Adapting to a new country, new people, and new culture can be hard, but for 15-year old Marvin Jomgen it has been surprisingly smooth. Jomgen is one of the exchange students from Germany that will be visiting with families from LSW for 11 days. Jomgen is staying with the Dobson family, Ashton Dobson is a sophomore here at West.
“I became interested in hosting an exchange student because we hosted one four years ago when my sister was a sophomore and that was a really good experience, and so I just thought it’d be cool if I could have one of my own,” said Dobson.
Dobson said her family had to take some steps to prepare for her exchange student, “I had to clean everything, it was awful. We were emailing him for a while and then we called him and he told us what foods he didn’t like, what his interests were, so that helped us prepare for him.”
The preparation paid off, “This is my very first time in America and I really like it.” Jomgen said. The exchange students have a lot of fun planned for their time in America.
“They spent a couple days in Washington DC, seeing the capital and stuff, then they came here and they’re spending a day at Lee’s Summit North, going to a Royals game, going to City Hall and more.” Dobson said.
Jomgen is from Meden Germany which is about three miles from Berlin and three miles from France. With Jomgen being from a different part of the world, he and Dobson have both enjoyed comparing and seeing the differences between cultures.
“Germany is different from America,” Jomgen said, “In Germany people don’t swear as much as here, in America they swear all times, also Germany is more controlled, America is fast and busy.” Jomgen also says that he got to try a chocolate chip cookie for the first time. “We don’t have them in Germany! They are good,” he said.
Americans may do things differently than they do in Germany and both the Dobsons and Jomgen have enjoyed their time together getting to know other cultures. “I like America so far!” Jomgen said.
By Hailey Skinner
