Famille d'accueil (Host Family)

Magali & Gilbert made a fantastic Famille d'accueil. This is how they make their living so they are very conscientious hosts. From the beginning Magali treated us as old friends. She is naturally warm and genuinely interested. Each meal she would sit down and have conversations with us. She is a vegetarian and so I was impressed when she would fix meals with meat to please here guests. It seemed to bring her great pleasure when all of the food she prepared was gone. It seemed to distress her when Tifiny & I would eat small portions at dinner. Lucky for us Manfred (the other student) usually ate our remaining portions. Each morning Magali had a little piece of cake wrapped in a paper bag waiting for us to take to school. The first day of school she walked with us to make sure we knew the way. She took her bike, but pushed it instead of riding. Her pace was rapid and she kept calling back to Tifiny and me, "Filles? Ca va? Filles vite!" (girls, are you ok? girls hurry!) Gilbert was the comedian. Each night at dinner he would be quiet and kind of just sit at the table listening to the conversation. When the moment was right he started a little comedy routine. He was so funny that we would all find ourselves just hooting with laughter. I'm sure it's not easy to have foreign exchange students living in your house all the time, but Gilbert and Magali seem to deal with the intrusion so well. Gilbert has wireless headphones so he can watch tv and not make too much noise.

Here is a photo of their house. I'm sure the garden is lovely in the spring and summer.












The three students for the week: Tifiny, Gilbert and Me. Magali has a huge map of the world on the wall in one of her rooms where she has each student place a pin with their name on the country/city where they have come from. They have been housing students for 5 years and their map is covered with pins.



Breakfast and dinner were great times to practice those conversation skills.







This morning when we came out to breakfast there was Gilbert in his teddy bear jammies with his hear all slicked back. He woke up early to sit with us at breakfast and bid us a farewell. They walked us to the sidewalk and as we left they gave us big hugs and kisses . Magali kept saying in French "My girls, my girls, I will miss my girls." Even though I'm no longer a girl it was nice to be treated like a little girl and have a mom and dad take care of me for a week. Staying with Gilbert and Magali was a tres bon experience!