4/30/2007 - The Littles' trip to Thailand
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by Joan Little
In 2001 to 2003 I was the “sending mother ” of two of my sons, and a “host mother” to a European boy.
At the end of his junior year in High School, my son suddenly announced that he was going to be an exchange student. He went on to tell me about a friend that had just returned from a year in Italy and what a wonderful experience it was for her.
We made the phone calls, filled out the application, and met with an AFS volunteer who answered all of our questions about sending and hosting a student. After his application process was complete and we knew that he would be spending a year in Latvia, we began to learn about the Latvian culture, economy and language. Before I knew it, he was gone.
A day or two later I received a phone call from AFS telling me that they had a student coming from France that needed a home. I was just getting used to the idea that I wouldn’t see my son for a year. In his absence, the idea of hosting someone else’s son sounded exciting.
A few days later, the young man from France arrived. It was so much fun to show our student around and to help him feel confident with his English language. After only a few days he felt like one of the family. Our student was French; his parents were immigrants from Morocco. He was Muslim. I learned so much about him and his culture and he learned all about living with a big blended family in a Midwest city in the US.
Our younger son was inspired and knew that he wanted to be an AFS student too. He had earned a black belt in Tae Kwan Do and had always wanted to travel to Asia. It wasn’t long before we were sending our other son to Thailand.
For a while I had one son in Eastern Europe, another in Southeast Asia, while hosting a young man from France. The phone would ring and sometimes the person at the other end could only speak French, other times it was Moroccan. If I called Latvia I had to speak Russian (luckily I knew a couple of words), in Thailand I could speak English very slowly and usually be understood. It was an interesting year. Students from other countries would come to visit. AFS volunteers stayed in touch with us and helped us with questions and concerns as they came up.
Before long the son in Latvia came home, but then we had to say goodbye to our French son. Saying goodbye was very hard. We had all grown to love him and there was a small part of us that feared we wouldn’t see each other again. Several months later the son in Thailand returned. His host mom traveled with her son to our house shortly after his return to see what our life was like. We showed her as much of our city as we could, enjoyed learning how to cook Thai foods, and saw first hand how much she cared for our son while he lived with her.
We stayed in touch via email and sent each other cute pictures of interesting events or holidays. Each time she wrote to me she asked, “When will you come visit us? I’ll pay for everything once you get here.”
Last month we went to visit our friend in Thailand.
Visit the Littles website: The Littles’ Trip to Thailand
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