Far from Home

Most of you that know Kyle and I know that we both love to travel and meet people from all-over. Kyle spent several summers in various different cultures during college years and I studied abroad. As the kids get older we hope to be able to travel more, but in the meantime its fun to let the "travel" come to us. We have been involved with the "Friendship Program" at UT for a couple of years - they partner international students up with Austin people/families just to hang out and give the students a connection to the local community. We are excited about getting 2 new students this fall since our friend Yiyi and her boyfriend Fei (both from China) are moving to Houston. Plug - if you're local and interested or have questions, let me know, I love to talk about it. I've gotten a little off topic...

We got an opportunity through UT to host 2 college students from Iraq - they were participating in the Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program of which UT was one of four host schools. Part of the summer program is a weekend-long stay with an American family. Sign us up!!!

Dalia is an engineering student and Lubna is finishing med-school. They are both from Bagdad. 

(Here they are posing in front of a giant stork at the Domain.)

There is SO much I could say about our weekend. It was hard. But it was SO good. We had some great conversations - social, cultural, political, religious. We also had some awkward silences. Or Arabic-filled silences. We had some cross-cultural snaffoos - like when I tried to serve them chicken for dinner (which they couldn't eat because of certain religious rules which I had misunderstood).  We also had some funny moments (at least for us in hindsight) like when they asked me (w/ 3 hours left in their stay) if I could take them horseback riding. We ended up at the Domain. :)

They didn't get to go horseback riding, but they got to experience a little bit of life in our family, they attended (at their request) our church - they videotaped the music and were humming one of the songs afterwards because they liked it so much. Catchy! 

They taught us some about what their region of the world is really like - what their families have been through in the past two decades. On that - lets just say that everyone in the world who hasn't lived in a country at war can count that as a HUGE blessing.

We all discovered that although we definitely have differences, we have so many things in common. Like family dynamics are universally tricky. Shopping is better when you have your mom or a trusted friend with you (or both). Fresh food beats frozen food. People watching is fun. Kids are cute and also mischievous no matter the language. Good music is good music. People are people. 

Thanks Dalia and Lubna for honoring us with staying at our home. 

(We will definitely apply to be a host family again next summer - if you're local and want to join in let me know!)