In local high schools this year, a group of students from across the globe have been attending classes, playing sports and experiencing Alaska as part of an exchange program facilitated by the local chapter of the AFS Intercultural Programs. At a fundraiser dinner on Sunday, the students will serve food from their cultures and share their experiences visiting the Kenai Peninsula.

The dinner is set for March 23 at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex. Tickets can be purchased at River City Books or by messaging “AFS Central Kenai Peninsula Youth Exchange” on Facebook; they cost $35 for adults and $10 for kids aged 14 or younger.

Among the students set to speak are Cemre Akgul from Turkey, Inga Smith from Norway and Flokarta Hoxha from Kosovo. Akgul and Hoxha have been attending Kenai Central High School this year, while Smith attends Soldotna High School.

Akgul said Tuesday that attending school in America has been different from her high school experience in Turkey — where she attended a boarding school with three roommates. There are some similarities, though, because in Kenai she lives with her host family and shares a room with Hoxha.

Akgul said that another significant difference in Alaska has been sports that are divided by seasons. In Turkey, she said, she would have played volleyball all year — here she’s played volleyball, joined cross-country skiing and is now readying for soccer.

Smith, similarly, said she’s been able to participate in more sports in Alaska than she would have in Norway. At home, she said the different grades are more siloed from one another, where in Soldotna she’s gotten to know a broader swath of students. Her peers in Alaska share a love for the outdoors — and they’ve spent a lot of time outside together skiing, hiking and ice skating.

All three students said that they had more class options in the local school district than they would have had at home — especially when considering art courses. Hoxha said she’d taken a foods class “that I probably could have never taken back home.” She learned to cook and bake, “a new subject for me.” She’s also focusing on science courses so that she doesn’t fall behind the curriculum in Kosovo during her exchange year, highlighting chemistry and anatomy — where she’s dissected sheep organs.

When she heard she was going to Kenai, Alaska, Hoxha said, she was nervous. All she knew was that it would be cold.

“I didn’t know what would be waiting for me,” she said.

Smith said that she didn’t expect Alaska to be as different from the rest of the United States as it turned out to be.

Akgul said when she received her placement, it only said “Kenai.” She remembers wondering “Where is Kenai?” Now, she’s “one of the few exchange students that are going to go to Alaska and experience that.” It’s a more unique setting than some students are visiting.

Akgul said she knew she wanted to be an exchange student almost from the moment she learned of the program.

“I knew I wanted to do something before college that most students wouldn’t do,” she said. “I wanted to experience something new.”

The process of applying to be an exchange student takes effectively a full year, Akgul said, and she wasn’t chosen the first time — but she tried again the next year. She said that the experience had become a part of her life, taking her from her comfort zone and putting her with people she didn’t know. In making new connections with people from a different part of the world, exchange students “learn more about themselves.”

“You can never be fully prepared for the experience,” she said.

Smith said she’s always felt a desire to travel and held an interest in other cultures — but she was initially unsure if she would want to move so far from her family. In Alaska, she’s been immersed in another culture and been surprised by subtle differences.

“I’ve learned to work with different people in a different way,” she said. “People obviously think different here than they do back in Norway.”

Just as interesting as experiencing a different culture, Hoxha said, has been sharing her own culture with the people she’s met — many of her classmates didn’t know about Kosovo.

Eileen Bryson is among the organizers for the local AFS chapter. She said the fundraiser helps to pay for the extracurriculars that visiting students participate in, helps host families with various expenses related to the visiting students, and will fund a scholarship program for students looking to exchange with AFS.

The dinner is also, she said, a chance to learn more about the visiting students and the AFS program, which is in need of more host families.

For more information, find “AFS Central Kenai Peninsula Youth Exchange” on Facebook.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.

Cemre Akgul of Turkey, center left, and Flokarta Hoxha of Kosovo, center right, stand for a photo with members of their host family, Casady and Patrick Herding, at the Kenai Chamber of Commerce and Visitor’s Center in Kenai, Alaska, on Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (Photo provided by Patrick Herding)