worried. We aren’t exactly a typical American family.
Our students weren’t going to have tailgate parties at
ballgames or Fourth of July fireworks or Christmas trees.
Or TV. What fun were we going to be? Would they even
like us?
Those fears were thoroughly laid to rest that very first
evening, for following the Meet and Greet, our friends
took us with them to visit a veteran host family who lived
in Maryland.
I think half of my questions were answered the minute
we pulled into the driveway of their home. I had worried
that our home was too ‘ordinary’ to host rich students
from Saudi Arabia who talk about honeymoons that
include three different countries plus a cruise. But the
home we entered rivalled ours.
It was tiny. The exterior was simple, unfinished, and had
no landscaping at all. There were children everywhere.
That meant the entryway doubled as the boys’ bedroom.
Leaving the bedroom-entryway, we entered the living
room where construction was obviously under way, for
the floor was unadorned plywood and the ceiling was
attic.
I walked into a tiny kitchen where the Queen of the
Home was at work. There were open cupboards with
potential for countertops, but there were no countertops.
And no sink. And no faucet. Wait. How can you have a
kitchen without kitchen essentials? She was smiling and
stirring something on the stove. She was used to it. She
also appeared used to the furnace in the corner and the
pile of tiles beside it.
I was not used to it. “So how long have you been working
on your home?”
“Ever since we moved here eight years ago. We used to
have a sink in the kitchen but it just drained into a bucket
which we had to carry outside to empty.”
I tried to discreetly scrape my jaw off my knee as I
mentally did the math. Here was a woman who, in
this tiny house, had obviously birthed children, raised
children, and hosted hundreds of people from around the
world, all while living in a perpetual construction zone
for eight years.
The food was ready and resting on the table, the fridge’s
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