Getting a foreign exchange student is surprisingly easy.
Step 1: Be part of a family that supports, nay, enables your neuroses.
Step 2: Have your family members be on the look out for things that will help you fulfill your dreams/neuroses (my sister sent me a pic of an ad in the paper for a program that was looking for host families)
Step 3: Involve your husband
Step 4: When your husband says no, wait about 2 weeks to make him think you have forgotten about it
Step 5: Bring it up again, reminding him that you are the best bonus mom ever to a child that is not yours that will live in your house until you die. Or are put in a really nice retirement/nursing home.
Step 6: Now that your husband is on board, fill out the necessary paperwork and invite the program's regional coordinators to your house to show that you can provide for a student and that you are not a psychopath (luckily they only ask you to provide food and a bed; had they asked for emotional stability or adult-like responsibility, we would have been denied. But we have 2 refrigerators and an extra bed room. Shwoo.)
Step 7: Pick your kid! This part was the most stressful. The program sends you profiles of students. We had actually picked a kid from Finland right away, but it turned out he was allergic to cats.
The Brit was excited about the prospect of getting rid of the cat, but I remind him (again) I do not try to get rid of his daughter... Alas, we were back to the profiles the program sent us (The Brit was concerned that I told Finn he was not our first choice. I told him that Finn would be fine. Besides, when we picked the Finland kid, we didn't have Finn's profile. But then I told the Brit that I admitted to Finn that I wanted a student from a Spanish-speaking country. I mean, I studied Spanish for 6 years.)
You get info about the kids' likes and dislikes, what they do in their free time, what their family is like. All of the students do well in school and are trained in English. It is funny now to look back and compare my student to his profile. You get a letter from the kid and from the parent. I remember his mom saying that he was responsible (he totally is, way more than The Brit and I) and that he will clean his room when you ask him to. I didn't realize at the time it meant that he will ONLY clean his room if you ask him to. When I politely and delicately approached him about this, he said, "Have you seen your office?" I reminded him, patiently and with care, that MY OFFICE was the ONLY PLACE that my husband, who is addicted to cleaning, is NOT allowed to touch. My office is my sanctuary, my place of hiding, and yes, it is a HUGE mess. Well played, host kid, well played.
The little darling also told me that I lie on my blog. When I had reverently and thoroughly convinced him I did not, he recanted and said that I "spin things so that [you] are not the one embarrassed." But today he ate only one Oreo from the package, therefore he cannot be trusted. Who eats only ONE Oreo? (Unless it is the last Oreo, in which case you would be eating and crying.)
Step 8: Fall in love with the family. After we chose Finn, he would email us, send us post cards and we Skyped his mom and brother (What's up Babsi and Jan!) From then on we were like peas and carrots.
Step 9: Start a blog to chronicle your time together, pair it with embarrassing your host kid and family.
Step 10: Learn more about yourself, your culture, another's culture and your relationships than you could have ever predicted.
The host kid still previews all of the pictures that go in the blog, and today he tried to preview my blog post. WRONG. He also admitted he doesn't really read them anymore. When I visibly became upset, he said, "First you don't want me to read your blog, then your feelings are hurt when I don't read." I think he's starting to get the hang of things.
If you want a host kid of your very own, I would highly recommend http://ie-usa.org because Emily is awesome!
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