German students think Sisters is as great as sliced bread

Five thousand miles away, in the small German village of Ensdorf, foreign exchange applicant Yannic Kolz learned he would be spending much of this school year living with an American family in Sisters, Oregon.

"I said, 'What is Oregon?'" remembers Kolz, 16. "I did the Google map and all I saw ... There was nothing."

Now Kolz is settling into a lifestyle in Sisters that is in some ways not as foreign as he expected.

In Herrenberg, Germany - about 100 miles from Ensdorf - Stefan Bölle was likewise preparing to leave his home to spend the school year in Sisters. He, too, had to work to locate Oregon on a map.

Bölle, also 16, now proudly dons a Sisters High School varsity jersey and is enjoying his first team soccer experience.

"I really like soccer. (At home) I play with friends in afternoon if we don't have any homework," he said.

Before making the soccer team, Bölle spent a day working out with the Outlaws football squad. He thought it might be good to try a new sport, and his host parents, Quay and Dawn Richerson, encouraged it. Quay Richerson is an assistant football coach for the Outlaws.

The rules were all new to Bölle, and at the end of the day, he says, "I really thought it's not my sport."

In addition to soccer, expect to see Bölle on the Nordic skiing and track teams. He says he needs sports year-round.

Bölle finds that the Richersons are "really like my family in Germany. I have two sisters, 18 and 15. We have a dog Luna, a golden retriever."

Bölle's father in Herrenberg is an electrical engineer for Mercedes; his mother has worked as an architect. Both parents work together from home as financial advisors.

With his host family, Bölle gains two brothers: ninth-grader Jacob and fifth-grader Jared, as well as a sister, Jordan, a senior at SHS.

Within a month of Bölle's arrival in Sisters, the Richerson's family bloodhound expanded the welcoming committee, giving birth to a litter of AKC registered puppies.

"I think they're very cute," he said of the puppies.

Dawn Richerson reports that Bölle is falling right into step with her family.

"He was like one of our family instantly. He likes being busy like we are," she says. "He's taking on the role of the older brother. He's easy to have around - charming and well mannered."

Bölle makes German pancakes for the Richersons and plans to try out some other recipes from home on them.

Meanwhile, Yannic Kolz is enjoying life in Sisters with his host family: Darren and Donna Layne, and their son Brennan.

Brennan Layne is a junior at SHS and an only child, so when it came to finding a compatible student to host, his parents let him do the choosing from among students' profiles posted on the Northwest Student Exchange Web site.

He chose Kolz. Says Donna Layne, "Brennan liked what he had to say about why he wanted to come to America."

Kolz had written, "If you learn English, life is easier."

Kolz and Brennan Layne are both drawn to adventure. Layne wake-boards and wake-surfs, while Kolz is a skateboarder and a member of an indoor rock-climbing club in Ensdorf.

So the two boys have been sharing their favorite sports with each other. Over Labor Day weekend, Kolz gave wake-surfing a try when the Layne family took him along on a houseboating trip.

"It was Yannick's first experience behind a boat and he loved it," says Donna Layne.

Kolz is settling easily into a routine that has similarities to the one he left behind in Germany. Most afternoons find him on his skateboard at Sisters Park & Recreation District's skatepark; on weekends, he likes to go to the rock-climbing gym in Bend.

It's certainly more than Kolz expected when he first looked up Sisters, Oregon, on the satellite map.

"It's a lot better than I thought, because the people are so nice and nature is so nice. I didn't know there'd be a skatepark," he said.

Kolz's home town of Ensdorf is small "like Sisters," he says, and Saarlouis, a city about the size of Bend, is just 10 minutes away.

He's fascinated to be living so near to cougars and bears. Before coming to Sisters, Kolz says he had only seen three deer in his life.

"Here, deer come in the yard!" he said, adding, "They would never do that in Germany."

Donna Layne is impressed with Kolz's study habits. "He works so hard, does hours and hours of homework."

What both Kolz and Bölle most hope to gain from the exchange program is improved fluency in the English language. Kolz is taking chemistry and physics simultaneously at SHS, to work through the language barrier for those subjects.

"I'll be a lot better in English in school because I'm going to do my Abitur in English." Abitur refers to the final exams, taken after 12 years of school in Germany, and to the document issued which serves as both a top-level high school diploma and a guide for university entrance placement.

According to Donna Layne, Kolz is "making great strides" in the language.

"His progress has been amazing," she said. After talking to his parents recently over Skype, "he got off and said that it's harder now to explain something in German than English."

Kolz only plans to stay in Sisters through February, so that he won't have to make up a year's worth of classes when he returns home.

Bölle plans to stay through the end of the school year in June; then he will have two more years of high school in Germany.

German men, at the age of 18, are required to serve for six months in either military or civil service. Bölle, who spent a year helping take care of his disabled grandmother, thinks he will choose to serve the elderly.

"I know how much they need younger people to look after them," he said.

Dawn Richerson feels that her family is reaping a rich cultural experience - without ever leaving home.

"Stefan has brought the world to us," she said.

Says Kolz, "It's a good feeling to know other people in another country."

Kolz might say that his new experiences in America have been, quite literally, the greatest thing since sliced bread.

While shopping together at Costco, not long after Kolz arrived, Donna Layne heard him exclaim from the bread aisle, "It is sliced!"

She turned to find him staring, amazed.