Sunday afternoon, taking lots of pictures at the public beach.

Rotary Villa hosted a really delicious potluck dinner for those of us who were a part of the weekend’s events.  Afterwards they let us go back to the NSS Gym/Hotel to play around and spend our last evening continuing with the fun that teenagers of every culture know how to have!

The students did really well at speaking English, which made it easy to communicate, and get to know one another, joking around and learning about the differences and similarities of each other’s lives. I really look forward to keeping in touch with our new friends, and hope that each of us gets the chance to meet again some day.

Monday morning, after a fresh snowfall, the exchange students departed back to their designated host families, which are anywhere from a couple hours in Castlegar to a lengthy 12 hours to towns in the U.S.

It has been a wonderful experience and we’ll never forget this great time we’ve had meeting people from all over the world.