POST FALLS — This wasn't the sprawling metropolis Bella Murekatete envisioned.

Before the Rwanda-born Genesis Prep sophomore acquired a student visa, she had a broad-brush view of the United States, the sort of perception often derived from the silver screen.

East Coast, West Coast, Idaho — they're all pretty much the same, right?

"I thought Idaho was going to be like New York. I thought it was going to have a lot of buildings," said Murekatete, who enrolled at the Post Falls-based Christian school in October 2015. "Or like Las Vegas, like in the movies, but it was very different."

Chris Finch, Genesis Prep's fifth-year principal, jokingly noted Murekatete was watching the wrong flicks.

"You should have watched 'A River Runs Through It' before you came," said Finch, referencing the Brad Pitt drama which doubles as a paean to the scenic and rural Northwest.

Finch and his staff aren't foreign to these misconceptions.

On a K-12 campus shared with megachurch Real Life Ministries, just 65 are high school students, and of that meager enrollment, 15 consider America foreign soil.

With J1 student visas no longer offered by public schools in Kootenai County, Finch said, Genesis Prep has enrolled students from all over the globe since its inception in 2006.

A cursory glance at the budding Genesis Prep boys and girls basketball programs is enough to convey the school's diversity. Africa, Europe, Asia — these teams look different than most in rural North Idaho.

Foreign acquisitions — such as Murekatete, a versatile 6-foot-4 forward on the girls team and fellow Rwandan Stephane Manzi, a 6-foot-9 senior forward on the boys team — have helped vault the Jaguars to immediate relevance in the Idaho small-school ranks.

Murekatete spearheads an unscathed girls team (6-0) with gaudy averages of 24 points, 20 rebounds, six blocks and two steals a game.

Manzi averages 12 points and 10 rebounds for a boys team which currently holds the No. 4 ranking in the most recent 1A Division II coaches poll. Last season, the Jaguars placed third at the state tournament, but Manzi was sidelined due to transfer rules.

Both came to the states from their respective Rwandan cities to use basketball as a vehicle to a better education and life.

"As a kid you want to come to America. It's the land of opportunity," said Manzi, who hails from Rwanda's capital city of Kigali. "You use basketball to get diplomas and when you bring those American diplomas back to Rwanda, it's a big deal."

Murekatete echoed Manzi.

"You can learn a lot of stuff here," she said. "We just came from a country that had genocide and doesn't really have those skills, and if you learn American skills, it's big."

The two initially shouldered a cultural and social transition and swift language barrier that has been overcome with help from Genesis Prep's ESL (English as a second language) program. The soft-spoken Manzi enrolled before the fall of 2015. The chattier Murekatete arrived that Halloween.

"It was cold when I got here," Murekatete said. "Where I am from, 60 degrees is cold. I even got sick because of the change."

Manzi is enjoying his North Idaho experience, but he's still adjusting. His head coach, Marsell Colbert, can empathize.

In the late 1980s, Colbert, a former North Idaho College basketball player, came to Coeur d'Alene by way of Baltimore where he, too, was met with culture shock.

His former NIC head coach, Rolly Williams, made it a point to get his players acclimated to the community. Cutting wood to raise money for the program was one of those ventures.

Colbert has made his team do the same.

"These guys are lucky. They got to use log splitters," Colbert joked. "When I was at NIC, we were the log splitters.

“The most important thing is that you have to adapt to your surroundings. The more open you are, the more enjoyable this process will be. (Manzi and Murekatete) want to experience everything here."

State championships are among the things they want to experience, but they know why they're really here.

"I know I can't play basketball my whole life, so the education is important," Manzi said. "When basketball is over, I want to apply what I learned here in my country and help my family."