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| On the Streets Where We Live August 08 |
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08/05/08
By Nancy Tannler, Editor
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 | | Maxence |
Dear readers:
This summer, our daughter encouraged us to consider housing an exchange student for something new and exciting in our lives. Her best friend and sister had both had rewarding experiences hosting some one from the Andeo International Homestays organization. The purpose of the program is for the students to learn to speak English, participate in and try to understand daily family life in the United States and to share aspects of their own culture with their host families. This sounded like a good idea, so we made the call and within a short period of time, were interviewed, approved and sent a prospective student profile with a picture of this beautiful French family at the seashore making further deliberation unnecessary. Who wouldn’t want to know someone from that family? Maxence, his sister Astrid and about twenty other students arrived on a long flight from France three weeks ago for an immersion stay in America. This particular stay is for seven weeks, enough time for both the exchange student and the host family to shake down into normal life and improve communication. Our student is Maxence (or Max as we often call him since pronunciation for the “ence” part of his name is a tongue twister for most of us). He comes from a town called Rennes in Brittany and his family is originally from Lille, right next to Belgium, but his father’s work has had the family living in different parts of France. Learning a foreign language or two is a normal part of French school education. Max is fluent in German and is doing an admirable job communicating in English. He said learning English is part of the curriculum and is important in the business world and his gets better every day. Maxence’s decision to choose Portland was due in part to his mother. “My mother went to Oregon when she was eighteen years old and has very good memories of this journey. She even wanted to live here,” he said. Coming to America was always part of the plan for Maxence. The town he lives in has a population of 350,000, so Portland seems big to him, especially landing at night and seeing all the lights. His impression so far is that the people are very open-minded. “ I think it is because people are here from Europe, Asia, Africa and elsewhere. It truly is a melting pot,” he said. In France, first contact is more difficult. People don’t exchange chit-chat on a casual basis like in America. An example he gave was how pleasant clerks are here. Also in France, people who are familiar with one another are much more polite to one another. The school system is a little different in France than here. 3 – 5 year old children go to pre-school (maternelle), 6 – 10 elementary (école primaire), 11 – 14 middle school (collège), at 15 they take a test that determines whether they begin working, go to trade school or continue in high school (lycée). At 18 they are tested and reviewed to determine if they continue on to college (université). In France many of the universities are free. The children begin learning a second language at age 11, it is often English. They have no school sports. If you want to play a sport in France, you join a club. Max belongs to a tennis club and plays soccer and basketball with friends. He rides his bike to school everyday and is a member of the scout d’europa. “The biggest difference I notice is in the personality of the American people and we have no fast food, other than MacDonalds,” Maxence said. He likes that we are not snobs and that our daughter and her friends have made him feel welcome. It is brave for young people to join these programs and leave the familiar behind, trusting to the host family to be theirs for awhile. Andeo International Homestays try to match the host families with students as best they can and they are always in need of people interested in a cross- cultural experience. Currently many Japanese college students are in need of homes in Portland. Students are ages 18-22 and come from colleges and universities across Japan. Homestay programs vary in length from 1 to 4 weeks. All include weekday classes and activities at PSU. Students are free evenings and weekends to enjoy time with their host families and use Tri-Met to commute to and from PSU. Host families can be young or retired couples, single adults or families with children. The important thing is that they will share evening/weekend time with a new friend from Japan. Families can find more information about the Andeo program dates on the website, www.andeo.org or call 503.274.1776. Our experience having Maxence here gives us all a glimpse into another part of our world.
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