En beretning om besøg fra Kenya

Sandra, 3ak, fortæller her om sin uge som vært for kenyanske Eunice Wamahiga Kuhora

In week 41 ten students from Nairobi Academy in Kenya went to visit us at Grenaa Gymnasium. I was one of the students who were going to host them. The week before, week 40, went so slow for me; I felt that it would never end! I just wanted it to be Saturday, so that I could go to Aarhus and meet the girl I was going to host.

 

When we met at the train station, most of the hosts and their guests found each other quite quickly, because of facebook. I had also seen my guest on facebook already, but I was not completely sure about who it was. I had an idea about it, but I was not sure, so I had an inner discussion with myself about whether or not I should go and say hi. Because, what if it was not her? It turned out that my guest had had the same inner discussion. We found that fact quite funny, when we talked about it later.

 

One day we cooked Kenyan food for dinner. For example some flat pieces of bread fried on the pan. It merely consisted of flour, water, salt and oil and it was very easy to cook. But you had to make the dough with your hands; otherwise it would not be correct. It tasted very good, and my mother wanted to keep the recipe so that we could cook it ourselves some day. My guest also taught me some words in Swahili which I found very interesting. And she could tell me about how she sees wild animals from time to time; animals that we have to pay money to see in the zoo. The more she told me about Kenya, the more I wanted to go there!

 

Furthermore, my guest had brought a lot of presents for me and my parents. She just kept finding stuff from her bag, and I honestly did not know what to say! I really did not expect that at all. I asked her if the other Kenyans also brought presents for their hosts and families, and she told me that she was sure they did.

 

My guest and I turned out to have a lot in common. Every day we had something to talk about, and it never became boring. After just a few days we knew each other very well, and the more we talked, the more we found out that we have in common. One day I told her: "You know, I'm pretty sure that you're actually me, just with braids!"

 

 Thursday at the morning assembly all of the Kenyan students were to introduce themselves and say something about how they liked their stay in Denmark. You could easily hear how well the guests and their hosts had bonded during the week. All of them had something nice to say about how happy they were with their hosts.

 

When they were leaving Friday morning, I was very sad. I am sure that the others were as well. As for me it was not only a goodbye to a Kenyan guest; it was a goodbye to a friend and a sister at the same time. But actually it was not really a "goodbye". It was more of a "see you later". There is no doubt. I am going to Kenya. Hopefully next summer, after graduation.

 

For anyone who gets the opportunity of hosting an exchange student later on, I only have one thing to say: DO IT! You will both learn from it and you will most likely get a friend for life and a great experience, all at once. It is definitely worth the tears.

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