Nicole from Italy poses for one last photo with her host family
Proms, final exams, and graduations have come and gone. Lockers have been closed for the last time and the once slightly unsure new international student has transformed into a confident bilingual “American” teenager. It’s June and that means another Academic Year in America has come to an end.
As a Local Coordinator, I am always on the look out for families who wish to serve as hosts to international students for a semester or whole academic year. I often hear, “I just don’t know if we can commit to hosting for all that time”. I completely understand the hesitancy and nerves, but I usually tell people, “As hard as this decision is now, I promise you time will fly and before you know it, you will be at the airport saying See you Later!”
I learned not to say “goodbye” a long time ago. Goodbye is way too final, and painful.I advise families and students to re-phrase their last moments as “See you later”.
The truly difficult part of letting your international son or daughter return home isn’t the tear wrenching last hugs at the airport, but a deeper sadness that gnaws at your heart because you aren’t quite sure when the next hug will come. It is a dropping-your-first-child-off-at-college-level of grief that eases just a bit each time you host again.
It is no small thing to welcome a teenaged stranger into your home and family. Host families make meals, help with homework, attend sporting events, concerts, plays, and parent/teacher conferences. Host siblings learn to share their parents attention, but also their secrets with a new brother or sister. The rhythm of family life expands and conforms to its newest member and before you realize it, no one can imagine life without the other. The love and bond between students and families are real, meaningful, and long-lasting.
These past few weeks have been filled with parties: celebrations of host families and exchange students. Favorite foods have been served, gifts exchanged and lots of photos taken. Discussions of “how will we fit all of this stuff into your suitcase” and the mysterious magic of vacuum bags have filled our conversations. We have spent the final days of our exchange experiences in celebration, not sadness.
Holding on to this spirit, we go to the airport, that same airport we stood in nervously 5 or 10 months prior, ready to meet each other face-to-face for the first time. This time, our nerves are focused on whether the bag will weigh less than 50 pounds and the fear of losing our battle of holding back the flood of tears that threatens to burst forth at any moment.
We take one last photo, exchange one last hug, watch our son or daughter walk to the TSA agent and say, “See you Later”!
The 2015-2016 school year brought two young men into our lives to live as our exchange sons, but I only refer to one as “Mr. Incredible”. Fifteen year old Javier stepped off his plane to meet our family in mid August of 2015. He was exhausted, having just spent a whirlwind four days at his orientation with Academic Year in America in New York City. My heart went out to him as we exchanged hugs to begin our year together as “family”.
Welcome to Ohio, Javier!
I knew how tired Javier was feeling. I had served as a chaperone for the same orientation the week prior. During my week, I had the opportunity to co-chaperone a bus load of students with Bea, a representative of the Spanish partnering organization, STEP. As we chatted on the bus, she told me she knew Javier’s mother, and that she had interviewed him in Spain when he and his family came to apply for the program. She reassured me that we would love Javier. I told her I had no doubt we would, and to please tell his mother that I said “Hello!” And there you have it…international relations at work in the midst of a bus load of teenagers in NYC….one might say, incredible.
Before Javier’s arrival to the US, I had the good fortune to “chat” with his natural mother via WhatsApp. She was understandably nervous about sending her young son to the USA for a year away from his family. We connected easily by sharing photos and messages, her English as poor as my Spanish, but our mother’s love the only language required for understanding.
My children and I helped Javier load his suitcase into our car and drove home to meet the rest of his “family” for the next few weeks, including his fellow exchange brother, Mirko. After a brief moment to catch his breath, we rushed him off to the high school for a meeting with the guidance counselor followed by dinner at Chipotle and a trip to the mall for back to school shopping. Javier was exhausted, but we were on a mission. School would start the following week and the weekend was filled with our son Jonah’s college graduation and 21st birthday! We had to make every moment count.
Despite the hectic pace, Javier survived his first weekend with us and never blinked. He displayed his quintessential quiet and thoughtful character, and when we weren’t expecting it, displayed a clever dose of humor. He was the polar opposite of his exchange brother, but fit right into our family like he had been there from the beginning. We knew we wanted Javier to stay the entire year with us, asked him if it was ok, and when he agreed, transformed ourselves from “Welcome” family to “Permanent host family” of Mr. Incredible.
The “Bad” Banana and Mr. Incredible
Javier’s gentle, kind, generous spirit was always a welcome relief in the midst of our often hectic, boisterous and noisy family life. He diplomatically mentioned one day that he was the designated “crepe chef” for his family at home. If we would like, he would be happy to share his culinary skills with us. There were many, many times throughout the school year that I would take him up on his offer, Javier’s crepes bringing delicious magic to our meals.
