Seashore, N.D. (KFYR) – Studying overseas is ordinarily a one particular-calendar year journey, but one particular exchange student’s trip has been prolonged for a next yr.
The war in Ukraine has remaining 17-year-previous Dima Davydenko with no household to return to.
Davydenko has mastered the art of using a excellent selfie. His telephone is crammed with selfies, and with other shots that all tell a story about his time as an trade pupil in the United States.
His cell phone is also his link to his close friends and household, and to his war-torn homeland. Davydenko’ s hometown of Velyka Novosillka in jap Ukraine has become a Russian goal. His moms and dads and grandmother have moved to another city.
“Everything changed considerably,” he stated.
Davydenko was supposed to return to Ukraine on June 9. As a substitute, he’s keeping one more year in Beach front, a put he’d in no way even heard of a calendar year ago.
“When I observed out that, I thought it would have a sea or lake or ocean. There is notbhing like that,” Davydenko recalled with a chuckle.
But what he has identified in this article on the western edge of North Dakota is a perception of group, a refuge from war and a 2nd dwelling.
“I’m just the American mom, but there was no way I was sending him again to what was like minimal to very little still left,” said Jill Schatz, Davydenko’s host mom claimed.
Though a element of him needs he was house preventing for his region, Davydenko is also happy to be in Seashore and to get a reward calendar year of superior college. He’s looking forward to incorporating more photos to his digital camera roll, so he’ll never forget this unexpected stay in Seashore.
Davydenko is in a position to check in with his spouse and children everyday. So much, they’ve stayed harmless, but he says numerous residences in his hometown of about 5,000 people today have been ruined.
Davydenko claims the aid the folks of Beach, and the total condition, have proven his region has been overpowering.
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