Every year Manhattan High becomes a host school for many foreign exchange students. While most of those are year long exchanges through AFS, this year MHS has five students on a month long exchange from Buenos Aires, Argentina.  

Most of the students are the same age and have gone to the same school which allows them to  easily work together given their shared past.

“We are all from the same school and they are a lot of my classmates in the group so…we are all 16 to 17, but we are all starting senior year in March,” Abril Conde said.

There are three boys and two girls who have come to Manhattan High. They spend the 32 days of their exchange shadowing different students and learning how the schooling system in America works.

At the conclusion of their time at MHS, with the help of only each other, the students have put together a presentation about Argentina that they will share with the student body at MHS. While they are working on the presentation together they will eventually divide it up so each student gets an opportunity to present on their own.

“We are all working as a group in the presentation but I think that when we have to present it we are going to divide it but we don’t know how,” Conde said.

The goal is to educate the students in MHS on how different aspects of daily life actually work in a foreign place such as Argentina. This is the second year that a presentation is going to be put together by the exchange students, while some of the topics are the same they hope to add their own unique twist to their story.

“We are working on a presentation to talk about Argentina touristic places, typical food,and music, sports,” Conde said. “We are going to show you a bit of our dances and we are going to bring one of our traditional foods.”

The first presentations will begin on Valentine’s Day and continue into the next day. The students will start by going around to classes during first hour then move to a central location of the Little Theater for second through sixth hour. The presentation itself will only take half of the block period for each class. All teachers have been invited to bring their classes to attend, because these are the Argentinian students last days that they will be attending Manhattan High. Students who are interested can request that their teachers sign the class up to attend. Help add on to this amazing experience in America for all of the exchange students.

“I really like it it’s very different next to Buenos Aires but I really like it,” Conde said.