SACHS student set for Italian odyssey Teen’s foreign studies break ground

ISLAND FALLS – While his friends at Southern Aroostook Community High School are waiting Thursday for a bus to take them to school, Jonathan Holman will be waiting to catch a plane bound for Italy.

The 17-year-old high school junior will leave this week for 10 months in Catania on the island of Sicily, where he will be a foreign exchange student with the American Field Service.

He is the first student from SACHS to travel to a foreign country to study.

“It’s such a small town that you wouldn’t expect somebody to be going off and doing something like this,” Holman said recently, comparing Island Falls to where he will stay in Italy. “This is pretty big stuff.”

Catania has a population of 450,000, and the school he will attend has about 1,800 students. By comparison, the population of Island Falls is about 800 and the area high school has about 150 students.

The trip is the realization of a dream that his been developing since Holman was in junior high.

“I like world travel and I like being involved with different cultures,” he said during a recent interview at his home.

“Italy was my first choice,” said Holman. “There’s just so much history there, and the lifestyle just totally fits my personality. “I love architecture and literature,” he added.

Holman was lucky he even got to make the trip. While playing soccer last season, he suffered a back injury that required surgery.

He didn’t get his doctor’s permission to travel until February, so he was late in applying to AFS.

In late May he learned that had been accepted for Italy, and only a few weeks ago he learned about his host family.

Holman will live with the Fichera family. Rino Fichera is a doctor and his wife, Anna Katia, is a TV programmer. They have two children, Stefano, 16, and Elena, 9.

Stefano is the only member of the host family who speaks English. He will serve as an interpreter for Holman until he learns more Italian.

Traveling thousands of miles to another country won’t be easy and Holman won’t see his own family for 10 months. But the experience will be worth it, said his father, Kurt.

“Jonathan has big dreams and we’ve always been ones to say go for your big dreams,” said the elder Holman. “For us to hold him back would be a disservice to his future.

“There’s a little bit of apprehension, especially after last year’s 9-11 attacks,” he continued. “But at the same time, I don’t think we should stop living our lives.”

To stay in touch with family and friends back home, Holman has set up a Web site to provide updates and photos of his stay in Italy.

The site address is http://smallville9.tripod.com/pages/index.html. It includes an online journal in which Holman plans to keep a record of what he’s doing.