Javier became a sort of aficionado of American cuisine. He and I explored the art of baking American chocolate chip cookies, a delicacy far removed from the dry, crusty Chips Ahoy sold in Spain. He marveled at the vast diversity of Oreo cookies for sale in US grocery stores, and so in the spirit of educational research, we embarked on a valuable market research initiative to compare and critique each variety.
We learned to rely on Javier’s companionship, as he always made time in his schedule to play ball with our family dog, video games with our youngest son, and even tag along on trips to the gym with my husband. Once, Javier drove with me on a very long 2+ hour drive to an exchange student’s home to conduct a “mediation” meeting between the family and student. He helped distract me from the problems that ensued with a sympathetic ear and laughter. Javier had a way of helping all of us remain calm and focus on the simple, good things in life like cheeseburgers, burritos, cookies….and a family’s love.
Javier kept us up to date on news of his family in Spain and translated messages to and from his Mother for me. During his stay we not only got to know him, but his entire family. We learned of his Dad’s love of Star Wars and his mother’s love of taking long walks every day for exercise. He helped me perfect a recipe for Paella and reminded me some day I would have to eat his father’s Paella. He told us so many stories of him and his brothers that we felt like we knew them too.
Javier was an adorable anomaly at his high school where girls often giggled as he passed by. While his exchange brother made a point to charm young women, Javier played it cool. I reminded him often that he was pretty much a celebrity and he would laugh at the suggestion. Once, unbeknownst to him, he was invited to a “Seniors Only” Halloween party and became a “rock star” at school the next week. How did he, a mere Sophomore, get invited to a Senior’s only party? When his parents worried about his adjustment to high school in the US, I reassured them that Javier was doing very well. He was, after all, “Mr. Incredible”.
Javier’s family served as hosts to American college students throughout his childhood. His parents wanted their children to learn English at a young age and believed one of the best ways was to have the exchange students speak to them regularly in English. This experience helped Javier learn what it meant to be a part of a host family and gave him insight into the realities of exchange student life. During his time in the US, despite his young age, he never shied away from the multitude of challenges faced, but instead met each one with dignity, grace, courage and a smile.
Our year together passed too quickly, but our goodbye was not as bitter as years past. I knew Javier’s family had missed him terribly and could not wait to welcome him back home. I was excited for their reunion. We promised each other that our family would come to Spain to visit and began our plans to fulfill the promise during the summer of 2017.
As I work this year to encourage families to consider hosting an exchange student, I often share Javier’s story. Javier was only supposed to stay a few weeks with us until I found his permanent host family. By the end of his first weekend in our home, I knew we had found them. Who wouldn’t want to host Mr. Incredible?!
Who’s this “American” boy? Why…it’s Mr. Incredible!
To find out more about hosting as a Welcome, Semester, or Full year Host Family, visit www.academicyear.org
It was a cold, wintry January day when I opened my email to see that my Regional Director at AYA had sent me an application to view for “an Italian kid ” he thought my family would like to host. Before I wondered too long how Pieter had read my mind, I opened the attachment to read the application. His name was Mirko and he was 17.
I scanned his application to search for his “letter to my future host family”. I am a writer and believe this part of an application really reveals a student’s voice and personality. I wanted to officially meet Mirko through the words he chose as his introduction to his new American family.
Mirko visiting”Little Italy” Cleveland, Ohio
As I read the letter, one comment in particular really resonated. Mirko said, “In my whole life, the thing that I really enjoy doing is communicating with other people in another language, different from mine”. It was as if Mirko had peeked into into my heart and read it.
I am often asked by potential host families, “How do I choose a student?” I tell them it is the same question as “How do I choose a new best friend?” You really don’t choose as much as know this student was meant to come and live with your family. You recognize something, a quality, in their application that reminds you of yourself or someone in your family and that quality calls out to you, “we are friends”.
We accepted the opportunity to host Mirko, finished all the paperwork, exchanged a few emails with each other and set up a Skype meeting. He was so nervous, and so were we. However, we talked, and talked, and talked like we had been waiting our whole lives to do so. We sent messages to each other through WhatsApp daily with a countdown of days until his arrival. We were so excited to finally meet in person, but ironically when that day arrived, I wasn’t home because of a work commitment. We joked later that Mirko had the honor of being the first exchange student to “Welcome” his host Mom to the family.
