Let me start at the beginning...on September 1, 1989, I boarded a plane in NYC with a one way ticket to Madrid, Spain. Little did I know, 25 yrs ago, how that experience would change me.
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| Departure Day! |
I was on a group flight from NYC to Madrid and it was that critical time I needed to find my roommate for the semester. I gravitated toward the only other girl wearing a sombrero...Michelle.
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| Me & Michelle |
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| Calleen, Michelle & Me. Segovia, Spain |
It was my Junior year of college, and after taking 7 years of Spanish, I was ready to go immerse myself in the Spanish culture and come back 100% fluent. One problem, when I stepped off the plane, I could not even understand a word I heard, let alone speak! I never learned any conversational Spanish and I really doubt that any of my teachers ever made me speak in class. I had some catching up to do!
Mondays - Thursdays, Michelle and I would walk up the Castellano to our small school, the International Institute at Calle Miguel Angel 8. We had class from about 10-3, go home for dinner. Our Señora was a widow who lived in a small apt with her bachelor son. She gave up her room for us and slept on the couch. She made the best meals, did our laundry, and gave us free reign to come and go as we liked. I was 20.
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| Florita, my Señora for the school year. |
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| International Institute, where I went to school. |
I was enjoying my time there so much that I begged and pleaded to stay a second semester, and lucky for me, I was able to do just that.
Back to the present. We began hosting when I saw a sign around town that said:
URGENT need for host families for students from Spain!
I knew as soon as I saw that, I was in. I just had to convince my husband and kids :) So now I have come full circle and I am no longer the student, BUT the Señora!!! It is still hard for me to comprehend! I know what I was up to then so I watch these kids like a hawk!
Summer of 2011 - Our first student was Laura and she was 15. She came over with a group of students from Spain. They had daily school, afternoon group activities, and a weekend away so I had to do a bit of driving. We all really enjoyed her, but wished we had more time with her. The upside was that we met some other really terrific kids like Bruno & Elena and the nice families that they stayed with. All in all, it was a great experience and I knew I would do it again.
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| Laura, Bruno & Elena |
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| Tyler, Jack, Laura, Scout & Me |
Summer 2012 - For our 2nd time around, I really wanted a student that didn't have group obligations. This was our summer too and I didn't want to be on anyone else's schedule. Our 2nd student was Ellen who came from France. She was 17 and her English was phenomenal. She had a great personality, was tons of fun and came here without a group, totally on her own. We had so many laughs with her. Having 2 boys, I really enjoyed having a teenage girl in the house minus any drama :)
Summer of 2013 - By now, the boys wanted a say in all of this and insisted on a boy for the summer. Alex, again 17 came from France. When we read his letter, we knew he would fit in well. He was so smart, articulate and impressive young man. We had another wonderful experience with him. We even got to meet his family when they came to pick him up and continue travels in the USA. We still email with his Dad, who is just charming.
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| photo credit Kim Kruer, photographer extraordinaire |
These kids take a leap of faith. I really admire how brave they are and forgot how brave I was! We already have a pretty good sense of what they are like before they come. Thanks to Facebook, we can chit chat back and forth, see pictures of each other and have some interaction before we pick them up at the airport.
I loved that time in my life that I just want to reciprocate and make sure my student has an awesome experience with us. We can't make a difference in everyone's lives, but we can make a difference in the life of one student at a time.
We will be welcoming Guillaume, from France in July and we look forward to making new memories with him and blogging about it here.
I hope that some of you reading this will see our wonderful experience and decide that hosting a foreign exchange student would be a good fit for you too!
The company we go thru is CCI Greenheart and they place kids all over the country. Here is a link to their website CCI Greenheart if you are interested in the process of becoming a host family.
