After spending three weeks in the Pass, a group of Columbian students say they’ve fallen in love with the community, the people and amazingly, the weather.
Lia Pantoja, 11, Mariana Cendales, 11, and Camila Camacho, 11 were fascinated by the novelty and beauty of last month’s snowfalls.
“It was my first time in the snow and it was very nice,” says Lia Pantoja, 11. “I remember waking up at three o clock in the morning and it was snowing. It is very soft and we made many snowmen.”
On Sept. 19, six students from Gimnasio El Hontanar, a school in Bogota, Columbia arrived in the area for a month long visit. Five of them are in the Pass, three girls are attending Isabelle Sellon School (ISS) and two boys are attending Crowsnest Consolidated High School (CCHS). A lone seventh grader is at Livingston Range School in Lundbreck.
The students have been billeted with local families including the Baxters, McNeils and Sniders.
The girls attending ISS have come to appreciate country music, says Camacho but in Columbia they enjoy listening to dance music including reggaeton, bachata, electronica and pop.
They are not fans of Justin Beiber, adds Cendales.
In addition to attending classes and making many friends the girls say they’ve gone camping, skating, canoeing, fishing and had pajama parties.
The students speak excellent English and attend regular classes back in Columbia in addition to taking biology and social studies in English.
Carlos Pardo, English teacher at Gimnasio El Hontanar, says the students were initially homesick and unused to North American food but are now enjoying the experience.
His school’s travel program began four years ago. His students have previously visited Dauphin, Manitoba.
He outlined the many differences between Bogota and the Pass including our lack of traffic and late night shopping.
“Bogota is a very large city of six million people. There’s a lot of noise and traffic,” said Pardo. “[But here] the streets are clean. I was [in] downtown [Lethbridge] at 9 p.m. and it was a pretty safe place. Not dangerous at all and people are very extremely friendly, whatever you ask them they answer politely.”