Maria Andronachi
By: Jaiden Linebaugh
Knox County High School has been working with the foreign exchange program, FLEX, for many years. This year, Knox County has 3 new students from all over the world. Maria Andronachi is an exchange student from Moldova, an Eastern European Country.
In Moldova, her family consists of her mother, father and herself. She enjoys the sport Orienteering, where participants run through a forest with a map and compass to navigate themselves along specific checkpoints to the finish. Andronachi has also been dancing for 10 years and completed music school in Moldova before coming to the United States. She plans to work in a creative profession in the future.
Andronachi was inspired by a girl who attended her school that was previously involved with the FLEX program. It helped her decide that she wanted to become an exchange student as well. After three years of learning more about the program, she became a foreign exchange finalist.
When asked what her favorite thing about Knox County is she said, “I really like how the people here are open-minded and friendly.”
Andronachi enjoys being an exchange student because she can share her culture with others while learning about ours as well. She also likes the experience of getting to know a new family and grow close to them. “It is awesome that we have such a great opportunity to make a second family in this world,” said Andronachi.