Amanda Pettengill -- Germany (GESD)

A Second Family

One of the things that I was really looking forward to on my Experiment to Germany was the home stay. I wanted to live in a German house, speak the language and really become immersed in the culture. As our Experiment group rode on the bus from Jena to Sachsenbrunn, our host community, I started to become nervous, what if I wasn't what they had expected? Will I be able to understand them? What if they don't understand me?

When we got off of the bus and waited at the Rathaus, or town hall, everyone was pacing awkwardly around, wondering whose family would be the first to show. After about fifteen minutes a black Audi came whizzing into the parking lot. Out jumped a kind, grandfatherly looking man and a woman with a huge smile and bright pink lips. "Amanda!! Guten Tag! Komm!" Excitedly, they shoved my suitcase into the trunk and we were gone as fast as they had come. I gulped as I watched the huddled group of Experimenters disappear from my sight. Now I was really on my own. I listened carefully as my host mother began chatting with me in German. Her name was Babs, her husband was Horst, her son, Christopher, the dog died a couple of weeks ago, that was very sad, I would stay in my own room, she liked to cook, they didn't speak any English, Christopher did,...so many things. I smiled and nodded as I digested all of the information.

After arriving at home, getting set up in my room, having a delicious dinner and talking, my host family told me that we had a few errands to run. Our first stop was grandmother's house, she had made a cheesecake to celebrate my arrival and we were to go pick it up. We zoomed down the narrow streets of Sachsenbrunn to grandmother's house. My host brother told me about grandmother on the way, about how she would be doing my laundry (because she loves to do laundry and clean), how she lived in an apartment by herself, how she liked to watch German Soaps, how she was still kickin' even though she was in her eighties and how I should call her Grandmother. She greeted us at the door with an enormous cheesecake but couldn't visit, because her favorite Soap was on. We laughed and made our way back out to the car.

Next, they wanted to show me the countryside, we drove along. The fields and forests were beautiful, we drove through other small communities and eventually stopped on the top of a hill at a dead end. Christopher explained how my family got their mineral water from a spring that came out of the mountain. We carried empty water jugs over to a fountain and filled them with the cold, fresh spring water. We brought the water back to the car, and my host family asked if I wanted to go for a hike; so we walked up the hill for a couple of minutes. When we stopped, I was amazed by the view. We were so high, you could see for almost a hundred miles, on a clear day. Of course, that day was not a clear day, it was cloudy, and right as we caught our breath, the rain came. At first it was just a sprinkle, and then it came in sheets, we sprinted back to the car and drove home in soaked clothes. At home, we arrived soaking wet. Everyone laughed, I couldn't help but laugh too.

I went to bed that night feeling comfortable and at home, even though I had spent less than six hours in this house, with this family. I looked forward to the next twelve days and wondered what more they could bring.

They brought a lot! We thumbed through their family photo albums, took out the atlas, talked about school, family, the rest of my summer and even next year. We talked about German culture, World War II, cars and their rose garden. We cooked, read poems of Goethe and planned a barbeque. I invited my American friends over, and they laughed when seven people showed up instead of two. We went to a traditional German engagement celebration, visited castles in Coburg and made pancakes, the American way. They helped me with my speaking skills, and I helped them learn some English words. We made jokes and laughed, a lot!

I learned more about German life, language, history and culture in those twelve days than I have in the past three years of high school. I learned that a language "barrier" is not really a barrier at all, and that it can actually make a discussion more interesting, slightly more confusing, and sometimes utterly hilarious. But most importantly, I learned that halfway around the world, in a community of only six hundred people, I have found a second family who love me and can't wait until I can come back "home" for another visit.