According to Wichita television station KWCH, 12 young people from Northern Ireland are in the state as part of the Ulster Project, which is an exchange program. With some of them donning John Deere hats, the European teens got their first taste of Fourth of July celebrations recently.
"All my friends said it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," exchange student Niamh Hamill told the station of the program.
During their time so far in Kansas, some obvious differences were noticed by the Northern Irish teens. There is, of course, the fact Americans drive on the right side of the road. Accents were also an issue, as the young people dissected each other's speech patterns and vocabularies.
Ulster Project International is a Christian-based program that works to try and provide stability to Northern Ireland after decades of clashes in that part of the world between different factions. The group got its start in the U.S. in 1975.
