RUMFORD — The Maine woods and the beauty of the landscapes impressed all four exchange students at Mountain Valley High School this year.

Moritz Wehrheim, 16, also known as Mo, is from Germany, and when he first arrived in August he visited Coos Canyon in Byron and the Three Pools swimming hole in Roxbury.

“Everything is incredibly spread out here,” he said. “In Germany and Belgium, there’s like one line of trees and then you can see houses and everything everywhere, but here it is just woods, and it’s great; I love it.” 

He and Espen Lamberg, also 16, from Denmark, are staying with host Rich Kent and his dog Bailey in Rumford for the school year.

“The thing I liked was the lakes and mountains because it’s all flat in Denmark,” Espen said. “It’s very flat and no lakes; we only have ocean.”

Laura Recalde, 16, from Spain and staying with host family Brandy and Mike Davis of Rumford, also thought the woods “were really impressive,” and she said she didn’t realize how cold it was going to be in Maine. “Right now in Spain it’s 50 or 60 degrees and the coldest is 32 degrees. I love being warm, but now I’m more used to it,” Laura said.

The latest addition to the exchange student group at MVHS arrived in mid-January. Alina Fuerbeth, 16, of Germany, is staying with host family Abbey and Curtis Rice of Rumford. Alina said the weather is about the same in Maine as in Germany, but schools never cancel because of snow days.

“It could be like 300 inches and we never have a snow day,” Alina said. “You come in late to school when the train is late or something, but there’s never, ever a day off.”

They all agree that their host families and the people they’ve met in Maine are “so kind and so nice.” Alina joined the MVHS ski team, but she didn’t have ski equipment so many people offered her skis and a helmet and she now she has three pairs of skis to use.

All four students also say that classes at MVHS are less work and easier than the classes in their countries. In Spain, Laura said, she couldn’t participate in sports or other extracurricular activities because her classes were too time-consuming, but here she’s played soccer and she likes being in the drama club. She wants to participate in other activities. “I try to do everything that I want,” she said.

The teachers’ pace of class instruction in Germany is faster and the class sizes at Mountain Valley are smaller, Mo said. At MVHS the teachers work with their classes until students understand the material, but in Germany teachers are different, he said. “In Germany, they just rush through the material and whoever gets it, gets it and whoever doesn’t goes to a lower class,” he said.

Espen said that education in Denmark schools is very different from schools in the U.S.

“In my school we don’t pick our subjects, so the school makes our schedule,” he said. Students at his school also stay in the same classroom with the same classmates throughout their school years. “So I know all the people so good, and I think that’s cool because they’re all my friends and we’ve been friends since we started school,” Espen said.

Another thing the students have noticed is that there’s more junk food easily available all around them and that the packaging of food is much larger than what they have at home.

“We don’t have stuff like junk food; like yes, sometimes, but normally we don’t buy it because it’s just junk food and it’s just unhealthy,” Espen said.

Mo and Alina both thought that food packaging in the US is in “huge” sizes. “When we buy groceries the milk is in a one-liter container; over here it’s in a gallon, so it’s huge,” Mo said.

Another difference between their hometowns and their Mountain Valley High School experience is sports. Espen, Mo and Laura played on the school’s soccer team this fall and they enjoyed their experience, but they think soccer is better in their countries. “I think it’s because we play all year round,” Espen said.

He said some teenagers in Denmark can “earn a lot of money” by playing soccer.

At Mo’s school, people play club sports. He participated in soccer, tennis, swimming and ultimate Frisbee with club teams, but most students stick with one sport that they play all year round, he said.

mhutchinson@sunmediagroup.net

Exchange students at Mountain Valley High School in Rumford are, from left, Moritz ‘Mo’ Wehrheim of Germany, Laura Recalde of Spain, Alina Fuerbeth of Germany and Espen Lamberg of Denmark. (Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times)