Long Creek teacher Karl Coghill talks with Aaron (Yu-Cheng) Yueng about his class assignments.

LONG CREEK — “I was like, wow, this is really small.”

That was Lilly Stemmann’s first thought when she arrived in Long Creek from Germany at the start of the 2015-2016 school year.

Stemmann is one of 10 foreign high-schoolers from seven countries who are nearing the end of a school year at Long Creek.

None of the students had ever been to a town as small as Long Creek.

However, fellow German, 17-year-old Philipp Dessau, said, “It looked smaller on Google Maps than it really is.”

The group is here courtesy of International Student Exchange, and as they prepare to return to their home countries, none wish they had gone anywhere else. All agree it has been a positive experience and are grateful for their time spent in a rural setting and with such an intimate, close-knit community.

Brazilian Raquel Melo Silva, 17, said she enjoyed the community atmosphere and being so close to animals, ranches and the farming way of life.

Andrea Montes, 16, from Spain, agreed.

“I’ve become a country girl,” she said.

Lilly said in a small school and town like Long Creek “you can development relationships with everyone.”

Each of the students said they experienced something for the first time. Raquel got to brand and feed cows. Lilly helped skin an elk, which she said was “cool and interesting.” Andrea ate her first corn dog — a new favorite food.

Philipp got to go horseback riding, as did 16-year-old Near (Yanatorn) Bunnag from Thailand.

Mew (Onnalin) Wiriyasumon, 16, from Thailand went ice fishing — her first time fishing at all — during a trip to Alaska with her host family. Adam (Adugafor) Rajibeliev, 17, from Tajikistan, enjoyed hunting and skiing.

Others attended a rodeo and rode along with a police officer for the first time.

For Aaron (Yu-Cheng) Yueng, 18, Taiwan, it was a close encounter with nature after he saw a deer right in town.

“I never saw a deer before,” he said. “I could not believe it and was so surprised.”

While small-town life was new for all of them, the cold and snow of winter was not.

Russian 17-year-old Kirill Borisov, who snowboards back home nearly every day, said, “It wasn’t so cold here.”

Philipp agreed and said it is never warm in Germany. Lilly, however, said she’d never been somewhere so cold.

Fernando Garcia Rodriguez, 17, from Spain, said he tried to teach some downhill skiing skills to first-timer Raquel during a school outing to Anthony Lakes Mountain Resort. They both laughed remembering at the memory of her tumbling down the hill.

The students all agreed American education is much easier than in their home countries. Some were surprised that not only is there no school here on Saturdays but, as in most Grant County schools, none on Fridays either.

The exchange program offers a multi-cultural experience for the visiting and local students, the host families and the community. With only three local Long Creek high school students this year — two freshmen and one junior — the foreign students also provide the school with increased enrollment for such activities as proms and sports teams.

One of those three local students, Cody Baker, said, if it wasn’t for the foreign students, he would probably have to attend a different school. He said in three years at Long Creek, he has met three different groups of foreign students and has more than two dozen friends around the world.

“It’s a really cool experience,” he said. “The first month or two, it’s hard getting to know each other, but by the end, we form such a strong bond, it’s hard to see them leave. Some become your family.”

Several of the host families have taken these students into their homes year after year, including Linda and Ed Studtmann, hosting in Long Creek since 2008.

“We treat them as if they are part of the family,” Linda, who is a teaching assistant and coach at the school, said. “We keep them busy.”

She said she loves hosting and her own sons, who are now grown, enjoyed getting to know the foreign students each year, having them in their home and as school friends.

Linda and Alvin Hunt have had 11 foreign students in their home — each experience different but always entertaining.

Linda Hunt, who works in the school cafeteria, said hosting allows her to experience the world without leaving the county.

She said, although it is difficult “saying goodbye to someone who has become such a wonderful part of your life, we have a lifetime of memories to look back on and smile.”

Other host families this year include Mike and Myla Corley, Jennie and Patch Freeman, Shirley Gorgita and Bev and Eldon Johns.

The foreign students all had high praise for their host families, most saying that the home-cooked American meals were one of the best things. Most plan to keep in touch with each other and their new Long Creek friends and families, and several would like to return to visit Long Creek in the future.

None of the students knew each other beforehand. However, two of them, Philipp and Lilly, discovered from a photo Lilly had that they belong to the same dance group back in Germany, where they live just a few miles apart.

The world itself, and not just Long Creek, can be a mighty small place.