Now that’s Italian!
Exchange students from Rome live — and learn — with Methuen teens

By John Basilesco
MethuenLife Writer

Italian music played in the background as students from Rome gathered with their Methuen host families for a pot-luck dinner in the cafeteria at Methuen High School last month.
It was an opportunity for the Italian students and their families to celebrate their time together, made possible by a foreign exchange program that started three years ago at Methuen High.
Through the exchange program, high school students from Rome live with host families in Methuen, where they learn about American culture and attend classes at Methuen High. In turn, Methuen High students travel to Rome and live with Italian host families there to get a taste of Italian culture and attend a high school in Rome.
The Methuen students also get to practice what they've been learning in their Italian class at Methuen High.
Several members of the host families attending last month's pot luck dinner at Methuen High said they really enjoyed having the Italian students live with them.
They cooked American food for the Italian students, many of whom prepared homemade Italian cuisine for the host families to enjoy.
Meg and Burt Batcheller and their son, 16-year-old son Alec, hosted Lorenzo Caprini, 17, who enjoyed his first visit to the United States.
Burt Batcheller said he was very impressed by Caprini's culinary skills. He really enjoyed the pasta carbonara he prepared for the Batcheller family.
"It was delicious, and it was a real symphony watching him cook," Batcheller said. "He had a skillet going on the stove, cooking Italian bacon and sweet saugage. And he had a big pot of pasta going, and he's stirring that with his other hand."
Eventually, he combined eggs, parmesan cheese, the meat and pasta, which he cooked together, Batcheller said.
Caprini said he enjoyed the American food the Batchellers prepared for him, including hamburgers, potato salad and corn on the cob.
During their time together, the Italian and American students established a bond of friendship, said Maria Rosa Bruni, one of two Italian teachers accompanying the students from Rome.
"They get very close to each other," she said. "Some of our Italian students who came here for the exchange last year, returned in the summer to visit their host families on their own."
One Methuen mother, Dodi Greene, was actually spotted crying at the pot-luck dinner, upset that her exchange student, Giulia Moretti-Cursi, 17, was leaving to go back to Italy.
The teary-eyed Greene said she became very attached to Giulia and was very sad she was leaving.
"She quickly became part of us, part of our everyday routine," Greene said. "Guilia said she would like to stay longer with us. She was very flexible. Ate everything we put in front of her. She also helped my daughter with her Italian homework."
"They were like a second family to me," Guilia said about the Greene family, "and made me feel at home."
Several Methuen High students, who will now travel to Italy in February, said they can't wait to try out the Italian language skills they've been learning in school.
Jamil Halaby, 17, a senior, said he looks forward to visiting Italy for the first time. He has been taking Italian at Methuen High for four years.
"I'll be able to practice what I've been learning," he said, "and experience the Italian culture."
Methuen High senior Kim Marino, 18, has hosted an Italian student all three years that the program has been in place at Methuen High. The first student her family hosted became so close she returned to visit them over the summer, Marino said.
Marino, Halaby and other students are involved in fund-raising efforts for their upcoming trip to Italy.
Methuen High Foreign Language teacher Catherine Folloner teamed up with Carousel Tours to start the exchange program three years ago. The exchange program gives students in her Italian class an opportunity to practice the Italian they've been learning with Italian students and by visiting Italy themselves, she said.
"It's sort of like the icing on the cake for the students," Folloner said. "They study all the academics and then they finally get to put into practice what they've learned in a fun environment with kids their own age, and of course there are tours of the Vatican. They can see cultural aspects of Italy and the famous sights."
But the key part of the program is that the Methuen High students live with an Italian family, including going to school with the family's own high school student over there, Folloner said.
The exchange program is open to all Methuen High students, not just those in Folloner's Italian class, she said.

“They were like a second family to me and made me feel at home."