Exchange
Once upon a time, I was an exchange student. I lived for a few months with a family in the Champagne region of France. Being an exchange student is supposed to be all rewarding and warm and fuzzy, and you're supposed to stay in touch with your host family for ever, and visit back and forth, and make life long warm and fuzzy connections.
This did not happen. For a variety of reasons, which I won't go into now, but I've always thought it would be nice to host a student myself and try to get it right--or at least a bit more right than my host family in France did. (How can you host a foreign student in a town only a three hour drive from Paris and never, in three months, take her to Paris? Seriously?)
So when I saw a flyer at church a couple weeks ago about hosting French students for a short summer program, I thought, hey! I speak French! And we'll be going to France next year for Aaron's work. And Z, sadly, has been firmly resisting any attempts on my part to speak to him in French. I figure he could use a chance to see that there are other people who speak French besides me. A win-win situation. So we'll be hosting Camille, a 17-year-old French girl from Bordeaux, for three weeks in July. She's got English classes and scheduled activities during the week with the exchange program, so I'm sure she'll get to see the usual Atlanta tourist stuff, but I'm looking forward to supplementing that. And to speaking French!
This did not happen. For a variety of reasons, which I won't go into now, but I've always thought it would be nice to host a student myself and try to get it right--or at least a bit more right than my host family in France did. (How can you host a foreign student in a town only a three hour drive from Paris and never, in three months, take her to Paris? Seriously?)
So when I saw a flyer at church a couple weeks ago about hosting French students for a short summer program, I thought, hey! I speak French! And we'll be going to France next year for Aaron's work. And Z, sadly, has been firmly resisting any attempts on my part to speak to him in French. I figure he could use a chance to see that there are other people who speak French besides me. A win-win situation. So we'll be hosting Camille, a 17-year-old French girl from Bordeaux, for three weeks in July. She's got English classes and scheduled activities during the week with the exchange program, so I'm sure she'll get to see the usual Atlanta tourist stuff, but I'm looking forward to supplementing that. And to speaking French!