Plus ca change…
I got onto the train this morning to be met with a wall of young teenagers. French teenagers. I couldn’t believe just how they looked exactly the same as all the french exchange kids that came to our school nearly 20 years ago.
Most of the boys were spotty and a little greasy, but terribly sweet. A lot of them wore glasses. The cagoules and the rucksacks were the same, the lace up shoes were the same… and there, stood beside me were the 2 cool girls – pretty, with dyed black hair and (good) dark make up, no rucksacks and doc marten shoes.
And I knew that their host friends would have been relieved to have the day without them.
a familier tale! I grew up on the South Coast (quite literally) which is a favourite exchange student location. In the summer months, it wasn’t uncomming to feel like a foreigner in your own town on a Saturday afternoon in the town centre. My family once hosted a pair of Germain boys (Gunther and Michael) – as harmless as they were, we never played host again! My dad took great delight in requesting we refrain from talking about “the war” in his best Basil Fawlty voice before they arrived back from a day’s sight-seeing.
ouch, does that say 3:21am?
Ah fond (or is it foul?) memories of taking my French exchange student around London when I was about 14. Oh my delight when she proceeded to shoplift on Carnaby Street…
It’s so sad that these exchange programmes rarely end in success. I believe in our year of about 90 pupils from each side of the channel only 2 pairs actually got on and became friends.
Why is that? Are we too young to cope with cultural differences at that age or something. That’s a very depressing thought.
my french excahnge was a complete nightmare – hated both parts of it. Worse tho was living next to Canterbury Cathedral when I was at University – we literally couldn’t get out the front door because of all the french kids walking down the pavement. Strange place canterbury, townies, squaddies, students and tourists already vying for pavement space – and then there’s the french kids…..aaaaaargh. Here’s a tip. don’t live there.
We never had an exchange student in our home, but we had several at my school, and it always seemed that the foreign kid and the host family always had a hard time together, but the foreign kid had plenty of friends who were not altogether unlike the host family’s kids. I think it’s the living together bit. There’s no bumper. The most frustrating part of being in another place is not having your own bed and food and such when you’re in the mood for familiar comforts, and that all happens in the host’s home.