The beginning of the 2009-2010 school year brought about a lot of changes for one 17 year old Coventry Senior. She has new classes, new friends, even a new country.
Anjela Pakhlajian is a European foreign exchange student from the capital city of Tbilisi from the Republic of Georgia.
Anjela arrived from Chicago at the end of August and was matched with her host family Cathie and Larry Brainard of Green.
Anjela is a foreign exchange student in the United States as part of the FLEX program. FLEX stands for The Future Leaders Exchange Program. The FLEX program “encourages long-lasting peace and mutual understanding between the U.S. and countries of Eurasia. FLEX provides opportunities for high school students (ages 15-17) to spend a year in the United States, living with a host family and attending an American high school” according to the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs website. FLEX was established in 1992, under the FREEDOM Support Act.
She registered with some of her friends for the FLEX program and went through three elimination rounds before being chosen. Good grades, students ages 15 to 17 and a basic understanding of English were some of the requirements for the program. Anjela started learning English when she was 8 years old and has been speaking English more in the last four to five years. Anjela explained that Georgian and Russian are the prominent languages spoken in her country; English was just an optional language she wanted to learn.
The biggest surprise or difference for Anjela is the differences in her school system in Georgia and the U.S. school system. Anjela explained that she goes to the same school all 12 years, her school system doesn’t separate into elementary school, middle school and high school. Another difference is she doesn’t get to pick her classes back home.
This semester at Coventry she is taking pre-calculus, French, yearbook, journalism, government and speech.
Anjela attended the Green City Council meeting on Oct. 13 as one of her requirements for the FLEX program.
“We have to do a three-point action plan, one point was to shadow a political, local or business leader and write about that,” said Anjela.
American students ask Anjela all kinds of questions about her life in Georgia. Where are you from? How many digits are in your cell phone number? Do you have public transportation?
When asked about specific places or cities Anjela would like to visit during her stay she said, “I would like to see all of America because it’s my first time in America but maybe it’s the last time too so I would like to see all of it!”
Anjela has been to Chicago and Washington D.C. but the students were not allowed to leave the airport in Washington D.C. and they weren’t allowed to leave their hotel in Chicago so she didn’t really get to see much of either of the cities.
Anjela did experience several retail and grocery stores in the area, a few of Green’s churches, homecoming at Coventry and Cedar Point this past summer where she rode her first rollercoaster.
Back in Tbilisi, Georgia, she lives with her parents and her older sister. Her sister is 19 and is studying in Hungary. When Anjela graduates from Coventry and returns home, she has to two exams to take and then she will attend university where she will be studying business administration.
