8/14/2006 - A Wedding in the "Land of Smiles"

When we made the decision to host an exchange student in early 1995, it wasn’t hard to decide which organization to contact. During the summer of 1975, prior to my senior year in high school, I had the opportunity to be an AFS Exchange Student to Argentina. Leaving the small farming community of Montevideo, Minnesota, and living with a family in San Francisco, Argentina, was one of the most significant events of my life.

After searching through the dozens of profiles of students coming to the U.S., our family decided to host a girl named Ariya from Thailand. When I met my “daughter” at the airport, she had a smile that lit up her entire face. Her first words to me were, “Can I call you Daddy?” Looking back at all the memories, I know that O (as she liked to be called) had a fun year with us. We have pictures of her playing in the snow for the first time. We still laugh at the meal we ate at a local Thai restaurant where O and I had a contest to see who could eat the spiciest food. For one year, she was our daughter, and we were Mom and Dad. We had a wonderful time.

Years later, over Christmas break 2005, she emailed us, giving us the good news that she was getting married and asked if we would attend her wedding in Thailand. After our children finished school for the summer, all six of us made the 17 ½ hour flight from L.A. to Bangkok. O and her fiancé, Alex, spent the first couple of days with us, and arranged for a friend of hers to take us around Bangkok while they prepared for the wedding.

Meeting in person for the first time, both our families instantly connected. It was as if we had been a family forever. My daughter Kelsey and I were the only members of the American contingent to attend the early morning ceremony at the Buddhist temple, complete with incense and chanting monks. Later, we were part of a procession of people in an elaborate wedding ceremony. Dozens of people we did not know introduced themselves to us, calling us by name, knowing who we were
because O had told them of her year with her American family.

Attending her wedding was a special time with her, and a life changing event for my four kids. And it all started because of the opportunity that I had to study abroad with AFS. The things I hear my children say today about their time in Thailand about their new family sound vaguely like those spoken out of a bus window by a young man in 1975 in San Francisco, Argentina. Someday, I’ll go back there…really.