Our year together was marked with all sorts of wonderful memories including his girlfriend dramas at school, LOTS of discussion about politics and pasta, and endless moments of me telling my adopted stere0typically, passionate and strong-willed Italian son to “calm down and relax”. I adore Mirko’s passion and tremendous sense of humor. We drove each other crazy, but laughed at the absurdities of how stubborn we both were at the same time. Best friends for sure.
My favorite memory as I look back on last year was near the end of Mirko’s year abroad. On May 29th, we celebrated his 18th birthday, my (cough) birthday and my daughter, Micah’s 19th. Mirko and I shared the same birthday date (twins!) and Micah’s special day had only been 2 weeks earlier. It was a perfect family celebration and everyone was there. As family sang for us and we blew out the candles I knew this would be one of those moments to treasure for a lifetime.
Happy Birthday to Us!
As sad as it was to say our goodbyes at the airport in June, we simply gave each other a quick hug and wave. Mirko and I knew that words were not possible at that moment. As much as we shared a love of languages…the words in either Italian or English were not possible. We promised to stay in touch and travel soon to reunite.
This cold, snowy day in March, just over two years after I opened that fateful email from my Regional Director, my husband and I are counting the days until we fly to Italy. Mirko has promised to introduce us to “real” pizza and help us try all the best local gelato. We will get to meet all of Mirko’s Italian family and friends and be guests at his house. He will once again serve us as a cultural ambassador to a country that is part of our heritage and identity, but also a place we have never had the chance to explore. We can’t wait!
If you want to learn about a new culture and make a new best friend, why not choose to host an exchange student through Academic Year in America? It’s an experience that you will treasure for a lifetime.
The fall of 2014 was the beginning of our daughter Micah’s Senior year in high school. We thought about hosting an exchange student, hesitated because we knew it would be a busy year of “Senior” events, and then finally decided to commit only to find out our local high school had enrolled all the exchange students they could for the year.
First Selfie with Leoni at the airport
We were disappointed until we learned from AYA that there was a German girl coming for only the Fall semester who was still in need of a host family. We read Leoni’s bio on the website and instantly knew we needed to say “yes” to hosting her.
Because Leoni had signed up to be an exchange student just a few months before, her mother in Germany was willing to pay for private school. I contacted my daughter’s private, all-girls school and they were thrilled to enroll her. Within a few weeks, we were able to Skype with Leoni and her family and welcome her to her new American family.
Leoni only stayed with us for a few weeks (20 to be exact), but she did more in those few weeks than most high school students do in four years! She joined the soccer team, basketball team, made countless new American friends, traveled with a new best friend and her family to Florida for the holidays, and still managed to squeeze in time for building memories with our family.
Meanwhile, the other kids in our family were doing big things too. Our oldest daughter had graduated from college with a degree in engineering the previous Spring and was in the process of securing her first “real” job and moving into her first apartment. Our high school Senior daughter was fielding college offers and choosing which school to attend. We had three kids, including Leoni, playing different levels of soccer, and one playing middle school tennis. I was teaching part-time at a local University and taking two graduate classes. My husband worked full-time. It was organized chaos at our house, but we loved every minute!
As the fall semester rolled past, we snapped photos to capture carving pumpkins, Trick-or-Treat in the neighborhood, Leoni’s first traditional American Thanksgiving, parties with fellow exchange students and their families, Senior day at the soccer field and team rallies right before the start of basketball games, and of course preparations and family outings to celebrate the holidays. One moment we were greeting Leoni at the airport, the next cheering her on at her final basketball game. Five months?! It felt more like 5 weeks and before we knew it, the dreaded day in January came and it was time for us to say goodbye.
On the way to the airport, we stopped at the high school for Leoni to have one last opportunity to hug her American friends. The tears flowed along with promises to stay in touch and reunite as soon as possible. I had been through these goodbyes before but seeing Leoni and her friends still brought me to tears. Everyone thinks the hard part of student exchange is welcoming a new student to your home, but I can speak from experience that “goodbye” is so much harder.
Much to Leoni’s despair, the early winter of 2015 was particularly dry in Ohio. The previous winter in Germany had been warmer than normal and when I asked Leoni what she hoped she could see while in the US, she told me, “snow”. All of her Ohio dreams had come true during her exchange semester except the promise of snow. As we drove to the airport to catch her plane, fat snowflakes began to fall from the sky. We looked at each other and smiled. Somehow, despite the craziness of life, school, sports schedules, and holidays, Leoni and our family had managed to squeeze it all in. The snow was the perfect commemoration of a semester of friendship, fun and memories designed to last a lifetime.
