The world comes to Melfort January 2012
The world comes to Melfort
Melfort played host to Rotary exchange students from throughout the world this past weekend.
"We try to give them as much outdoor Canadian experience as possible," said Wayne Claggett, the president of the Rotary Club of Melfort.
The exchange students took part in a variety of events starting on the evening of Friday, January 6.
On Friday, the students had a chance to watch the Melfort Mustangs' game.
On Saturday, they traveled to Wapiti to go snowboarding and skiing. That evening, they went swimming at the Northern Lights Palace and then had a dance and games afterwards.
On Sunday, they went intertubing down the hill behind MUCC and they also had a chance to try snowmobiling.
Sunday night, they took part in curling.
Seventeen-year-old Melissandre Bonnargent from France was one of the exchange students that took part in the sports weekend.
She said it was a dream for her to take part in an exchange.
"I like Canada because people are really nice and they welcome you really well," Bonnargent said.
"Canada is really, really big. France is the same size as Saskatchewan. So, when you have to travel it's really, really long. In France, you take the train but here you just take a car."
Lotta Nikula, a 17-year-old from Finland, also took part in the sports weekend. She is staying in Nipawin.
She enjoys being in Canada and she finds there are a lot of similarities between Canada and Finland but geographically Canada is much bigger.
"It's really flat here. That was really new for me and distances are much longer here. But that's ok because people are used to traveling a lot," Nikula said.0
"Almost everybody has their own car and that's different. In Finland, people use more trains and I used to ride a bike everyday but here people drive their cars."
Initially, she was disappointed when she arrived because she wanted to be in a bigger city.
"Now, when I've had to be there for five months, I just love to be in little town. People are more friendly. I think it's so much better for me," she said.