My First Host Family

The family I am living with now is amazing. I love them, I could not have been placed with a better family (in fact I hope that I can stay with them for the whole year).

I have an older brother (19yrs) and a sister who is my age (a few months younger) and like a best friend. My host sister and I have a lot of things in common. For instance, she went on exchange last year to Australia, and so is able to, and knows how to help me with my exchange year (she is certainly a blessing). My host brother, on the other hand is very amusing, and for once in my life, I finally have an older sibling that I never had. Thus, I am enjoying it. I also have a few host cousins that are just adorable (Matilde – 6 years, and Mathui – 8 yrs), a grand mother on my host father’s side with whom I go to church (she treats me as if I was her own grandchild), a grand aunt also on my host father’s side, with whom I go to church as well, and will eventually play golf with), a grand father on my host mother’s side, and a grand mother also on my host mother’s side that makes the best cookies and biscuits in the world.

With this host family I have my own room, I don’t do my own laundry, I eat the best French food, and I travel a lot as well. So far, with them, I have gone to Switzerland (the German Part) to see an art exhibition, Besancon (a beautiful town in France), Mulhouse, and my first soccer match. In addition, I am scheduled to go to Paris for three days with my host mother, and maybe Poland and Munich with my host sister (the plans are still under construction).

My first day with them was very welcoming and interesting. When I arrived, I was only talked to in French, which turned out to be okay as I realized that I understood most of it (thanks to Mrs Michelle Hanson who helped me with my French vocabulary before I left the Bahamas, and to My Spanish teachers – because of the similarities in the languages it is quite easy for me to learn the French). As a result, my host parents believe that I will be speaking fluent French by the end of October. Good stuff!! I must say, my French is improving rapidly. Je suis très fiere de moi-meme. (I am very proud of myself).

Other than that, I could not have asked for a better host family. They have really opened my eyes to things I have never paid attention to before. And the fact that they speak both English and French helps me a lot more with learning and understanding the French language. For this reason, I am able to ask questions like: “why is the sentence formed like that?” or “when would you use this word?” and they explain the grammatical points to me. Hence, I learn much more quickly because I now not only speak and write the language , yet understand it as well.

Nevertheless, I have no regrets and no complaints, la vie est belle á Belfort, and I am loving every day of it!!!!!