If you have always thought you would like to host an exchange student but haven’t done so yet, what are you waiting for? Your family will always be too busy. You will always have too much going on. But, I can speak from personal experience that saying “yes” to hosting is possible even in the midst of organized chaos. If you don’t believe me, just ask my German “daughter”, Leoni.
Visit www.academicyear.org to fill out a host family application today. Students are arriving in August for a semester or whole academic year of study.
Gabriel came from Recife, Brazil to live with our family in early August, 2013. His English was still developing, but his giant smile and immediate embrace of each one of us at the airport won over our hearts in an instant. Everything was easy from the first moment with Gabriel. There was never any doubt in our minds that he belonged in our family.
We have so many, many wonderful memories of time spent together despite the fact that we never left home beyond a restaurant visit in a neighboring city. Whether it was laughing together over his first meeting with the school athletic director who thought if he just yelled louder Gabriel’s understanding of English would suddenly improve, spending way too much time waiting on him while he flew around Hollister in search of the perfect clothes for school, or giggling together in the car as we asked Siri answers to stupid questions, Gabriel routinely filled every moment of our mundane life with joy and laughter.
His enthusiasm for life was infectious and his gratitude and love for us expressed every day. I joked with his local coordinator that Gabriel had no idea what “personal space” was, but we both agreed that he represented everything good, fun and lovable about Brazilian culture. He was always cool under pressure, loved and accepted everyone, and never, never found a problem worthy enough to ruin the beauty of being alive one more day.
Gabriel played on the high school soccer team, made best friends with the neighbor down the street, found about 1,000 new friends in and around his high school classes, and fell in love with his first American girlfriend during the short ten months he stayed with us. He managed to encourage his host Dad to commit to intense workouts at the gym and entertained us with his passion for ketchup on pizza and resistance to wearing a winter coat, even during the coldest months because it made him, “look like a dork”. Gabriel introduced us to more people in our community than we had ever known before because of his infectious ability to engage everyone he met.
Gabriel very quickly took over a large part of my ever growing mother’s heart. His grandparents, who only spoke Portuguese, came to visit and travel about the USA with him at the end of his exchange year. Gabriel, interpreting for his grandfather during dinner at our house one of the last nights we were together said, “My grandpa says…..he knows I have always wanted a family with a Mom and a Dad and brothers and sisters, a big family and…he can see, being here with you, that I have found my family. He says he is very thankful for you being my American family”.
One of the hardest goodbyes I have ever experienced was dropping Gabriel off at the hotel room of his grandparents before they left for the rest of their tour of the US. We both cried buckets of tears and promised over and over again we would see each other soon. That was nearly three years ago, and even though we still haven’t had the opportunity to reunite officially, our love and friendship remain strong.
I can’t imagine our family without Gabriel. I am grateful for AYA, for the opportunity to participate in hosting an exchange student, and of course for Gabriel’s family in Brazil who sent him to the USA to live out a dream and meet his American family.
Academic Year in America is currently searching for qualified host families for the 2017-2018 school year. Whether you choose to act as a Welcome family, host a semester student, or dive right in for a full academic year, I promise you, it will be an experience you will never forget.
Costumes, Trick or Treat, Pumpkin Carving, Pumpkin flavored cuisine, China, Brazil and Germany. These were just a few of the ingredients at the International Pumpkin Fest held at our house last night. Most of the exchange students and host families, I supervise through Academic Year in America (AYA), came together to share culture, food and friendship.
Guided by the inspiration of Pinterest, my daughter, Micah and I, planned a delicious array of Pumpkin Pie Popcorn, Pumpkin Pie Cream Cheese Dip, Pumpkin Macaroni and Cheese, and BBQ Beef Sandwiches. A German exchange student brought Kaiserschmarm (delicious caramelized German pancakes), and others brought an assortment of chips, pretzels, nuts, and cookies. It was a feast of Fall treats.
As a host family it is always fun to meet others who “are as crazy as you”. Student exchanges are as meaningful to host families as they are to the exchange student. You really can’t fully understand until you live it. Our International Pumpkin Fest brought together cultures and families, and helped us all build new friendships.
One host “Mom”, who is actually a retired Grandma, is having a wonderful time rediscovering the joy of having a teenager in the house. She sent me a lovely email, after the party, that summarized beautifully why I do what I do, for AYA.
“Thanks for the nice get together – it seems like those folks are my kind of folks – all good people who like helping and you are our leader 🙂 Thank you, Regenia”
