GREEN RIVER – Most high school juniors are concerned with finding a part time job, earning that intermediate learner’s permit, or what colleges they may apply for during their senior year. For one Green River High School student, her junior year was spent halfway across the world, learning a new language and experiencing a different culture as part of a student exchange program.
GRHS senior Meeka Iwen spent 11 months in Germany as part of the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX) scholarship program, which is jointly funded by the U.S. and German governments. CBYX program provides 300 scholarships to high school students, allowing them admission into a German high school and placement with a host family. Students receive language lessons upon arriving in Germany, are taken on cultural excursions, and have meetings with both U.S. and German officials during their exchange.
Meeka learned of the program through her mother, Youth Services Librarian Becky Iwen, when the Sweetwater County Library received information about the exchange. Meeka decided to apply, answering several written questions and writing a short essay about why she wanted to go.
“I just wanted to know more of the culture … just experience it I guess,” Meeka said.
She was contacted by program representatives for an in-person interview in March 2023 and flew to Denver by herself for the meeting. She was selected to participate in July 2023. Meeka said the students accepted into the program were first flown to Washington, D.C., then taken to Germany.
Meeka said the first month in Germany was spent in a language camp where students would study for about six hours a day, with the rest of the time allowing her to bond with other students in the program. Meeka wasn’t the only student from Wyoming involved in the CBYX program in 2023, finding out a college student from the Cowboy State was accepted to learn about leather working. Overall, Meeka joined 49 other high school students in the program.
Meeka was sent to Mainz, a city of 223,000 people that is the capital of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, located in the southwest portion of the country near Frankfurt. The city is 579 kilometers, or nearly 360 miles, from the border between France and Germany. Not everything was rosy when Meeka was placed with her initial host family. Due to conflicts, Meeka ended up seeking a new host family within a month of starting high school. She said the program didn’t assist her in finding a new family to stay with, recommending she ask other students at the high school if they would sponsor her. Fortunately for Meeka, a girl she had become friends with said her family had hosted exchange students before and they agreed to sponsor her.
“I was really lucky with finding a second host family,” she said.
Meeka said the private German high school she attended is structured much differently than it is in the U.S., saying she prefers the daily routine of an American high school. While GRHS students have a set class schedule students attend daily, Meeka said the 15 classes she had in Germany would only meet once a week. She said sometimes classes would be canceled if the teacher was unable to attend, saying higher-level high school classes didn’t often have substitutes.
Meeka said German high schools didn’t have organized sports like those common in American schools. At GRHS, Iwen was a member of the cross country team and participated in community runs while she was in Germany. She also joined her host sister in studying ballet, saying ballet was difficult, but fun to practice. Meeka also began studying karate with a friend.
Meeka’s ballet teacher was a man from Ukraine, and she said she met people from several different nations while in Germany. In regard to Ukraine, she said Germany took in a lot of refugees from the country after Russia invaded and started a war in the nation. She said Ukrainian children and teens often attended German public schools. She also met people from Egypt, Brazil, Portugal and China. Friendship transcends culture and country, with Meeka said she made a lot of good friends while in Germany, including one who originally came from China.
A cultural exchange works both ways and students were curious about Meeka’s life in the U.S. as well. Meeka said she was often asked about guns, including topics related to school shootings and was asked if she owned a firearm. She also said a lot of people she met also didn’t know a lot about Wyoming.
Meeka said high school students went on several class trips throughout the school year, saying students would be taken on trips in Germany or to other countries such as France, the United Kingdom, or even the U.S. For Meeka, her host family and the CBYX program gave her an opportunity to travel beyond what was available to the high school students.
“I got to travel a lot,” she said.
Meeka went on a lake trip, went to amusement parks, visited Frankfurt multiple times, went to Sweden for a birthday trip her host family set up for her friend and host sister, as well as visited Cologne with other students in the CBYX program in January. Meeka said the trip to Sweden was memorable because of how beautiful its was with the snow. Another memorable experience she had was visiting Christmas markets in Germany, something she said German communities take a lot of pride in hosting. She said the markets were filled with unique ornaments, decorations, and great food.
Meeka said one of the largest hurdles she had to overcome was the German language itself. The language camp was an immersive one-month introduction to speaking German, but sometimes still had some difficulty as she was still learning the language while living in Mainz. She said her understanding came in stages and would run into situations where she understood what was said to her, but wasn’t articulate enough to fully communicate her thoughts. The immersion helped her learn the language and resulted in Meeka having her first dream completely in German in January.
“I was very happy,” she said about experiencing the dream.
While Meeka was experiencing life in Germany, Becky said the year was a trial run for her and husband Eric Iwen to live life as empty nesters. Becky said she has wanted her two children to grow up and have new experiences but admits there were some difficult days in a much quieter home after her son moved out for college and Meeka was away in Germany. Becky said the realization that the home would be empty hit before Meeka flew to Washington, D.C.
“When she was applying and was accepted, I may have cried a good amount,” Becky said. “I had some good cries when I missed Meeka a lot.”
Becky said parents are encouraged not to contact their children too frequently during their first months in Germany to help them acclimate to their new surroundings. However, she still received photos and videos of Meeka’s life in Germany, something she enjoyed receiving.
Becky and Eric ended up travelling to Germany to visit Meeka a few months before she returned to the U.S., spending three weeks in the country, with one week in Mainz. Becky said she and Eric spent four days waiting for Meeka to get out of school and found a lot to do, which included adventures in trying German food.
“We tried all the food,” Becky said with a smile.
While the trio were in Germany together, they toured several castles in the area. When Becky and Eric returned to the U.S., she said the jet lag left her feeling tired for a few days, as the time in Mainz is eight hours ahead of Wyoming.
“I would definitely recommend it,” Meeka said about the experience. “You learn a lot about yourself.”
Meeka said she does miss living in Germany “a little bit” and said she wouldn’t have met the people she was able to if she didn’t make the leap and study abroad. She made new friendships with both Americans and Germans, as well as met her boyfriend from Colorado who also took part in the exchange.
Upon returning to the U.S., she met with Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., to talk with him about the exchange and her experiences in Germany as Congress helps fund the program.
Eleven months can either be a period that’s a lifetime itself or a brief moment that ended as quickly as it began. For Meeka Iwen, those 11 months allowed her to experience a culture and a perspective that few high school students are able to experience so early in their lives. Living life in a country with different customs and values has left an impression Meeka won’t ever forget.
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