Switching schools as a junior in high school can be very hard for your average student. When the new school is in a different country that speaks a different language it becomes even more difficult.

Junior Christia Coetzer moved to Triton this year from Johannesburg, South Africa, and she is still adjusting to all the changes.

Coetzer had lived in the same house her entire life until Coetzer’s father’s company asked him to move to the US for work and Coetzer had to pack up her whole life and everything she had ever known to move across the world. “The weather is different and it is safer here,” said Coetzer, “there is more freedom in the US.”

Adjusting here “has not been easy, things are so different,” she said. Coetzer said she has struggled with “speaking my second language all the time and learning the new words that is different from the UK english.”

She misses home a lot most days, but she said “some days not so much.” She struggled with leaving her friends and it is hard for her to still talk to them as much “because of the seven hour difference.”

Her school in South Africa was completely different from Triton. She had to wear a uniform every day and her school year went the whole year with four little holidays breaks instead of a long summer break. She had two lunch periods a day and all of the students went to both. Geometry and Algebra was one class combined and so was Chemistry and Physics, and retaking tests was not an option unlike Triton.

Coezter played field hockey in South Africa and decided to play here at Triton this year. “I played it back home although it was a lot different from field hockey here,” said Coezter. She enjoyed playing in both places, “It was so much fun,” said Coezter.

Coezter says she “wants to go to college in the US,” and if she gets her citizenship she will stay in the US because “things in South Africa aren’t getting any better.” Farmers are getting killed and every year more and more people are killed, also the economy isn’t doing good.