Exchange students heading back home after 10-month stop in Timmins

The importance of family has become very clear to two exchange students as their time in Timmins ends.

Viktor Gratza and Letizia Pottini arrived in August and have spent the last 10 months attending O’Gorman High School and seeing what Canada and Timmins have to offer. They’re looking forward to taking those lessons from the Rotary Youth Exchange Program home to the Czech Republic and Italy, respectively.

“A value I’m going to bring home with me is how important family is. I took that for granted,” said Gratza. “So I’m going to go home and say I love you to my parents. And I’m not really sure I’ve said it a lot of times in my life, but I’m sure that I will say it now more often.”

Pottini also missed having her family around, especially when her friends and basketball teammates were heading home to their families.

“I’ve never been homesick, but I understood that family is a very important thing,” she said. “Every time I was coming home from a tournament, I felt like, oh, now I need my family, and though my host families were special, I still felt I need my family that takes care of me and makes sure I am okay.”

Two students from Timmins also travelled to France and Switzerland for the exchange program and will return in early July.

While Pottini will be in town for a few more weeks, Gratza leaves this weekend.

His journey home is about 26 hours — leaving Timmins on Saturday morning and getting back in the Czech Republic around the same time on Sunday.

He said his goal is to challenge his exams so that he can still graduate with the class he started with back home.

“There’s a class of 30 people, and we start high school with those 30 people, and we all graduate together, so it’s more like a family at that point,” he said. “I don’t want to miss my year, so if I leave two weeks before the normal time to leave Canada, then I can challenge my exams, and I won’t miss my year.”

Both students came to Canada with a solid idea of what they planned to do after completing their education.

“I wanted to study political science when I was going home, but I came here, and I got a class in international law, which was still close to political science, and one for business,” said Pottini. “I took the business course because my mom always told me you have a business mind. You should take that course.”

She said those courses gave her new options.

“Now I’m considering if I could go for a financial path,” she said. “I’m sure I’m going to university.”

Gratza said the experience has opened his eyes to possibilities for the future.

“When I came to Canada, I had a thought in my mind that I wanted to become a lawyer and do something in law in general,” he said. “Now, I’d like to do something with international affairs because I enjoyed talking to different people, different cultures, different nationalities, just to explore the world a little bit more.”

Both students look forward to sharing the experience with their friends and family when they get home.

“I learned how to take care of myself,” said Pottini. “I’m happy to see that I figured everything out by myself.”