International students enjoy Christmas celebration in Westmoreland County

It rarely snows in Tokyo.

So it was “really cool” for Sohta Miyagawa, a Japanese student who is attending Penn-Trafford High School, to see a layer of snow blanket the ground in Western Pennsylvania.

“I’m looking forward to Christmas (in America),” Miyagawa said this week at a Christmas party hosted by the Westmoreland County/Laurel Highlands chapter of the American Field Service high school exchange program.

The decades-old AFS program allows high school students across the globe to study abroad in another country.

At the Westmoreland County celebration, international students and AFS volunteers gathered to share Christmas and New Year’s traditions, eat cookies from different countries and enjoy time together in the One Room Schoolhouse at Amos K. Hutchinson Elementary.

Though the five international students from Japan, Austria, Italy and Chile have only known each other for a few months, an outsider might think that they were lifelong friends.

Each student made Christmas cookies for the meeting, and they laughed together as they ate Chilean alfajores and Italian cantuccis, known to Americans as biscottis.

Different reasons brought the students to America. Miyagawa said his brother studied abroad in the U.S. through AFS and he wanted to improve his English.

Four months into his stay, he is cast to play Prince Eric in Penn-Trafford’s upcoming rendition of “The Little Mermaid.”

Gabriel Prikoszovich, the Austrian student, initially wanted to study in Japan or South Korea, but was unable to when both countries closed their borders. He considered studying in Australia before picking America.

“I didn’t really want a tarantula in my living room, so I decided to go to the USA,” Prikoszovich said.

Prikoszovich attends Greensburg Salem High School, where he played on the football team. In the spring, he plans to run track, attend prom and compete in the school’s Mr. GS competition.

“It will be fun,” Prikoszovich said. “I try to do as much stuff as possible with my friends.”

AFS’s Westmoreland County/Laurel Highlands chapter holds monthly meetings for the international students. While they’re studying abroad, these students have support from AFS volunteers, their host families, other international students, and school friends and teachers.

Chapter President Darlene Frederickson spoke highly of the program. When she was in high school, Frederickson studied abroad in Peru through AFS.

She began hosting AFS students in her early 20s, and has now served as chapter president for nearly 25 years. The Westmoreland chapter includes the following schools: Ligonier Valley, Greater Latrobe, Greensburg Central Catholic, Greensburg Salem, Hempfield Area, Penn-Trafford, Norwin and Franklin Regional.

Referring to the students she has hosted as her children, Frederickson lit up as she recalled one of her sons from Kosovo winning prom king at Hempfield Area. She is certain another son will someday become an ambassador in Tunisia.

The chapter president truly believes these international students are “the future of the world.”

“For me, it’s a mission,” she said. “I really believe in it.”