Host Families

I've been waiting for this occasion for a long time. I've checked my emails over and over, waiting for that one certain message. And today, it arrived.

And yet, it wasn't what I expected. Seeing an attachment about my host family, I opened it. I had been waiting for a street address I could give my friends to mail me at, or what the kids were like so I could decide what gifts would be appropriate. But it didn't really help me with either of that.

First, it said the last name of my family. Instead of their address, it said Amman, Jordan, and then the region of the city they live in, which doesn't help much in the sense of mail. That'd be like if I were trying to write a letter to someone in Chicago, and just wrote "The Loop" as their street address. Well, that's all right, I figure, reading on.

It then lists their home telephone number, which is great and everything for once I get there, but not of much use right now. The telephone number looks strange, but I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it's just because I know that it's my phone number for the time I spend with them this summer.

Here we go, finally something useful. An email address. I send a quick email to the address, unsure of exactly who the email is for, as the name in the email address is neither the mother or the father's name. But it's someone in the family's, so I send a quick email introducing myself. I don't want to write too much, because I don't even know if they speak English. I type the greeting, مرحبا !, in Arabic, hoping it's the appropriate greeting. Maybe السلام عليكم would have been more appropriate, but I'm not sure yet. I guess that's another thing that I'll learn when I'm there.

Next thing is the members of the family. There is a mother, a father, and four children. The mother and father have written their names, but none of the children are named. I'm not even sure if they're boys or girls, which is bizarre. I was going to try and figure out gifts, but the gift for a nineteen year old girl is much different than a gift for a nineteen year old guy. The three other kids are younger than me, but that's all right. It should be fun.

The rest of the paper is just the exchange program saying that that's all the information they can tell me about my host family, and that I'm free to contact them, but they might not speak English, so they might not be able to answer. I hope they don't speak English - when trying to learn Arabic, I think I'd learn better if I had to use it at home too, instead of some English and some Arabic.

Well, I leave in six days now, and after a couple days in DC for pre-departure orientation, and then a travel day from DC to Frankfurt, and then to Amman, I'll meet them soon enough. I'm so excited, and can't wait to get to know them!