Will Svrluga, a senior at Mount Greylock Regional High School, spoke with The Greylock Echo about his recent trip to Argentina.
Echo: Where in Argentina did you go?
Svrluga: I went to La Cumbre, which is the tiny town that the school does the exchange program with, and then Cordoba, which is a city of a million people or so… [Cordoba] is an hour and a half away from La Cumbre.
Echo: What did you do when you were there?
Svrluga: I did a lot. I went to a bunch of professional soccer games, I did horseback riding, played golf, and I volunteered at a preschool. I played a lot of soccer and met a bunch of cool people. I stayed with a kid who came up here last year and we hung out and did random stuff with a bunch of kids that had also come up here last year. I also spent three weeks volunteering at the preschool basically every weekday. One of my favorite things was going to a bunch of English immersion programs, where I gave presentations to a bunch of kids that are learning English about Massachusetts and my life and how it is to live in America. It was like an hour long presentation, and then I would take a bunch of questions and just talk to them. That was awesome.
Echo: What were your motives for wanting to go and volunteer?
Svrluga: I wanted to do it at the start of my junior year. I really like learning Spanish, and I was looking at big programs like AFS (AFS Intercultural Programs) and I didn’t know if I really wanted to do a big program, so I emailed Mr. Johnson, and he was talking about his connections down in Argentina, and so he helped me set up a whole trip. Conveniently, when all the Argentine kids came up here in April, I thought they were really cool people, and so I was excited to go spend another couple of weeks with them in Argentina.
Echo: Did your trip have anything to do with our existing relationship with the Argentines that came to our school
Svrluga: Yeah, the first family I stayed with, the kid had come up here last April, and I’ve gotten along well with him. I spent a lot of time with his friends and a couple other kids, and it definitely strengthened my relationships with them. It’s going to make it a lot cooler to go back down to Argentina in April and see all those kids that I had already seen down there.
