2018-2019 Outbound Exchange Students

2018-2019 Exchange Students
 
There are two full-term outbound exchange students for 2018-2019 sponsored by the Tunkhannock Rotary.
 
Paul DeMarco – 2018-2019 Outbound Exchange Student to Brazil
 
Paul DeMarco is a recent graduate of Tunkhannock Area High School (TAHS) and is doing his exchange in Brazil. He has 3 sisters and 1 brother.
 
At TAHS, Paul was enrolled in Advanced Placement courses, he was a National Merit Scholar Commended Student, member of National Honor Society, student council, Interact club, physics club, the Scholastic Bowl and Environthon teams, played saxophone a marching and in a jazz band, DARE Youth Mentor and Rotary Youth Exchange host. Paul played baseball, soccer (team captain) and basketball. He was Valedictorian of his graduating class. He was also honored as a Scholastic Superstar by the Scranton Times-Tribune Group.
 
During his presentation, Paul introduced the Club to Brazil, whose capitol is Brasilia and the largest city is Sao Paulo. The language is Portuguese.  Brazil borders all South American countries, but Chile and Ecuador. He is going to Recife, which is on the beach on the northeastern cost of Brazil.  The closest large city is Natal.  It is warm all year round and humid.
 
He will go to a private school 40 min from the house in Recife.  Due to the being in the Southern Hemisphere, he will start school for the second semester in Aug, as a Junior.  He will be there for the whole summer and then do the first semester at the end as a Senior. They play soccer in Brazil and he hopes to play some sports. 
 
Paul has been accepted to the University of Notre Dame and they have agreed to delay his college entry until Sept 2019.  Once he returns from Brazil in June, he will be home for the summer and then head off to Notre Dame where he plans to study mechanical engineering.
 

Paul DeMarco
 
Upon his return to the US in summer 2019, Paul gave a presentation to the club on his year in Brazil at the Aug 15 Rotary Luncheon  
 
Paul arrived in Brazil on Aug 5, 2018.  He spent the year in Recife Brazil, capital of the NE of Brazil and it is a coastal city. The Beach is #4 in world for shark attacks, so he did not swim there.
 
In his host family, he had a host brother, sister, & new pet Pomeranian. Mother was eye doctor and father owned a mattress factory. The sister left for her exchange in Colorado 10 days after Paul arrived.
 
He did a lot with 2 other host families and exchange students who lived close-by.  The one family worked for a concert hall and they got free tickets to concerts/shows there. They even got to a Slash concert. 
 
Acai became his favorite food.
 
The State where Recife is located is famous for a massive Passion of Christ performance and he got to see that.
 
At school, the students stay in the same room, but the teachers move.  There were about 50 students per class and they went from 7:30 AM to 1 PM and were then done after that. His favorite part of school was the break where he got to go and pay soccer with his friends. He did play with the school basketball team, but sports were not a big thing there.  They only practiced 1 hr. per week.  High school is 3 yr and senior year they go on Sat. & even Sun. They have 6 periods per day with tests on Sat and Sun for the Seniors.
 
There were 7 exchange students in Recife, which has population of 4 million.
 
He loved to go to soccer games including the Recife Soccer team home games. He even got to go to training with the team and had photos with some of the team stars.
 
He bought a surfboard in Brazil to go surfing, which he brought home and used in NJ last week.
 
He helped serve breakfast to the homeless through a church down there and also helped with a poor village that the church provides clothes and stuff for.
 
Rotary sponsored several service projects also and 3 Rotary trips that he got to partake in.
  1. They did a trip to Iguaza Falls near the border with Argentina, and Paraguay. The Falls are much bigger than Niagara Falls.  They did a boat trip under the Falls.
  2. The students spent 10 days in the Amazonian rain forest on a boat on the river. They slept in hammocks and climbed trees.  They visited Manaus city in the middle of the Amazon, which is a big rubber trading city.  They also went to see the pink dolphins in the river. He had the opportunity to hold an anaconda around his neck and went piranha fishing.
  3. The did a trip to Rio, where they went to the beach on Ipanema and also to Carnival.

Pres. Sandy Lane accepting a Recife Rotary Club banner from Paul DeMarco and Paul giving his talk.
 
Kayla Gavek - 2018-2019 Outbound Exchange Student to Germany
 

Kayla Gavek, who is 16 yr old and in 11th grade is Tunkhannock’s second 2018-2019 outbound exchange student. She was a guest at the Feb 15 Rotary Luncheon at Purkey's Pink Apple. She takes German, Latin and Spanish at Tunkhannock Area High School and wants to go to college for linguistics to be a military translator. She plans to attend the Air Force Academy.

Although Kayla had been accepted into the exchange student program, she had not yet been assigned to her host country. Her first choice of countries was Germany and she was informed by Exchange Student Coordinator Anne Sehne that she will be going to Germany.


Exchange Officer Anne Sehne presenting Kayla Gavek with her exchange assignment to Germany