Leah and I just got back from a 14 day trip through Belgium with our former AFS'er Ine and her family, and on the second day we were in Belgium, we got the official word that we had been matched with Astrid, and were going to be a host family!
I thought, "Well, I can't spend too much time on this right now, I have to focus on what I'm doing here in Belgium", so I dashed off a quick email to Astrid, but she responded very quickly and very enthusiastically about how she is so excited to be joining our family, that I couldn't help but respond myself. :-) She and her family were on vacation while we were on our vacation, so we tried to only email when we weren't all busy with other things. I have heard from her quite a lot in the past two weeks, and she sounds like an absolute sweetheart. Very open to the experience of being an exchange student, and easy going and laid back. She has no expectations about being brought to certain places or doing certain things, she's just excited to be coming. I will of course do my best to make the year special for her, but I think it will be a fairly easy job! :-)
We will also be a temporary welcome family for a young lady from South Africa whose host family can't pick her up till about 3 days after the kids arrive. Leah is pretty excited about that as well, as Dipthi from South Africa is "a brown person like me!" I have explained it's only for a few days, and happily, Leah is ok with that.
So for the next few weeks, I don't think there will be too much news on the hosting front. We'll be getting the house and Astrid's room ready, I'll be conducting host family orientation and working on the arrival orientation for the students, and trying to learn more about Denmark in the meantime! I'll try to post at least once more before Astrid arrives on August 12, so check in again! :)
See you soon!
