Life with exchange students!

Blogging from Bruce
August 17, 2008

Vonda Keon

Nothing is broken, no one is ill; everything is ticking right along just like a clock. There are no songs rewinding in my brain this week.

It has been over 2 weeks now since our adventure as host parents of two international students began. I am so happy to report that life is starting to fall into a routine. Both Ji Eun and Ping come from a time zone that is 12 hours ahead of us. So when you and I are awake and kicking, their internal clock is telling them it is time to sleep and vice versa. Slowly but surely they are starting to get used to the Central time zone.

Doing homework is a new thing for me. I home schooled my daughters for years. Ariel went to finish high school at BHS her junior and senior years. Erin entered BHS this year as a ‘Freshomore’. (You figure it out. With the block system it will all work out in the end.) With Erin and Ji Eun and Ping, I now have homework times 3. I sure hope the teachers all understand why the speeches and reports are going to be similar with these three girls living under one roof and studying at the same table.

Saturday, Scott and I took the girls to a Schwans Company picnic. They learned to play some new games and ate some barbeque and other Southern foods like hot dogs and watermelon and potato salad and cheesecake. After the picnic we went on a little shopping spree. Teenage girls are the same round the world. Say shop and they are already in the car! We had a list of the things we needed; Backpacks, Chuck Taylors or Nikes, shirts, Bath and Body works and then go eat at the Kyoto Japanese Grill.

The shoes proved to the pretty hard to find. I think we hit 6 stores before we finally found the sizes we needed. Don’t let anyone tell you Asian women have small feet. These two girls have good foundations to stand on. They, long with my daughter, finally found what they were looking for. The back packs were a different matter. The backpacks now need to have decent padding on the shoulder straps and plenty of room for the 24 pounds of text books and binders the kids have to lug around all day. Yes, we weighed the books and binders and it came to 24 pounds. That is a lot of weight to carry around on a kid’s back on a daily basis.

Poor Scott said he would never go shopping with us again. I am inclined to agree with him. I don’t want to go shopping with us again either. Wal-Mart runs don’t bother me but Mall shopping is not my cup of tea. Even if its green tea, its not my cup of tea!

Eating at the Japanese Grill was a treat. The girls had their money and after looking at the menu knew exactly how much they would spend and what they would eat. Our cook was from Indonesia and he could converse with them a little in their native languages. The food was good and it was nice to just sit back and watch them as they watched us. Having visited Japan, I hope most people understand that what we are eating here in America is not totally the same as it is in traditional Japanese restaurant. The same goes for eating in any Asian restaurant. The recipes are adjusted to fit our tastes and the meal would be quite different if we were in the native setting. Just think about it. Can you really get Southern Cooking anywhere else in the United States and it be done right? You just try and find sweet iced tea anywhere else but the South. It ain’t happening. Trust me on that one! And yes I know I just used poor grammar but ain’t just fit that spot!

The girls did ask me to cook a southern style meal for them one night so I cooked, blacked peas, corn bread, green beans, corn on the cob, sweet tea and banana pudding. They ate and ate. Ji Eun comes from a very health conscious family and she says Americans use too much salt. Ping is very health conscious also and says we eat too much sweet stuff. They are both right. But I serve small portions and watch what I give them. So we are all eating healthier around here now. I’m not giving up my salt totally; or my sugar.

This coming weekend they will get to experience helping with the Food Pantry. They have to do some type of community service work so the Pantry is going to be their project this week. After the pantry we will go to meet the other exchange students and their host families in Grenada for a little get together. It will be interesting to meet other host families and see and hear how they are adapting to life with a foreign exchange student.