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| 2003/2004 Host Family of the Year - Winning Essay Submitted
by Larisa Bekmetova, FLEX student from Uzbekistan
Seattle was the first American city which I came to, it was really exciting and everything would have been really great if it wasn’t so cold and I had my bag with all my clothes, I lost my bag and I didn’t get it till October, but I was in America meeting my first host family I stayed with them 2 weeks. Our language program was really interesting, difficult buy very useful, I learned a lot in different areas from Native Americans to Environment science. It was fun time, but not I was finally ready to go to Kansas meet my host family, particularly new sister, I have dreamed about having a sister since childhood. When I just got of the airplane I saw 3 women staying to the side with my name on a paper and nice bouquet of the flowers, I was surprised my mom and sister looked different from pictures which they sent to me in Seattle, first my host mom is white and my sister is black, it took me a long time to adjust to this differences, but I definitely liked it. During the first days I got to meet all of my host family, I saw my grand parents and my sister’s dad, he lives separate, it is huge family compare with relatives which I barely see back home, but I met my middle brother a little later he was in Chicago on vacation, but I met my older brother with his fiancé. Now I want to tell you about my host family but during some period of time or event, which I think, describes my family best. My first outside activity with my mom and sister was canoeing, if we will not count swimming pool and family dinners. It was a trip with a group of people from the church, we went to the neighboring state Missouri where we spent the night at a church camp, the next morning we went to actually canoe on a small river which was pretty strong, it was my first time to canoe that’s why I was in boat with my sister, she had some experience. It was really nice day, we started with swinging from the tree in the water using rope, and it was fun! Then our race started. In the begging we were behind but then me and my sister were leading our line until lunch, after lunch it was more for enjoying nature, to swim and to get sunburned, but it was the first time where I was able to get to know my sister. Carolee, my older SISTER is going the same high school with me and we are both seniors, but we don’t have any classes together and usually I don’t see her because she is so active. In the beginning of the year we had to go to school about 7 o’clock in the morning to her band practice. She is also in the jazz band and she plays piano and saxophone. After school in the fall we had tennis practice, sometimes we were playing doubles together, but usually I played singles, I was number one. In my family’s life church takes really important place. Having it first was really strange and difficult for me to adjust to because I attended church only 2-3 times in my life, but when I just got here sometimes I would go 2-3 times in week, but later I started to like the church service and people. On Wednesday nights we go to youth group, usually it is our weekly “relax” activity, we are so busy with home work and I with practice and Carolee with work that we don’t have time to do a lot. She is working on Sundays and during the week with an autistic child like a therapist. But we are trying to find more time which we can spent together to movie or walk, video taping, or just talking about everything: school, boys, our countries and how different there are. Sometimes we talk so long we didn’t even finish our homework, but we learned a lot about our cultures and ourselves. Now we are best friends and maybe we will go to colleges close to each other. September 13, important day! Wedding! Sorry not mine, but my older brother at last getting married after 15 years frienship with his fiancé. My first American wedding! I felt like a Hollywood actress when they are making a movie in a beautiful church with a happy couple, it was great! The Reception was held inside in our grandparent’s house because it was raining while day, but people were dancing, eating and celebrating without paying such a big attention to rain. The house was decorated so well, and probably it would have been better if the ceremony would have been outside, but… My grand parents are the most wonderful people, which I have ever met. They are so kind, they take care of me like I am their grand daughter, it is make me fell more special because I have only my grand mother from my mom’s side and grandfather from my dads side, because of such a large family here I fell myself inside of big unit where everybody supports each other and loves each other, it is so wonderful! What is the most popular American holiday? I will tell that it is Christmas! I was really excited to have to decorate and prepare all these staff for Christmas, and I had really good Christmas but it was a little bit different because my host mom wasn’t with us, we celebrate Christmas with our grandparents from both sides, and we got a lot of presents, but we didn’t open our family presents till mom came back, she had to leave for this time, but we had nice little celebration later, where I got some things which I have wanted for a long time! Carolee and I prepared some fun presents to our brother and for sister in law. Hopefully both understood our jokes and they liked our gifts. My host brothers remind me of my natural brothers, they have similar personalities, characters, one of them Aaron 24, and older Mathew 30, last more serious he is still in college plus he is working, Aaron likes to joke and dance, he is enjoying his youth life. Usually you will see him very rarely he is always hanging out with his friends after work, but often we spend weekend together. Most important person in the house it is my mom; she is who holding us together, going to all our activities, helping us with school. It is really different for me how single mom can do everything because in the country where I am from women are usually married and they take care of kids and house and often some of them don’t work. Here American women so independent they have more time to themselves, they doing all these different activities, fitness, shopping, dinners, movies and etc. they spend more time to their own life. Here I learned how to be independent in reaching your own goals, how to be patient and if you want to get something you have to work hard, but you will get it. All these things I learned with my host mom’s help, it is first person who knows how my day was, practice, now I am feeling myself so free to share with my feelings, I know that people are interested to know me and my country. Another thing which I really like it is relationship between my host mom and her daughter, they so close, its made me really think how I can change my relationships with my own mom and dad, I want to be more close to my family. Through my mistakes I learned how to value more your own time and somebody’s time, here life going so fast, interesting. This year was big step to improve myself to become better person and better tennis player. I cannot tell everything what I learned from my host family starting from telling them “jume” instead of gum and talking about chores at home and be more kind, helpful person to society. I know it is a lot of different host families but only a few of them are good at hosting and representing the US. My host family is one of these families that broke our stereotypes about our cultural and political differences. I had a wonderful year because I was able to communicate with my host family who wanted to hear me, support me, and with them I learned hundreds of things which will help me in my future career. They gave me a FAMILY and help during this difficult year and they gave me the best representation of the US. Read quotes from other Host Family of the Year essays!
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I
couldn’t believe when I went to PDO (pre departure orientation)
and then later in Seattle that I passed the test and now I am in the
US. I didn’t think that my English skills were good enough to
study in the US for one year, but the program decided that I have some
potential and it started my long foreign journey.