Welcome BBQ: Host Families and Exchange Students Gather for Dinner

American Scholarship winners meet for the first time!

On Saturday evening, we welcomed ten inbound students and their host families, including four American scholarship winners and six Canadian participants of the European Classroom. The welcome party was held at the DFSR headquarters in Heppenheim, Germany and provided an opportunity for the students to meet each other and for the host families to interact.

The weather was perfect for the evening festivities that started with mingling and then a delicious dinner of chicken, Thai kebabs and various salads. The flags of many countries created a mosaic backdrop for the garden area and students made new friends as they met their fellow Canadians, Americans and each other's host families. The evening ended with a presentation from DFSR. In four different languages (German, English, French and Spanish), the participants representing a host mother, student, coordinator and DFSR staff, described the effect that the students will have on their German community. In the end, the purpose of the presentation was to share that not only will the the student be affected and changed, but that the German communities will forever be changed from the student's positive cultural imprint.

The Canadian students are studying in Germany for five months as part of the European Classroom Program.   The students will attend German lessons here at DFSR twice a week and also learn about different European countries. Through the study of Ireland, Italy and France, the students will gain a better understanding of a popular European city before actually visiting it together as a class. All together, the students will travel to Dublin, Paris and Venice and experience the food, people and culture of each city and country. The first trip is scheduled to Dublin at the end of September. The American scholarship winners are studying here in Germany for one year and you can learn more about their journey in this blog post.

Here are some photos from the welcome BBQ:

Canadian students with their host families

Enjoying dinner in the garden

Dinner time!

Mingling in the garden

A warm welcome to our Canadian students - the Inuksuk lives in our garden

Meeting new friends in the DFSR garden

 The students each received a bag of coffee beans as a reminder that, like the coffee beans placed into water, they are being placed into a new environment. The coffee beans do change from the impact of the water, but still remain a bean. The water, however, changes into something new because of the bean. This was correlated to the student and Germany. The students will change during their abroad experience, but still remain themselves; the environment that they live in will forever be changed by their cultural imprint. As cultural ambassadors, the students leave lasting impressions on the community that they become a part of.