Pair of foreign exchange students add international flair to Fillies

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Sports

March 24, 2017 - 12:00 AM

The Fillies have benefited from a unique dynamic all year with three continents represented amongst the basketball and softball teams.
Senior Sofia Generi was one of the team’s managers for basketball and has been a player on Iola’s volleyball and softball teams this year.
Sophomore Sujinna Phutatham, who prefers to go by her childhood nickname “Gift,” has also been a part of three Fillies’ teams this year. She went out for cross country and played basketball while being a softball manager.
Sofia and Gift aren’t your average Fillies athletes. They each have traveled thousands of miles to be a part of the Iola community. Sofia is from Ancona, Italy — a city of over 100,000 people on the Adriatic coast. Gift travels even farther, coming from Bangkok, Thailand — the nation’s capital city and home to well over 8 million.
“I wanted to come to try and learn the language better, but I also wanted to try and challenge myself,” Sofia said. “I wanted to see how independent I can be and how I can live on my own.”
Gift’s favorite thing about Iola has been the small town feeling and the sense of community she feels here.
“I will miss everything, but especially  I like how when people drive or walk past each other, they wave to each other, like walking through Wal-Mart they all wave whether they know each other or not,” Gift said. “In Bangkok, there are so many people that you can’t do that.”
Sofia and Gift each came to Iola as foreign exchange students and they credit the Fillies’ athletic teams with making the transition to Southeast Kansas easier.
“All the girls on the team are really good people and have become good friends,” Sofia said. “They have all helped me a lot. My agency always tells us to try and be as involved as possible to try and be as involved as possible in order to meet new people.”
Sofia says that the other seniors on the teams she has been a part of have really helped her.
Neither had played any of the sports offered by Iola High, as Sofia had only participated in gymnastics before and Gift had played just badminton in Thailand, but they both quickly jumped into the Iola sports scene with both feet.
“They are always having a good time,” Iola coach Chris Weide. “It is really good to see how the other girls have taken to them as well. They really do just treat them like another kid they’ve , right,all grown up with.”
“It is really fun,” Iola sophomore Madisyn Holloway said. “They are always ready to go and they have a lot of energy.”
Over the course of the of the athletic seasons, they were able to make plenty of friends amongst their teammates, but maybe the most important relationship they forged was with one of their coaches.
Weide is an assistant coach for the Fillies’ basketball team and the head softball coach and when Gift and Sofia began looking for a new place to stay in Iola, Weide and his wife Alicia opened their home to them.
“It has been quite the experience, that is for sure,” Weide said. “Sometimes its a full house, but it has been a blast having them with us.”
Gift and Sofia moved in with the Weides and their three children in early January and the move has been great for everyone involved.
“They are wonderful people and have a great family,” Becky Carlson said. “They have gotten to see how people live in America and what an American family is like. That gives them a lot of opportunities.”
Being a part of a big family for her time away from home is something that Sofia is grateful for.
“It has been really fun,” Sofia said. “We are always busy, so you don’t think about friends back home and all of that stuff.”
Weide isn’t the only coach who Sofia and Gift have had a big impact on.
Carlson, the Fillies’ head basketball coach,  was able to be around both students this winter and fell in love with the excitement and enthusiasm they brought to practices and games. Carlson was also very interested in learning about both players’ home countries.
“Their work ethic is amazing,” Carlson said. “They are so willing to learn and they listen to everything you say. That is the best part. There is just something about them that draws you to them. You want to ask them questions and learn as much as you can. They seem like my nieces to me.”
Carlson’s relationship with Sofia and Gift continued to grow and she eventually made the decision to take them with her to Washington D.C. during Spring break this week.
“I have relatives in D.C. and what I thought was if I went to Italy or Thailand, I would want to see the capital city,” Carlson said. “Iola is great and you can see the culture here, but going there gives you a whole other look at the United States.”
They spent two days seeing the sights in the capital, part of a day in Baltimore and part of a day in Annapolis, Maryland.
“While we are here, the more you can see, the better,” Sofia said. “Washington D.C. always somewhere I wanted to go.”
Gift said she enjoyed the entire trip, but to her, the most interesting place she visited was the  United States Memorial Holocaust Museum.
“I liked all the museums,” Gift said. “It was really fun.”
Sofia was drawn to the  National Museum of Natural History.
“The mineral part (of the museum) was really cool with the diamonds and all of that stuff,” Sofia said.
Carlson was excited to have the opportunity to show Sofia and Gift a part of the United States that they might have never hard the chance to see. She says it will be tough to see them go at the end of the school year.
“When kids graduate from high school, it is really sad, but you know you are probably going to get to see them again when they come back to visit,” Carlson said. “When these two leave, it is going to be hard, because it is like they take a piece of your heart with them.”
“I try not to think about it,” Sofia said.

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