The bubbly, well-spoken Natia arrived at the Atlanta airport last August with five other girls from the Georgian Republic also taking part in the student exchange program. It was her first time traveling outside her country. In fact, it was her first time on an airplane.
“I was a little nervous,” Natia, now 17, said. “I didn’t know who I was waiting for.”
But her nervousness soon melted when her host “dad,” Terry Chandler, along with his sister-in-law and her two kids, greeted her with a bouquet of flowers and a sign welcoming her.
“Oh my goodness, it was like ‘welcome to our Georgia,’” she said.
Natia arrived at Terry and Debra Chandler’s 200-acre Madison County cattle farm on the first day of school last August.
She began classes the next day and says she has fit right in, enjoying all her classes, including English, and in particular psychology.
“That’s really interesting,” Natia said of that class. She has even been invited to join the National Honor Society.
Natia speaks English extremely well and says her school incorporates other languages, particularly English and German, into the curriculum in addition to their native Georgian from an early age.
And Chandler says Natia has blended just as well into their family.
“It has been a wonderful, unbelievable experience,” he said. “She and (daughter) Kim have become as close as two sisters can be.”
Chandler said he and his wife Debra were asked last July by the University of Georgia if they’d like to participate in FLEX (Future Leaders Exchange), an exchange student scholarship program for teens from the countries of the former Soviet Union that works to match them with families in the United States.
“You know it goes through your mind – what if the girls don’t get along, what if (the student) doesn’t like being on a farm, but it couldn’t have worked out better,” Chandler said.
And he salutes Natia for being able to take such a courageous step at such an early age.
“I couldn’t have done it at 16 – to leave on a plane by yourself and travel to live with folks you don’t know in a country you don’t know – she’s very courageous,” he said.
Natia has made lots of friends in her “new” Georgia, especially Kim, who is a senior at MCHS this year.
The two ride to school together every day and Natia has gone from being a girl with little to no knowledge of farm life, to seeing and experiencing that life firsthand. She’s traveled with Kim and the Chandlers to Ag Day at the state capital and various cattle shows and conventions as far away as Indianapolis, IN. And she hasn’t just watched Kim in cattle shows, she asked and was allowed to show her own heifer, “Grace.”
Though Kim said it took some time to adjust to having a new “sister” in the house, (her older siblings, Robert and Jennifer, have been out of the house for a while) she’s grown to like it a lot.
“I’m going to miss her when she leaves,” said Kim.
But that day hasn’t arrived yet. Natia will head home to her native Georgia, June 22, but she has a few more things she wants to see and do here before she goes – like horseback riding and maybe a kayaking trip along the Broad River.
Natia has stayed in contact with her family back home through Skype, which allows her to see, as well as talk with them. Natia says she has enjoyed telling her mom about all the things she’s learning and doing here, and she hopes to use the same form of communication to keep up with the new family and friends she’s leaving behind in her new Georgia.
For more information on the FLEX program go to www.afsusa.org/usa_en/view/1542
