It's 10:00PM and I'm dead, but I wanted to update this site for y'all to see how we're doing.

We've just had a crazy week! Pat left for Florida on Sunday due to Marty's passing and I decided to drive down on Monday evening, so I arrived, to both Vinnie and Pat's surprise, Tuesday morning claiming, toilet, shower and coffee in exactly that order.

Yesterday evening we got in the car and drove back to Durham. Pat had decided to forfeit his plane ticket back to Durham and instead drive home with me. He'll go back to Florida on Sunday for the Memorial held on Monday at the school where Marty has tought, well for ever! Tuesday he'll come back home and I hope that he'll be able to start enjoying our new life as parents.

 

When we arrived we immediately went into the house and check up on Yerik's room, where we realized that the walls had been painted exactly the opposite to what we wanted; 3 lighter colered ones and one somewhat darker it was done one light and three darker! Ofcourse Margit was fuming, but later Pat told me that he had made the mistake. It's not bad, but not what I had envisioned. The new bathroom/toilet and walk-in closet look great, but we realized that we still needed toiletseats for this one and the powder-room!

Pat hung the new lamp in Yerik's room and when he thought he could go to Greensboro and enjoy his volunteer work with the newly arrived AFS students I was telling him he still had to affix the rod for the curtains, just picked up from the dry-cleaners, in the livingroom. It was not exactly what he wanted to do, but he saw my point. Thanks Dear!!

 

I nearly lost it when I saw that the floor in Yerik's room was still a mess and Theron was painting the closet! Theron was still working at 09:30PM. Tomorrow it's D-Day. Juan, his wife and daughter will come to help me to make the downstairs presentable, Pat and Yerik will pick up toiletseats, towel-and toiletroll holders for his bathroom on their way home from Greensboro. The kitchen counters have to be tidied up and cleaned. We'll do it, and hey Yerik is 17 so I hope he sees it as an adventure?! Ofcourse there is the off chance that he calls AFS and says "I'm not staying here in this building ssite!" I just hope that Pat, in his calm way,can prepare him and tell him that there will really be an end to all of this. One good thing though the AC is working!!!!

 

Tonight I had my over-due interview whith AFS host parents of Sebastian from Argentina in my role as AFS liaison. A liaison has to make a monthly report on the family and AFS student. The student will have a chance to talk freely with me about concerns, small/big problems as have the parents and sibling(s). Jay is only child to Ben and Brenda; Sebastian is only child living with his mother after loosing his father at a young age. The AFS student will have time alone with his/her liaison, I remember that mine always to me out for lunch which I intend to do with Sebastian. The kids really open up to you then. We had a nice and fruitful conversation in preparation to Sebastian's arrival tomorrow.

 

I'm anxious now that I'm on the other side of the fence. Now I'm the parent (can I still do it? will I automatically go in "Mom mode" as with my own kids?) and not the exchange student. Mind you anyone can be a host as you see even people our age and also people who never had had children before. The experience enriches not only the students life, but certainly also that of the host-parents. I really like what AFS stands for and I firmly belief in it. Yerik and I have a liaison too, but unfortunately we haven't met her yet. I still remember my liaison from way bak when, Mrs. Mikonis, in Sarasota, Florida. My big sis Marian can be of help as well, she was a host sibling to me, but later in life she hosted Eric, from Sweden, when Jeffrey, her son, was a teenager.

You see that's exactly what happens, once you're involved with AFS it doesn't let you go!! I've the feeling that Pat likes the volunteering we do. At the end of this month we will both do an intake for a very bright young lady from Durham who applied with AFS to go to France school year 2008-2009. These intakes are always done by 2 people and since both of us are official AFS volunteers we'll do it together.

 

At the moment he is in Greensboro where he will do some training on "Making Friends" with the new arrivals. I just talked to him and he sounded very up-beat and enjoying it. He met Yerik, ofcourse, who was quiet and probably still very tired from the 2days trip from Kazakhstan to the US. He left KZ at 02:00 Thursday morning for Frankfurt, Germany, where they had a long stop-over, from there the KZ students took a flight to Washington DC where they arrived yesterday afternoon US time. Early this morning he had to take a flight to RDU where he was met by an AFS representative; he had to wait for another flight of AFS students to arrive and then they were taken to Greensboro (aproximately a 90min. drive). I thinhk anyone would be tired after that. Imagine you doing it the other way around! According Pat his English is pretty good. It takes a while to get acclimated and be on US time. It's normal and we'll go easy on him the first week.

 

Well I gues I turn in so I can get ready for tomorrow.