Our three Finnish foreign exchange students just left for home.
We miss them.
Two and a half weeks of showing our country to wonderful teenagers ended with tears and kisses.
It’s the third time we’ve hosted foreign exchange students.
Here are four reasons why hosting teenagers from another country is so rewarding.
You see your country through different eyes
What’s normal to you may not be for people from another country.
Our two thirteen-year-old Chinese students were amazed by many things.
Among them:
- Mechanical trash truck arms that picked up the garbage cans and dumped them into the garbage section on top.
- Cars towing things; in our case, it was an ancient catamaran.
- Redwood trees. They didn’t believe us when we said, “you’ll see really tall trees.”
- The ocean. They were from inland China. “There are not enough words for beautiful,” their teacher said.
Our Brazilian foreign exchange student arrived in 2010. Among the first items she purchased was a DVD of the movie Twilight.
“If Twilight was your idea of American high school, did you see any pale people with twinkling skin the first day of school?” I asked.
She laughed.
The Finnish students were surprised by
- All the different varieties of toothpaste.
- Chocolate chocolate chip pancakes at IHOP.
- Palm trees
- Hills. (Finland is flat. That surprised us!)
Foreign Exchange Students teach you about their countries
Other than Finland is the only Scandinavian country I’ve not visited, I’d never considered traveling there.
Then Marcus brought us a gift book about his country.
I read it with my map open and was surprised at how beautiful it is.
We might visit now–especially with three people to see.
Brazilians are earnest about the quality of their meat.
Once we found the right type of beef (we drove 30 miles to a Brazilian grocery), Giovanna barbequed a superior dinner!
The Chinese boys had a lot of cash and wanted to visit the Apple Store.
“IPhones and IMacs are made in China,” my husband pointed out. “Why do you want to buy one here?”
“It’s the only place we can guarantee they’re not counterfeit,” “Harry” explained.
We insisted the teacher join us for that shopping trip!
It’s fun
While the students attend class during the day, the evenings and weekends were ours.
They all wanted to go shopping–and I visited the grocery store frequently.
But my husband and I are teachers at heart, so we introduced them to other experiences.
Both the Chinese boys and the Finnish trio stayed with us in July.
They were here for the Civil War reenactment held locally at Duncan Mills, California.
What fun that was!
(Though, ask yourself. How would you explain the Civil War to two teenagers from China?)
We took the Finnish students to San Francisco for the day, where we rode cable cars, ate at a Chinese restaurant, and walked nearly six miles.
Our Brazilian was here an entire semester. Picture her face when we told her we were headed to Disneyland!
What foreign exchange students can teach you
We learned a lot from our students.
I can now count, sort-of, in Finnish.
Giovanna taught me about perseverance. She wanted to read Harry Potter novels.
So, she began with an English Harry Potter book in one hand and her dictionary in the other.
By the time she reached the final book and visited us, she was fluent in English.
The Chinese boys reminded us of the delight of seeing Star Wars for the first time.
That pizza isn’t always what a teenager wants to eat.
American food is sweeter than any of them prefer.
There’s more to Chinese culture than we see in the newspapers.
And of course, what you think you know about their countries, particularly in their view of the United States, isn’t necessarily correct.
Indeed, it can be surprisingly refreshing.
What do you need to host foreign exchange students?
An open heart, curiosity, time, and a nearby grocery store.
They will need their own bed, but your house doesn’t have to be large.
The students’ programs all asked us to involve the young people in our normal, everyday lives.
They attended church with us, shopped, went sailing, enjoyed our greater family, met our friends, and listened politely to our stories.
We didn’t have any children at home, except during the Brazilian’s stay.
In turn, we listened to their stories, laughed, taught them how to do laundry in America, and sought ways to enlarge their American experience.
Each time we sent them home, we cried.
We’d be happy to host foreign exchange students again.
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