New students arriving

Last night we attended an AFS meeting as veterans (having hosted 4 students) to meet with new host parents--students will begin arriving from around the world next week. Of course--there are much more experienced host parents than we are--one of the couples we know has hosted 10 times, and many of their students have been friends of ours.

This year we begin an adventure of not only hosting again, but serving as a liaison for a family--making short monthly required reports and connecting with the family and the student. It is really fun to get to know these students from around the world, to see how they interact with family and friends, and see how they connect with each other, even though their cultures vary so much.

Our student from Bolivia was very close to girls from Turkmenistan and Thailand. How different can those cultures be, but they had a lot in common--mainly that they were teenagers far from home, but at home here, too.

We're looking forward to the next phase of our foreign adventure, which begins when Inga from Moldova arrives on Monday!

Suzi